Chapter Fifteen - Serena #2
“You’re making this unnecessarily difficult.
” He circles behind me again, and I hear fabric tearing before I feel his hand in my hair, yanking my head back at an angle that makes my neck scream in protest. “I can continue this for hours, Mrs. Rudenko. Days, if necessary. The question is how much of yourself will be left when I’m finished. ”
“Pavel—” I gasp, trying to form words through the pain radiating from my shoulder. “Pavel will kill you for this.”
“Perhaps.” Kravin releases my hair, letting my head drop forward. “First he has to find you. Even the great Pavel Rudenko can’t search every abandoned warehouse in this city before I’ve extracted what I need.”
He moves to stand in front of me, crouching down to eye level. His hand shoots out, gripping my chin hard enough to bruise, forcing me to meet his gaze.
“Who are his current political contacts beyond your father? Which councilmen has he been meeting with?”
Blood drips from the cut on my shoulder, soaking through what’s left of my sweater. I can feel it running warm down my arm, sticky and nauseating.
“I don’t pay attention to his meetings,” I manage, the words coming out slurred.
Kravin’s fingers tighten on my jaw, squeezing until I think the bone might crack. “You’re a senator’s daughter. You were raised in this world. You expect me to believe you don’t notice which names come up repeatedly in conversation?”
He releases my face with a sharp push that makes the chair rock slightly despite being bolted down.
“Lev,” he calls to one of the guards. “Bring the tools from the vehicle.”
My stomach drops.
The guard disappears through the door, returning moments later with a duffel bag that clinks ominously when he sets it down beside Kravin.
I watch through blurred vision as Kravin unzips it, revealing pliers, more knives, a small blowtorch, instruments designed specifically to cause maximum pain without killing too quickly.
“Last chance to make this easy,” Kravin says, selecting a pair of pliers and testing their grip with a metallic snap. “Names, locations, security details. Give me something useful and we can skip the unpleasant parts.”
I think about Pavel’s face when he broke Volkov’s wrist. The cold certainty in his voice when he said I belonged to him. The way he touched me in his office, deliberate and controlled, proving he could make me respond despite every reason not to.
If I’m going to die in this warehouse, I won’t do it by betraying the man who—whatever our complicated relationship actually is—at least treats me like something more valuable than information to be extracted.
“No,” I say clearly.
Kravin sighs, almost regretful. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
He reaches for my hand, still zip-tied behind the chair, and I feel his fingers close around my smallest finger with practiced precision.
The pliers position themselves at the first knuckle.
“This is going to hurt quite a bit,” he warns conversationally. “I suggest you scream if you need to. No one can hear you out here anyway.”
He squeezes.
The pressure builds slowly, deliberately, giving me time to understand exactly what’s about to happen before the bone finally gives way with a sickening crack.
This time I do scream, raw and involuntary, the sound tearing from my throat before I can stop it. Pain explodes through my hand and up my arm, so intense that my vision whites out completely for several seconds.
When it clears, Kravin is studying me with clinical interest.
“That’s one,” he observes. “You have nine more fingers, ten toes, and we haven’t even begun exploring what the blowtorch can do to sensitive areas. So let’s try again. Which councilmen is Pavel currently cultivating?”
The pain makes thinking nearly impossible. My entire hand throbs with each heartbeat, the broken finger swelling rapidly despite the restraints.
“Councilman… Whitfield,” I gasp, pulling the name from the gala weeks ago. “He was at a fundraiser. Pavel spoke with him about legislative support.”
It’s true but useless—information Kravin probably already knows, nothing that compromises actual security or operations.
Kravin considers this, then nods slowly. “See, that wasn’t so difficult. Now, who else?”
“I don’t remember names,” I lie, my voice shaking. “I wasn’t paying attention—I was just there as decoration.”
The pliers move to my ring finger.
“Please!” The word escapes before I can stop it.
“Please what?” Kravin pauses, waiting. “Please stop, please show mercy? You need to give me a reason, Mrs. Rudenko. Useful information in exchange for pain avoidance. That’s how this works.”
My mind races through fragments of overheard conversations, searching for something that sounds valuable but won’t actually compromise Pavel’s operations.
Names I’ve heard in passing, meetings I wasn’t supposed to notice, details that exist in that gray area between public knowledge and genuine intelligence.
Before I can formulate an answer, the door to the warehouse slams open with explosive force.
Relief and terror collide so forcefully that I can’t breathe.
He came.