19. Sofia
SOFIA
I’m not sure what I expected to see when I walked in. I know the punishment for being a rat is severe. I certainly know enough to understand that if you manage to still be alive after you’ve been found out, you’ll more than likely be begging for death soon.
I’m standing in the open door looking at him sitting chained to the floor in the middle of the room, the light from a single lamp hanging from the ceiling casting a sickly cone of yellow on his body.
This room is just barely like the room I had been kept in. The smell of dirt with the faintest hint of mildew comes through, but only just barely. Right now, all I can smell is blood, piss, and shit. And it’s all coming from the chained heap in the corner of the room.
He looks like a monstrous representation of the figure I’ve known my whole life.
His hair, dyed chestnut brown, is soaked with blood from being hit or kicked in the head who knows how many times.
It comes down in staggered lines at his hairline, dripping down his face.
One of his eyes is swollen shut and oozing yellow pus from infection.
His bottom lip is swollen and bloodstained.
If I didn’t know better, I would never have believed it was Adam. He lies on the bare floor in a fetal position, shackles on his wrists and feet. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of underwear that used to be white but now is stained with variations of bodily secretions.
“Please,” he weeps into the floor. “I’ve had enough. I’ll tell you whatever you want. Please, no more.”
My vision starts to blur from the tears forming in my eyes. I never wanted this for him. I never wanted to see him like this. I swallow hard and say, “Adam?”
His head lifts and his one good eye opens wider to reveal red blotches in the whites of his eyes clashing with the soft baby blue of his iris. He stares for a moment, then lifts himself up to a sitting position. “Sofia…? Are you really here?”
I nod. My hands are balled up at my sides and I dig my nails in my palms to keep myself together. “What did you do?” I ask, and my voice cracks. “Jesus, Adam. What did you do?”
“I told you,” he says. “It was the only way—”
“No, it wasn’t. God, why didn’t you just run?”
His good eye blinks at me. “Where would I go? And besides, I couldn’t leave without you, Sof. No matter what they offered you for your life. I couldn’t do it.”
My knees feel like they might buckle. I look around the room and spot a chair just outside of his reach. I walk over and sit down. “What did you tell them?” I ask him. “The Feds, I mean. What did you tell them?”
He pauses, looking down at his hands. The skin on his palms is gray from the mix of dirt and blood baked into them. His nails are black from tons of caked dirt. I wish I could free him, take him back with us and bathe him and dress his wounds.
“I told them the truth,” he says. “I told them that I was the son of Marius Aristov and that Titus Malkin killed my father and all my relatives… and kidnapped my sister.”
Hot tears roll down my cheeks. He told them everything. Damn. “Is that all?” I ask.
“They want more information from me,” he says.
“I didn’t get the chance to tell them anything else before your boyfriend’s goons grabbed me.
” He sniffles, a trickle of blood escaping his twisted and broken nose.
“That is what you’ve done to secure your survival, isn’t it? You’re fucking him, right?”
I don’t answer him. I can’t. The words are caught in my throat with my sobs.
He laughs at my non answer and says, “Don’t worry.
I’m not mad at you. Not really. If I could have sucked the man’s cock to get out of here, I would have done it, too.
He’s won it all, hasn’t he?” He takes another second and tilts his head slightly.
“Wonder what he did to deserve all this?”
“What?” I ask, wiping my face.
“Papa, I mean,” he says. “The whole time I’ve been in this hell, all I can think about is what our father did to deserve this. Having us all wiped out like this.”
I shrug. “Does it matter at this point? We’re just casualties in a Bratva war. This kind of thing… it happens.”
He chuckles. “It happens. I can’t believe that our lives are over and we’ll never really know why. It’s a shame. A disgusting, crying shame.” He starts to sob and lower his head, his shoulders shaking.
God, I would do anything to help him. My mind starts spinning tales of undoing his chains and running with him. Grabbing him by the arm and sprinting away before Titus or the others could react.
I look at his legs, bruised and cut in a million places. His ankle looks twisted in the wrong direction. He wouldn’t get far even if I did decide to do something so foolish.
“If you’re thinking of trying to break me out of this place,” he says, “you might as well give up on it. I’m not going anywhere unless your boyfriend says so.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say softly. “He’s just… He’s just decided to keep me alive. That’s all.”
He looks up at me, reading my face carefully with his good eye.
“I doubt that,” he says. “Truly. Or else, he never would have brought you here and risked your doing something as stupid as trying to break me out.” He tilts his head slightly and adds, “Or maybe this is part of my penance, too. Maybe this is some kind of new torture for the both of us to endure. Watching me broken and bleeding on a dirty warehouse floor. While I look up at you in your clean clothes and well-fed glow.”
“I never wanted this for you,” I tell him. “Adam, I swear, if I could—”
“Don’t, okay?” he says in a gentle tone. “It’s too late, right? I ratted and now I have to pay the price.”
I sigh and glance at the closed door. Titus’s man is probably back by now. Cyril. He’s probably waiting to have another go at my brother’s face. “I can ask him to stop torturing you,” I tell Adam. “Maybe have his goons lay off for a while. Give you a chance to heal.”
Adam snorts a laugh. “I don’t think that will happen. And if it does…” His smile fades as he looks back down at the floor. “Oh, God,” he says. “This is it, isn’t it? It’s over. It’s all over.”
I don’t respond. He just sits and hangs his head as the silence overtakes us. He knows he’s a dead man. Now we both know it.
After about a minute, he sits up straight and sniffles again, wiping at the smeared blood under his nose. “Are you still going to kill him? Titus, I mean?”
A lie would be good here. To tell him that his death will be avenged. That might give his soul peace if I sounded like meant it. I can’t lie to him, though. Not with him like this.
I shake my head. He smiles broadly, showing bloodied teeth.
“Of course. I’m jealous, you know. Titus Malkin must be a legendary lay to have caged you without bars or chains.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” I say.
“I know, I know. Sorry. Ignore that.” He sighs, and I hear a rattling in his chest. “I know who you are. And this guy… I hope he knows, too. I hope he comes to understand just who the fuck you really are and appreciates it. Something good has to come from all this shit.”
“Adam, I’m so sorry I couldn’t do more. You were right all along. We should have just taken our chances and run for the hills. Maybe if we had—”
“Too late for maybes,” he mutters. “It’s over. All over.” He looks up at the wall by the door, into the darkness where I can’t see. “There’s a gun in that cabinet.”
I follow his gaze and see the shadow of a cabinet in the wall by the door. I don’t really understand what he’s getting at, so I ask, “How do you know?”
“The one you beat up? The rough looking one with the bald head? He says so all the time. Says that when the time is right, he’s going to open that cabinet and carrying out his boss’s final orders.”
My stomach tightens and I ball my fists up tight again. “Don’t think about that. He won’t do anything unless Titus says—”
“He will say it. You understand that, don’t you? It’s the whole point of this. The whole end game of keeping me here. This is my punishment for breaking the code of silence. There’s only one way out of this for me, Sof.”
My heart is pounding hard in my ears. “I don’t like how you’re talking, Adam.”
“We can beat them in one way, at least,” he says. “Take some control over what’s happening to us. We can rob them of their kill.”
“Adam, stop, please. I can’t—”
“I want you to take the gun out of the cabinet—”
“Stop it. Stop talking.”
“Please, just listen.” He leans into me, his one functioning eye boring into me. “Just take the gun out of the cabinet and point it at my head.”
Sobs start to take me and I shake my head before I can finish. “I’m not going to—”
“You have to. Whatever beef Titus had with Papa that caused him to do this, you can’t let him have it all. Take away this one kill. Just this one. Put me out of my misery.”
He’s staring at me, waiting for me to act. I can’t. I can’t get my feet to move.
He sighs and says, “You love him, don’t you? That’s what it is?”
“I love you, Adam,” I counter. “You’re asking me to kill you.”
“I’m asking you to take some of the power back,” he says.
“And if you can’t do that, fine. Do it just to end my suffering.
Please. They’re going to hold me here for as long as they can.
That might be days, weeks, I don’t know.
I can’t take another hour of this. Please, Sof. Please just end it for me.”
Tears stream down my face in rivers as I stare at him. He’s been reduced to a poor, sniffling thing, a shadow of the man I once knew. Even if we could escape, even if I could help him…
I will myself to stand and walk over to the cabinet. This is a kindness, what I’m doing. Adam would never want to live the rest of his life with these scars.
The cabinet opens with little effort, and sitting on the first shelf is a nine millimeter. I take it out and turn to him.
He sits up straight and a sort of peace comes over his face. “That’s it,” he says. “Thank you.”
I raise the gun and point it at his forehead. One shot. Right between the eyes, and he’s gone. Gone forever. Our entire lives, we’ve never been separated so long. Now, we’ll be separated forever. Or for as long as I live.
I don’t know if I can do this. My hand starts to shake.
“Don’t wuss out, Sof,” he says, his voice going high with desperation. “Please, pull the trigger.”
“You’re my brother.” I start to weep. “Adam…”
“It’s okay,” he says. “This is how it has to end, Sof. We both know it. I just want it to finally be over.”
“I can’t!” I shout at him. “Why are you asking this of me? Dammit, Adam!”
“Just do it.” He starts crying. “Pull the trigger!”
I hear the door open behind me and a rush of air follows. I’m standing here holding the gun on him, gasping for air. I can’t do this. I just can’t.
I feel a warm hand on mine and I look over to see Titus is standing at my side. “I’ve got it,” he says.
I let him have the gun and I take a step back from him. He regards me for a moment with a question in his eyes. Are you sure?
I look at my brother. On his knees, begging for death, his body so broken, he’s swaying to maintain his balance.
I nod and turn away.
The next thing I hear is Adam’s sobs. The last thing he says is, “Be good to her.”
And then the gun goes off and he’s silent.
I start crying. Emotion takes me, gripping my shoulders and threatening to push me to the floor. Arms wrap around me and I’m pulled into Titus’s chest. I weep into him, holding on for dear life as the grief takes me over.
Someone says something behind me. Cyril. He’s asking what’s going on. Titus just tells him to leave.
My brother’s gone. He’s gone.