Chapter 50
CHAPTER
FIFTY
Sia
My phone was taken before I was pushed into a dark room, but not before I sent off a text. It surprised me how long it took for Natan’s men to realize I still had a phone.
I stumbled to the ground, my knees hitting concrete so hard that pain shot through my legs like fire. I groaned, but no one gave a fuck. The door slammed behind me, making the room even darker. There was nothing but candlelight in here…
And footsteps.
They were hurried. They rushed in my direction, and the next thing I knew, someone grabbed me. I had no blade, but I had the skills Val taught me. Immediately, I went to shove my elbow into the person behind me, but as soon as I shot my arm into them, the individual let go.
I turned and gasped.
“Val?” I said, making eye contact with her in the dimly lit area. I grabbed her, hugging her and shaking. I was on the cusp of tears, but I wouldn’t let them fall.
I wouldn’t let them fall.
I braced Val so hard, and she wasn’t shaking.
At least, not until I grabbed her side.
Her face screwed up in a deep wince.
My hand came away from her side bloody.
“Oh, God,” I started, but she waved her hand. She was wounded on her right side, her dark coat caked in blood. She also had a cut on her cheek like a blade had sliced it. I gasped. “Val…”
I didn’t know what part she had in this whole thing with my family. I didn’t know if she helped Maxim, but I did know she was my friend.
And she was hurt.
I tried to tend to her, reaching toward her wound but she didn’t allow me. She waved her hands, then signed, “ Are you okay ?”
She was concerned about me? I started to reach toward her wound again, but she touched my face. I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
I was in the physical sense I supposed.
But all other ways, how could I be okay? I swallowed. “Did you know? About me? My family?”
Did she have a place in it? Had she known who I was the whole time…
Had she helped?
I had so many questions, and Val’s frown was deep. “ Your dad was before my time in the Bratva ,” she signed and mouthed most of it. I didn’t understand all her signs but her mouthing the words helped. She sighed. “ I’m sorry, jellybean. ”
She was sorry.
I nodded, still processing everything. I’d been given a family, and it was taken from me all in the course of a few hours. I also didn’t know where I was. I’d been blindfolded up until a few moments ago, before they shoved me wherever this was.
Suddenly cold, I gazed around. We looked to be underground, but it wasn’t sterile-smelling in here like Peters & Berg. It was just dank and dark. Wet. There was dripping coming from above like we were beneath pipes. I faced Val. “ Do you know where we are ?”
I decided to focus on that, and though I didn’t know all the ASL signs for her, I spelled out the ones I didn’t.
“ One of the Bratva’s places ,” she signed, and then completely ignored the fact she was still bleeding. When she noticed I noticed, she waved at me again. “ Don’t be concerned about me. ”
I couldn’t help it, and she cringed when I touched her. I made her lift her jacket.
And all that blood…
My stomach tossed, and I had a pretty strong one lately. I’d developed it considering the world Maxim had introduced me to.
Maxim…
My stomach clenched again if I thought about him. Especially the look he’d given me before I left him and after what I said.
“I don’t want to go with you.”
It was the only thing I could think of to get him to let me go. I had to go, and seeing Val, I was glad I did. She’d clearly been shot, and with all the gunfire surrounding us during our escape, I wasn’t surprised. I touched Val’s arm. “ Sit down. We’ll fix this. ”
I didn’t know what we’d do about it, but I had experience with wounds with animals. I could do something about this if she let me.
She waved me away again.
“ Come with me ,” she signed, and though I did, I had no idea why she was concerned with anything else besides her wounds.
But then, I saw him.
Val and I weren’t the only two in the room, and as soon as Val and I got closer, the third person came from the shadows. He was a boy in an academy uniform without the tie. The tie was off on a bench, and he played with his hands as Val and I got closer. He was biracial, with curly hair and dark eyes like me.
In fact, he looked a lot like me.
I could tell he’d noticed that too, his eyes twitching wide. He swallowed. “Hi.”
The word shook, his voice shaking. He was too, and so was I. I didn’t have any family. I didn’t have anyone to look like me, and we had the same hair and the same eyes.
Our father’s eyes.
I knew in my soul this was the case, and suddenly, I was swallowing too.
“Hello.” My voice quaked. My mouth parted. “Do you know who I am?”
He nodded, and goose pimples lined my skin.
His throat jumped. “I feel like I do.” He put out a hand. “I’m Andre.”
Andre.
It was like touching a ghost, shaking his hand, and we both gazed down at our handshake.
“Hi, Andre, I’m Sia,” I said, then shook my head. “I guess that’s short for Anastasia.”
I had no idea that’d been my name. I had no idea.
I guess I hit my head.
I thought with my history in the foster care system I’d already been through so many terrible things. Apparently, I hadn’t even broached the surface. As it turned out, my history had already been peppered with tragedy and violence before that.
Andre’s had too, and I hated that we related to each other on that. Val studied us during our exchange, her expression remorseful, sad, but also in pain. Holding onto herself, she was clearly trying not to slump, and I grabbed her side.
She let me, and Andre got close too. I nodded toward Val. “She’s hurt. Can you help me dress Val’s wounds, Andre?”
He blinked in response to my request, but quickly, he nodded. He stepped up. He was brave.
I ended up using Andre’s academy jacket to force compression on Val’s wound. She was bleeding so much, but that was because it was a clean wound. The bullet had gone right through her skin and out the other side. As far as I could see, it hadn’t hit anything major.
There was just so much blood.
Val’s eyes started to roll back as Andre and I tended to her, and clearly, she’d been mustering strength to come over to me.
“Will she be okay?” Andre asked me, and it was so weird talking to him. It was weird knowing we had this connection but were strangers.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to lie to him. I had no answers. I looked up at him. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I…” He started, then gazed around. “I’ve been down here a few days, but they’ve been feeding me and everything. There’s a small bathroom over in the corner behind that wall, but no windows or anything.”
Which means he looked for escape. I nodded. “And before that? Did they hurt you or…”
Relief hit me when he shook his head again. “No. They moved me around a lot though. Other places like this.” He sat down next to Val. We had her laid on a bench. He bit his lip. “Before that, I was at school.”
“Do you know who you are? Have they told you?”
I barely knew, but if he knew who I was, odds were he had an idea.
“Yeah.” He stared at the floor, a haunted look in his dark eyes. “They told me they killed our family.”
They had, all of them gone. We were the only ones to survive.
Maxim…
I wanted to sob. The hate in his voice, his eyes, when talking about my father... He’d killed my dad, and he felt no remorse for it.
“The sins of your father destroyed your family, malyshka …”
And so blood was spilled for blood. Sin for sin. My father was a monster for killing Maxim’s dad, and Maxim had become the same monster to avenge his. He’d become my monster, and if not for happenstance and sheer dumb luck, I wouldn’t be standing here.
If it hadn’t been for love.
I acquired the love of the man who hated my father, and I’d somehow gotten his mercy even before that. Maxim had spared me that day he murdered my dad. For a brief time, he had. Until, years later, he killed a woman he believed was me.
It hurt my soul, our history. It was tragic and so fucked up.
“You said you were at school before,” I said to Andre, and he nodded. “Did you grow up okay?”
I needed to know. I just wanted one thing to not be fucked up. My childhood was so bad, so much tragedy and abuse.
“Yeah, I was at a Catholic boarding school basically my whole life, but my caretaker never kept from me who I was. He dropped me off at the school when I was a baby and the nuns took me in,” he said, surprising me. He chewed his lip again. “I haven’t seen my caretaker Ilya in a long time though. He didn’t check on me often, but he did come by.”
Ilya.
The name was definitely familiar. Natan had mentioned a car bombing. He said I wasn’t in the car with my mother, sisters, and brother. Considering Andre was with me now that meant he hadn’t been in the car either. Had Ilya saved him? Did he save him like Maxim saved me?
It sure sounded like it, and I glanced at Val. She was lucid but was in and out. “Do you know what happened to his caretaker?”
Andre faced her. He had a hope in his eyes I hoped Val wouldn’t disappoint, but as soon as she frowned a boulder hit me in the chest.
Val lifted her hands. “ He’s gone .”
I didn’t know if Andre knew sign language, but I felt like in that moment, he didn’t need to. He had someone who spared his life as well. Natan had mentioned deceit.
And so my brother and I had the same story.
Andre cringed. “Are we going to die, Sia?”
I didn’t want to lie to him, and even though things looked bleak, there was hope. I touched his shoulder. “There’s help coming. I got a text out to someone. He’s going to come.”
I destroyed Lettie’s phone, but I knew she had a smart watch. I also knew she was supposed to rendezvous with Maxim.
I couldn’t take the risk sending him a text. I knew Natan had his phone, but Lettie would have been clear. She could get messages to her watch.
She could get messages to him.
Val tried to sit up after what I said, but I didn’t let her. She moved her hands. “ You texted Maxim ?”
“I did. I sent it to Lettie, but she should be able to get the message to him. If she does, Maxim will be able to track my phone. Natan’s people only just took it from me before they put me in here.” Maxim had let it slip after we got back together that he put a locator on it after I initially broke my phone, and I’d never been happier for my husband’s obsessiveness, his jealously and neurosis.
My husband.
My brain had skipped right over the word fiancé. In fact, it leaped right over it.
“I don’t want to go with you.”
I told Maxim what he had to hear to let me go. He needed to hear these words so he’d let Natan’s men take me. I had a feeling they’d take me to my brother, and I’d been right.
I bundled Val up in a blanket on Andre’s bench before looking at my brother. “My fiancé is coming. He’ll save us.”
Because he loved me, and I sent him just the text he needed to see. He’d do that regardless of what I sent him, but I didn’t want him to wonder for a moment about my love for him. It’d take a lot for us to move forward after the events of the past, and I wasn’t sure we ever would, but regardless, I couldn’t turn off my love. Maxim Petrov was deep in my soul, which was why my text message to him said: Come find me.