Chapter 16 #2
The federal government might be ruthless, but they didn't operate like this. This was personal. Intimate. Designed to break Alina’s spirit.
Well, unless the FBI had grown a fucked-up pair of balls in the last few years, I didn’t think they were the ones threatening my girl.
Kostya peered over my shoulder and let out a low whistle. "That's not good."
"No shit," I said as he took the photo from my hands, passing it to Artem.
Artem took one long look, then grabbed the envelope from my hands and poured the rest of its contents out onto the table.
We sifted through the remaining pictures .
Each image was a masterclass in psychological torture.
Each photo was worse than the one before it.
Artem's lip curled as he looked through them.
Bile rose in my throat, burning its way up and leaving a sour taste in my mouth as nausea rolled through me.
The methodical cruelty behind each threat spoke of someone who enjoyed the process as much as the result.
Each image we found only added to the growing storm inside me. One photo had Alina's face violently scratched out. Another had her entire head burned away, blackened and distorted, the photo paper melting and twisting.
So many threats, telling her that her debts were due, threatening her grandmother, her life.
More than a few even suggested that if she didn't pay, they would collect what was owed another way.
The worst one made my fingers tighten around the edge of the paper, as red filled my vision.
Someone had cut my sweet girl's face out of another photo and taped it onto the body of a naked, mutilated woman. The carnage was depraved even by my standards. I was no stranger to gore, but the shit we did was to send a message and was never done to women.
Whoever had cut up this woman may have started with that intention, but at some point, they liked it. This wasn't a job, it was the work of a rabid madman who needed to be put down like a dog.
The message on the back was clear.
"You know what happens to disobedient girls."
A red-hot rage pounded through my veins. My grip on the glass in my other hand tightened until the glass cracked.
Artem exhaled slowly, his fingers tightening around the edge of another particularly disturbing photo. "What the goddamn fuck?" he muttered.
Kostya, ever composed, leaned back in his seat and rubbed his jaw. "Looks like you weren't her first, brother."
"Excuse me?"
At first, my mind immediately—stupidly—went to the memory of taking her virginity, of the feel of my cock crashing through her delicate maidenhead, of her body yielding to mine for the first time.
I knew I had been her first.
There was no denying the way she had clenched around me, the little gasps she had made, the physical evidence.
My possessiveness flared, a primitive response I couldn't control, as my hand tightened into a fist ready to defend her honor.
Then I caught the way Artem bared his teeth in disgust as his eyebrows lowered and seemed to pinch together as he nodded toward the photos, and I realized what Kostya meant.
This wasn't about sex. None of this was about sex.
This was about power.
Control through fear and ownership.
Someone else thought they got to play their sick little games with my girl.
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
Alina had been marked long before I ever laid a hand on her .
Someone was making a claim on what was mine.
And that was unacceptable.
And that made me mad enough to want to burn the entire world to the ground to stake my claim.
I hadn't spent my life clawing my way to the top just for some nameless bastard to think he could touch what was mine. Threaten what was mine.
The glass in my grip shattered. Vodka mixed with my blood dripped down my fingers, but I didn't feel it.
The only thing I could feel was the slow, calculated rage curling its way through my veins.
Kostya set his glass down with a sigh. "Looks like we're not the first dangerous people your girl has pissed off."
"No shit." Artem was still eyeing the photos like they could reach out and pull him into their depravity just by existing. "Looks like they are making her pay a debt."
"Seventy thousand," I growled.
Remembering what she told me last night about her father's gambling and abandonment.
Like the vicious bastard that I was, I'd only been interested in the information to manipulate her into doing what I wanted. Goddammit. I should have asked more questions. At the time I just assumed she was paying back a fucking casino or maybe a credit card company.
And here my sweet little kitten was being threatened by some low-life thugs. Fuck.
The fact that I was also threatening her was different.
These bastards were sadistic animals who got off on terrorizing innocent women.
At least when I used leverage, it served a purpose beyond cruelty .
Kostya shook his head. "I know what we paid her, and the strip club pay was decent considering she wasn't on the pole, and since her grandmother qualifies for assistance the nursing home cost is practically covered.
But the place she lived in was a shithole.
Her bills are past due, and she has no savings I can find.
Unless it's going up her nose or in her veins, which I doubt…
the math doesn't add up. Someone's bleeding her dry. "
My vision narrowed as the full picture crystallized.
Their words barely registered.
My mind was already working, already planning the kind of pain that was both creative and absolute.
I would find every person involved in terrorizing her. And I would make them understand that touching what belonged to Pavel Ivanov came with consequences that lasted lifetimes.
I would find the bastard responsible for this, and I would carve him apart, piece by agonizing piece, until he understood what it meant to truly suffer.
Alina had secrets.
But so did I.
And mine were about to become someone's worst nightmare.
I was going to uncover every single one of hers, and someone was about to learn just how dark my secrets could be.