Chapter 11 Igor
ELEVEN
IGOR
THE PAST
That Day - Three years ago
How did my brother stoop so low? How did the man who protected me from my father’s fists become a monster who trades in people?
There is no denying what I’m seeing. It’s the person responsible I’m having trouble reconciling with my memories.
It’s the middle of the night, darkness covering the operation in front of us.
We hide in the bushes around the tarmac of the small private airport Giulia identified as Lana’s location.
She was transported here after she was abducted right in her own home and taken to an unknown location in the UK.
They’re about to ship her somewhere. And not only her.
Armed men roughly pull bound, naked women by their forearms, walking the short distance between the small hangar and the plane waiting to depart. Many shiver and whimper but some seem resigned to their fate, faces gaunt and eyes unseeing as they’re being marched to a future worse than death.
My jaw tightens to the point of pain.
My best friend is here somewhere. And it’s my fault.
With Julian in the hospital after someone planted a bomb in his car, I spent day and night at his side instead of doing my duty.
Protecting her. She told me to stay by his side and I was unable to resist. She doesn’t know we got married as soon as she got engaged to Julian’s brother. And I wish I had told her.
I wish I had not left her side.
I wish I hadn’t been a coward, and loved Julian in public like he deserved.
Many wishes, many regrets but I can’t let them poison my judgement when every minute counts.
Lana is in here somewhere and we need to get her out. Alive and well. I will die before I let anything happen to her.
On my side, Lisandru, her future husband and Julian’s brother, seethes so loud I hear him. His anger is a living, breathing thing. Despite killing his own uncle for playing a part in the kidnapping of his beloved fiancée, he’s still out for blood. And I’m with him.
The fifteen men working for his cousin who accompanied us on this rescue mission await his order, eyes set in front of them.
We didn’t have time for recon. Once we found where Lana was, we rushed here.
The only advantage we have is in our earpieces.
Giulia is as angsty as we are to have her cousin back but from a distance, she can hack into security cameras and potentially even the plane, though that last part might be too technical. And we’re pressed by time.
“Fuck,” I exclaim as one of Misha’s soldier pulls a very naked—and obviously drugged—Lana out of the hangar and towards the plane.
Lisandru gives the signal and we storm the band of soldiers, weapons raised. We shoot five of them simultaneously. They fall like puppets in a pool of their blood.
My ears ring and my fingers tingle with the need to shoot the man who’s holding my friend but he holds her tight against him, his gun against her ribcage, right at her heart. I know him to be Misha’s second-in-command.
My own brother took my friend. I was about to be released from my services to the Morettis. We could have formed a strong alliance. In ten years, he hasn’t tried to come see me once. If he harboured so much resentment towards the Morettis, he could have acted before.
Nothing makes sense when it comes to my brother’s motives. Only that my friend is at risk. And we need to save her.
“Drop your weapon. You’re surrounded,” Lisandru yells to the man holding Lana.
“If I die, she dies with me.”
Tension boils and everything comes to a standstill until his phone rings in his pocket, the tone deafening even over the sound of the plane ready for departure.
“You’d better answer that call, Bartoli,” the second-in-command taunts.
A cold sweat lines my brow. No one knows how to contact us but Giulia and she has direct access to us via the earpieces. I’m sure Lisandru’s phone was either on silent or switched off so as to not be hacked.
“Mr Bartoli. What a way to get acquainted,” the voice drawls with a thick Russian accent, taking pleasure in the situation.
My eyes widen.
I know this voice as I know my own. Yet, it’s been ten years since I heard it last. It’s changed. It’s rougher, crueler.
“You see, Mr Bartoli, your wife is my collateral. If my second-in-command dies, she dies. I guess you don’t want that.”
He sounds like he’s talking to a child. Lisandru’s jaw works while mine parts. What the hell is happening? Why is he doing all this?
“What do you want?” Lisandru asks him curtly.
“You have something I want. I have something you want. We exchange.”
That was his plan all along. The realisation hits me like a tonne of bricks. His plan was never to sell Lana. She’s just the bargaining chip. I should be relieved, but the price I’ll pay for her will be steep. I’ll pay it ten times over, but I also know I’ll regret it every day of my life.
Regret. I’ve always known it’d become my best companion.
My thoughts go to the man I love, in a medically-induced coma back in Kalliste.
I will never get to say goodbye.
“I’m not exchanging shit with you,” Lisandru retorts but I already know how futile this is.
My brother may have changed but if somewhere inside him something still lives, it’s his loyalty to family. Just like the Morettis, we were bred to defend and honour our name.
“You don’t really have a choice,” Misha continues over the phone. “I was just being polite. Now, let’s not waste each other’s time. This conversation can go two ways. You give me what I want, and I give you what you want. Or I kill Miss Moretti.”
A red dot appears on her forehead, and I stop breathing. I barely hear the sharp intake of breath from the men next to me and from Giulia on the other end of the earpiece. I focus on the red dot and gulp.
Next to my friend’s future husband, the men shake their head as though to signal us that we have no way of taking over this place while Lana is a target to an invisible sniper and we are only seventeen men to their… fuck, how many of them are there?
I can’t speak. No one can. And my brother takes it as approval.
“I knew you’d be a reasonable business partner,” he dismisses Lisandru before addressing someone else. Me. “Hello, bratishka. Let’s get on with it, we’re busy people after all. Igor, you’re going to get to Barychev, and you’ll leave on the plane with him and the women.”
“Leave the women alone,” I say, incapable of remaining silent. They're innocent.
“They’re not part of this conversation,” he retorts.
I clench my jaw and close my eyes. How am I going to live with myself when we sacrifice dozens for Lana?
My heart breaks inside my chest, and I hear the pieces collapse all around me.
I look at my friend, slumped against Barychev’s chest. He’s pawing at her skin and though his hands are nowhere near the most intimate parts of her, it’s enough.
I can’t stand seeing her like this a minute longer.
I clasp a hand on Lisandru’s shoulder. They’re slumped with a mix of guilt and relief.
I can see it in his eyes. The gratitude for my sacrifice.
He shouldn’t. She’s here in the first place because I failed her.
Just like I failed Julian. I never loved him in the light, confining him to the dark.
He was always meant to shine, and I dulled him for my selfish gain.
I advance on Barychev and Lana, stripping my shirt and keeping it open to shield her body from view. Misha’s second-in-command shoves her towards me. She collapses in my arms and I cover her nakedness, helping her arms into the sleeves and closing the buttons to give her that shred of dignity.
She’s so weak that she falls to her knees. I hold her, letting her down gently. Her small hands, cracked and dry, hold onto the fabric of my undershirt.
“Don’t do it,” she rasps.
“You taught me what it was to be loved, kotik. Let me do this for my sister. He’s my brother, nothing will happen to me.”
“You know that’s a lie. He’s not the man you know. Please, Igor.”
I pull her into a hug, infusing as much of the love I have for her. My lips find her temple, leaving a small kiss on her matted hair. A goodbye.
“Tell Julian to be happy. He’s been my light and now I’m setting him free. Tell him my promise still stands, but his has been fulfilled.”
I let her go, her hands clutching to me, but her strength abandons her.
Without looking back, I climb the metallic steps into the plane. A single tear escapes my eye and trails down my cheek. I wipe it before anyone can see.
We fly a few minutes later.
But my hopes stay on the ground with them.