Chapter Nine
In which some stories are as hard to hear as they are to tell.
Dmitri…
I killed my first man when I was sixteen years old.
I've shot, stabbed, tortured, and ended lives in a dozen creative and unimaginable ways.
I don't think I've ever felt the nausea churning in my gut that I do when listening to Ava's hoarse little voice recite the litany of horrors she endured.
By the time her throat is too tortured to go on, I am grateful for the respite.
Both for her and for me.
My mother sat in the corner, a silent sentinel witnessing Ava’s suffering.
“You need to rest,” I say roughly to Ava. “Try to sleep for a while and we'll make a plan, I promise you are safe, and whoever did this will pay."
“There’s others like me, aren't there?” Her question is a painful little rasp at the end of her strength as her midnight blue eyes search mine. I can't find it in me to lie.
“Most likely," I say gently. Taking her chilly hand, I hold it between mine. “Sleep now.”
Her eyes close and her breath evens out on the next exhale. My mother steps over to the bed, checking her vitals. "You have to call your father,” she says calmly.
"I know,” I say. “I wanted to get an idea of the scope of what we're dealing with before I brought him in. He's been busy in St. Petersburg with that mess the Popov’s created.”
"I know you try to take a lot off his shoulders,” she says. “You must remember that as Sovietnik, your Uncle Yuri is here to help, as are your brothers. Not everything has to be handled by you.”
“If you tried this line of reasoning with your husband, what do you think he'd say?”
She narrows her eyes at me but doesn't say anything, because she knows perfectly well what he would say.
I am the Pakhan. It is my responsibility.
“I'm beat,” Mother admits, rubbing the back of her neck. “I'm going to go home and get some sleep.”
“That's a good idea.” I bend down to kiss her cheek.
“I will never get used to the size of you,” she chuckles fondly. “I still remember having to bend down to pick you up in my arms and now you’re looming over me like a redwood. What about you, are you heading home?”
“I'll stay here.” I haven't slept; I left the bachelor party and came straight back here after more or less pouring Adam back into his fiancée's arms around 5 AM. The clinic has big, extremely comfortable recliners in every room, so I can keep an eye on her without torturing my lower back.
On her way out, Mother passes Roman in the hallway and there's a low murmur of conversation and quiet laughter before she leaves and he steps into the room.
“How is she doing?” he asks quietly.
“She's tough,” I admit, folding my arms. “She managed to get through fairly sickening details before her voice gave out.”
“Are you ready for the rest?” Roman asks. “It’s ugly.”
“Better that I hear it from you than from her,” I say, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest. “She's been through enough.”
“Come out in the hallway, then. Kolya is here with me.”
One of our best hackers is slumped over the counter of the nurse’s station, scrolling through a laptop. “Hey boss,” he says cheerfully, “how's your girlfriend?”
“She's not my girlfriend.” I narrow my eyes. “Have you been talking to my mother?”
Kolya may have an IQ of 140 and can worm his way through the vilest corners of the dark web, but he is not blessed with social intelligence.
“That’s not what I heard,” he cackles. “I’ve seen the footage.
You swept her up into your arms in that hallway.
Man, that was a cinematic fucking moment.
” His chuckles die down as he realizes that both Roman and I are Not Amused.
“Yeah, okay. Anyway, you can go through the hallway security feed later, there's not anything that's particularly interesting. I created a highlight reel. But what really matters is this.” He clicks a key and the laptop screen lights up. I recognize the apartment.
“I almost didn't find it,” he says, tapping his fingernail on the counter. “The security feed goes to an offsite server, the signal popped up when I followed a weird power surge. That building is already having power issues; there’s too much drain for what the builders wired for.”
“Good,” Roman smiles unpleasantly. “Then a catastrophic electrical fire shouldn't be too hard to set up.”
“I'm just going to give you this laptop,” Kolya says, all humor gone from his tone. “You might want to watch this on your own. But try not to smash this laptop, okay? It's one of my favorites.”
“It was one time,” I snap. “One laptop and it was begging for it.”
“Yeah,” he says, “I'm leaving now. You two have a nice night of evaporating buildings with plastique or whatever it is you do for fun.”
“That was only one time!” Roman shouts after him. “Kolya is getting way too casual with us.”
“I believe he's forgetting corporate protocol here,” I say disapprovingly.
“You're not going to get a stick wedged up your ass when you turn Pakhan, are you? I thought that was something that you wanted to change from Father's rule.”
“I don't know,” I say. “I'm beginning to question this concept of informality in hierarchy structure.” Pulling the laptop closer, I eye the camera feed. “Have you seen this footage yet?”
His mouth flattens into a grim line. “Enough,” he says shortly. “Enough to not watch anymore. Are you staying here?”
“Yes, I want to be here if she wakes up.”
A taunting grin spreads across his face and he steps just out of reach. “I knew she was your girlfriend. See ya!” He takes off before I can slap him across the back of the head.
“Is there anything I can get you, Mr. Morozov?”
The shift nurse is smiling up at me shyly. She’s pretty and leaning over the counter so I can catch a look down her scrubs, gaping open to show her lacy black bra.
“Just take good care of our patients,” I say shortly and her smile disappears.
“Of course, Mr. Morozov.”
Taking the laptop back into Ava's room, I seat myself in the recliner, putting in my earbuds.
With a deep breath. I open the laptop and push play on the feed.
I watch how the soon to be very dead fuck hit the button on Ava's collar and left shortly afterward, smirking.
She struggled furiously to find a break in the chain, a way to free herself from the bed until an enormous bodyguard came in, followed by a gray-haired woman with a vicious smile.
Ava endured this torment for almost three days.
I recognize the pattern; starving and terrorizing the trafficking victim, each moment designed to break their spirit.
The gray-haired woman gets angrier throughout the days, crueler, as Ava fights everything they do to her.
By that last night, the woman seems to lose patience and leaves, her bodyguard staying behind.
He goes after Ava immediately, trying to tear off her sweater and back-handing her when she shoves him away.
She must be half his size, but she's fighting back with a ferocity that tells me she knows her life - or her sanity, at least - is on the line.
At one point, I have to put it on the feed on pause and get up, walking the hallway for a minute, taking deep breaths to compose myself before I put my fist through the drywall. One of my mother's backup doctors and a nurse are standing by the nurse’s station, watching me.
Clearing my throat, “Would one of you bring me a cup of coffee?” I say formally. “Black, if you would.”
The doctor looks more sympathetic than terrified as her gaze darts between me and Ava's door. I'm sure she's read her file and has some idea of what happened. “I'll have someone bring it in along with a sandwich,” she says gently. “You probably haven't eaten in a while. It will help.”
“Thank you,” I force myself to sound composed and not like someone who wants to take a sledgehammer and tear apart half the building.
Ava's face glows in the bluish light of her monitors as I return, her now clean silver-blonde hair spread across her pillow. Her mouth twists, her fingers gripping her blanket as she moans.
Gently putting my hand on her cheek, I lean close, murmuring, “You're safe.
No one will hurt you again, I swear it. You're safe here, try to sleep, Malen'kaya Soroka.” Her head turns into the warmth of my hand and another soft sigh escapes her lips before she goes back into full sleep.
I wait for a minute; my tall frame bent over her uncomfortably until the doctor brings in my coffee.
She runs a quick check on the monitors and makes a few notes.
“Miss Blue is doing much better,” she whispers.
“She came in extremely dehydrated and clearly hadn't eaten for a couple of days, but the fluids have helped her enormously. Even the burns around her neck seem to be healing well. Dr. Morozova reached out to a medical researcher in Switzerland, who had been developing burn gels. He had a supplier here that was able to deliver them shortly after Miss Blue was admitted.”
“That's good to hear,” I say. “Thank you…” I check her tag. “Dr. Marcus.” Her hand reaches up to lightly pat my arm, and thinks the better of it.
Maybe I am as forbidding as my father.
She turns to leave quietly, shutting the door behind her.
Bolstered by the coffee and the sandwich.
I press play again, for the final minutes of the feed.
Ava’s suffering - and mine - is rewarded as I watch her end the son of a bitch.
He has her by the neck, choking her on her knees.
His pants are down and he’s so intent on getting his dick stuffed into her unwilling mouth that he doesn't see her hand come up.
She's holding a shard of glass, a bit of torn cloth wrapped around it and she slices it quickly across his thigh.
Like Mother said, two quick, precise cuts as his eyes bulge, his fist dropping from her neck as he stumbles back, blood spurting from his femoral artery like a geyser.
I smile as he crumples against the floor.
My only regret is that I couldn’t finish him myself.
Staggering her way into the kitchen, Ava comes back clutching a rubber cleaning glove.
Tearing off a bit of it with her teeth, she stuffs it between the two silver connectors at the top of the front door and the wall panel turns from red to green.
Ava rips open the door, jolting as her collar is activated, and she races out into the hallway as the last audio on the feed is her scream for help.
I know what happens then.
Embedded into my memory, her little body racing down the hall to me, torn and battered as a bird with a broken wing, still determined to fly free.
***
Malen'kaya soroka - Russian for Little Magpie
Pakhan - the head of a Russian bratva
Sovietnik - Second in command in the power structure of a bratva.