27. Epilogue
The copper tang of blood tasted almost as bad as I smelled. I was a cocky son of a bitch, but even I had a breaking point. Pissing myself because I’d been strung up for hours, unable to move, surprisingly was not my breaking point.
I’d probably shit myself too without any humiliation. Fuck these terrorists. They wanted to take me, they could smell the stench of bodily fluids that came with the territory. What they didn’t know, would never understand was that my rock bottom, the only thing that could make me sing my sins was if they threatened my Kitty.
They could beat me, humiliate me, starve me. Nothing would ever make me beg for mercy. Nothing except knowing her safety was in danger. And I was lucky in the sense that I knew that would never be the case. My weakness was not a weakness in the sense when it came to foreign enemies. Because Yuliya Vasilieva could not only handle her own, she’d chew these men up and spit them out.
The heavy door of the shipping container I was being held in creaked, and I winced as light shone through the crack. Two sets of footsteps approached, and silence filled the dark room when they reached me.
“This is pointless,” I groaned. The ache in my cheek was a broken bone, and I knew I would officially never hear Kitty call me pretty boy again. How could she when these men fucked up my boyish good looks?
“Where is Jericho Vasiliev?” The leader asked. His Russian was thick, and I knew he was a native. He wasn’t a homegrown terrorist. No, this man was in his sixties, easily, here in the States as an immigrant.
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” I spoke back in English.
“Bullshit,” my new American friend said. “You were just at his wedding, pretty boy.”
My heart stopped.
How had he known to use that endearment? Only Yuliya and Jericho, and now sometimes Saoirse Murphy ever dared to joke and prod me with that name. Pretty boy, dubbed for my ability to get out of any situation with a panty dropping grin and sweet words that made any woman and plenty of men do my dirty work. Pretty boy, a name I pretended didn’t pierce me in the heart every time Liya, my cute little Kitten, meant it as an insult but it only made my heart flutter and my cock twitch with anticipation of whatever cruel and fucked up thing my best friend’s little sister would throw my way.
Still, I didn’t let those feelings show on the outside. I knew how to hide behind a face of indifference. I’d been doing it my whole life, even before I entered into shadow work.
I choked out a laugh. “Oh. That Jericho.”
Brass knuckles met my stomach, and I tried to double over in pain. Except I couldn’t, not with the way I was strung up, my arms above my head. I forced the pained scream that wanted to leave my body down inside of my gut.
“Tell us about your plans, Mr. Governor,” the American continued on. “With the Bratva.”
I inhaled sharply, steeling myself for the next blow that would come with my defiance. My chin lifted with determination, and I glared into the dead eyes of the Russian. “Otva`li, mu`dak, b`lyad.”
I might not be the most talented linguist, but I can swear in two dozen languages.
Darkness consumed me with the next brutal hit to my skull. And I welcomed dreams of my Kitten, strapped to the eyeballs in weapons and armor, coming to my rescue.
It kinda turned me on, actually.