Chapter 35 Aurelia
AURELIA
The hand over my mouth smells like leather and cigarettes.
I drop my coffee. The cup hits the sidewalk and explodes, scalding liquid spreading across concrete while I try to scream. Can’t. His palm presses harder, cutting off air, and another set of hands grabs my arms.
They’re lifting me. Moving me toward a black van idling at the curb with its side door already open.
I kick backward. Connect with someone’s shin. I hear a grunt, but the grip on me doesn’t loosen. There are too many of them. Three, maybe four. All bigger than me, all moving with the efficiency of people who’ve done this before.
Vance security is half a block away. I saw them when I walked into the coffee shop ten minutes ago. Two men in a dark sedan, watching the street like they always do when I leave the estate.
But they’re too far now. Can’t see what’s happening from where they’re parked.
I try to bite the hand covering my mouth. Taste leather. The man curses in Russian and yanks my head back hard enough that my neck cracks.
Then I’m inside the van, door slamming shut, engine already running before I hit the floor. Someone shoves a hood over my head. Black fabric, scratchy against my face, blocking out light. Hands zip-tie my wrists behind my back. The plastic cuts into skin.
“Don’t fight,” a voice says. Accented. Male. “Makes it worse.”
I fight anyway. Thrash against whoever’s holding me down. Get an elbow into someone’s ribs before they pin my legs.
“Sedate her,” another voice says.
“No. Boss wants her awake.”
The van takes a corner too fast. I roll into something solid. Metal wall or equipment, can’t tell through the hood. My shoulder screams where it makes impact.
They’re not saying anything now, just holding me down while the van moves through what sounds like heavy traffic. Horns blaring. Brakes squealing. The normal sounds of the city that mean we’re still in Manhattan.
Then it gets quieter. Fewer horns. The road is rougher, potholes jarring my teeth.
Time stretches. Could be ten minutes or thirty. Can’t track it with the hood on and adrenaline making my heart beat so fast I can’t count seconds.
The boys.
The thought hits like a fist to the chest. Finn and Liam are at the estate with Nadia. Safe. Julian has security everywhere. But I was supposed to be home in an hour. They’ll notice I’m missing. They’ll look for me.
But will they find me in time?
The van stops. Doors open. Hands grab me again, haul me out into air that’s colder than it should be for afternoon. We’re somewhere with shade. Alley or covered loading area.
They walk me forward. My feet stumble over uneven ground. Concrete, then gravel, then concrete again. Through a door that scrapes when it opens. Down stairs. One, two, three. I count them, trying to remember the layout in case I get a chance to run.
Twelve steps total. Then flat ground. Concrete floor from the sound my shoes make. The air down here is damp. Smells like mold and rust and old blood.
Basement. Warehouse basement.
They push me into a chair. Metal, cold through my shirt. Someone cuts the zip ties on my wrists only to replace them with rope that binds my arms to the chair back, then my ankles to the chair legs.
When they’re done, they rip off the hood.
Light blinds me. Not bright, just sudden after the darkness. I blink until my eyes adjust.
The room is exactly what I expected. Concrete walls. Single hanging bulb. No windows. A metal door in the corner that probably leads to the stairs I came down.
Three men stand in front of me. All wearing dark clothes. All built like they know how to hurt people. The one in the middle is older, maybe fifty, with gray hair and eyes like frozen water. He’s the one who speaks first.
“Aurelia Vance.”
Not a question. A statement.
I don’t answer.
He pulls over another chair and sits facing me. Close enough that I can see the scar running through his left eyebrow. Close enough to smell tobacco on his breath.
“You know who we are.”
I still don’t answer.
“Petrov,” he says. “You remember that name? You should. Six years ago you watched Cassian Rourke put a bullet in my nephew’s head.”
My stomach drops.
“Dmitri Petrov,” the man continues. “Twenty-six years old. Heir to our family. Executed on a public street like a dog.”
“He pulled a weapon first,” I say before I can stop myself.
The man’s smile is cold. “So you do remember.”
I close my mouth. Shouldn’t have spoken. Shouldn’t have confirmed anything.
“My name is Viktor,” he says. “Dmitri was my brother’s son. His only child. And Cassian Rourke murdered him.”
“It was self-defense.”
“Was it? Or was it a message? A show of power to remind everyone that the Irish run this city?”
I don’t answer.
Viktor leans back in his chair. “We’ve been watching Rourke for six years. Waiting for the right moment. The right leverage. Then we discovered he has sons. Twin boys. Five years old.”
Ice floods my veins.
“And a woman,” Viktor continues. “You. The mother of his children. The witness to Dmitri’s death.” He tilts his head. “You’re very valuable, Aurelia. More than you know.”
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
“I don’t have any.”
“Yes, you do. You were there that night. You saw everything.”
“I saw Cassian kill Dmitri. That’s it.”
“Which man pulled the trigger?”
The question confuses me. “What?”
“There were four Rourke men on that street. Cassian and three others. Witnesses reported multiple shooters. In the chaos, no one could confirm who actually killed Dmitri.” Viktor leans forward. “But you were close. You saw. So tell me. Which one pulled the trigger?”
Understanding hits like cold water.
They don’t know it was Cassian. They know someone from his crew did it, but they can’t confirm who. They need me to identify the shooter so they can execute the right person.
If I tell them it was Cassian, they’ll kill him.
Make my sons orphans.
Destroy the family we’ve been building.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. It happened so fast. There was shooting and people running and I couldn’t tell who fired what.”
Viktor studies my face. “You’re protecting him.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“We’ll see.” He stands, walks to the door, pauses with his hand on the handle.
“You have children, Aurelia. You understand what it means to lose family. My brother lost his only son. His legacy. The boy who was supposed to carry our name forward.” He looks back at me.
“We will have justice for Dmitri. One way or another. You can give us the name now and avoid unnecessary pain. Or you can be stubborn and we’ll extract it from you. ”
“I don’t know who pulled the trigger.”
“Then you’ll stay here until you remember.”
He leaves. The door clangs shut. A lock turns.
I’m alone.
The silence presses down. My wrists already ache from the rope. My shoulder throbs where I hit the van wall. But the physical pain is nothing compared to the terror clawing at my chest.
The Petrovs want Cassian’s name, and they’re willing to torture me to get it.
I can’t give them what they want. Can’t make my sons fatherless. Can’t destroy what we’ve built. But I don’t know how long I can hold out.
Don’t know what they’ll do when they realize I won’t break easily.
The door opens again. Two different men this time. Younger. One carries a metal pipe. The other has a plastic jug of water. They don’t speak. Just approach with the casual confidence of people who’ve done this before.
The one with the pipe taps it against his palm. Testing the weight.
“Last chance,” he says in accented English. “Tell us who killed Dmitri Petrov.”
“I don’t know.”
He nods to his partner.
The man with the water steps behind me. I hear liquid pouring. Then cold drenches my head, my shoulders, soaking through my shirt in seconds.
The pipe comes down on my thigh. Pain explodes. White-hot and immediate. I bite down hard on my lip to keep from screaming. I taste blood.
“Who killed Dmitri Petrov?”
I don’t answer.
The pipe hits my other thigh. Same spot. The pain is worse this time. Builds on the first hit.
“We can do this all day,” the man says, “or you can tell us what we want to know.”
I close my eyes. Think about Finn and Liam. About their faces when they laugh. About the way they hold Cassian’s hands when they walk through the park.
They need their father.
And I’m not taking that from them.
The pipe comes down again.