Chapter 25 - Masha
To think I actually kind of felt grateful when Anatoli jumped in and rescued me from Diego just seconds before the big oaf choked me unconscious. That made two times that he saved my life, and it was hard enough to dredge up any kind thoughts toward him when I was cuffed to his bed.
Those thoughts disappeared completely when he dragged me into his office in town.
He certainly didn’t own every business in the high-rise downtown building, and even when I threw the last shred of my pride out the window and asked him to at least take the cuffs off for the trip through the lobby, he flatly refused.
Or rather, he flat-out ignored my plea, so I was promenaded between him and one of his guards all the way through the upscale lobby to the elevators.
The security guards nodded knowingly, the two ladies at the reception desk tittered to each other once we were past, and a businessman who was about to get on the elevator with us quickly changed his mind at the sight of our little threesome.
Anatoli and his guard looked scary enough on their own, but the handcuffed woman with a very clear desire to tear someone’s head off between them made him decide he wasn’t in that much of a hurry.
My cheeks burned all the way down the hall to Anatoli’s corner office as they needlessly hustled me along. I knew as well as they did that I had nowhere to go, and now that he’d made a spectacle of me as some criminal, it was unlikely anyone downstairs would help if I did get away.
I wasn’t giving up, I was biding my time.
He didn’t know it yet, but taking me back into the city was a mistake, because now I was close to my family.
All I had to do was find a way to get these damn cuffs off.
Then get past his guards on this floor, out of a building he owned.
Those security guards in the lobby might have looked like yokels, but they wouldn’t stand against the man who paid them. Hope was slowly draining out of me.
Anatoli set up a hard folding chair in the corner near the door of his luxurious office suite, with a big, glossy mahogany desk and rich paintings in ornate gold frames.
He obviously must have kept this place hidden from my family while he was in hiding.
Two walls in the corner office were entirely windows looking out over the vast expanse of Los Angeles.
The sky was remarkably blue for the notoriously smoggy city, and I shifted in my chair to try to see if the Hollywood sign was visible from where we were.
As soon as he noticed me enjoying the view, he snapped his fingers for me to stand up again.
“I beg your pardon?” I asked haughtily. If he was going to start treating me like a dog, I may start snapping at him like one.
Without a word, he tugged the chair out from under me and moved it to the other side of the door.
Since I was attached to it, I had to follow or get dragged along the floor.
Now I was looking at the side of a bookshelf.
Was he really going to be that petty? I gaped at him, but he continued to ignore me, settling into his desk, which I could only see if I craned my neck around the bookcase. After a moment, he started humming.
I forgot my embarrassment after being paraded around like a prize fish on a hook, and seethed with resentment. He was enjoying this way too much.
After a little while, people came in to meet with him, some staying for just a few minutes to make a report, others settling in for coffee from the perky assistant who acted like I was another piece of furniture.
It was bad enough back at the house with his people gawking at me because they knew I was a prisoner from the start.
The people who met with Anatoli were strangers, and no matter what they’d seen or heard in their lives working for someone like him, their eyes still widened when they saw me sitting there sullenly, cuffed to that damn, uncomfortable chair.
He couldn’t even put me in one of the cushy armchairs.
Or over on the other side of the suite, where each newcomer didn’t practically bump into me on their way in.
With every new person who met with him, it occurred to me that someone might recognize me and get word to my family.
I hadn’t been in the US for very long, and left LA to work with Mat in Silicon Valley shortly after I arrived, but the Fokins were heavy hitters in this state, and word that I was missing would have spread far and wide.
Two hours went by, and no such luck. My back hurt, my left foot kept falling asleep, and every time I moved the slightest bit to keep my circulation going, the cuffs rattled, making whoever was in a meeting turn and smirk in my direction.
Maybe the worst part of all was that I was far enough from Anatoli’s desk that I couldn’t make out much of what anyone said, so I was left to ponder what he was up to.
Then someone I recognized came in, though he wouldn’t have known me at all since we’d never met.
I had seen his image from the spyware I used to track down members of the Collective.
This was Enzo Santino, one of the leaders of their faction here in the city.
This was no messenger or errand boy, but someone really high up in the organization.
He moved past me without a glance as he entered. Anatoli stood to greet him warmly, leading him back to his desk while he offered him coffee or something stronger. They shared a little laugh the way businessmen did when nothing was really funny.
So this was actual evidence that he was working with them, and I couldn’t believe I had thought better of Anatoli.
I thought he was too smart to partner with such a rogue element, and if I was honest, I didn’t want to believe he was truly going to do anything to harm my family.
Even when I had been cuffed to that chair that was biting into my butt for the last three hours, even when I was his damn prisoner, I still couldn’t believe the worst of him for some reason.
But why the hell would I think that? Because he’d saved my life twice? I was a damn valuable possession, of course, he wanted me alive. If he decided to never torture me as revenge, he could still dangle me over my cousins’ heads, use me as bait, or for ransom.
Why did all this hurt so much?
Try as I might, I couldn’t hear what they were saying, only small bursts of laughter which made my blood boil.
They had to be plotting against my family, maybe even had something set up already, and were just hashing out the final details.
Who would get what after the Fokins were wiped off the map and that sort of thing?
I suddenly realized this might have been Anatoli’s plan all along. The ultimate torture would be to make me witness my family’s destruction. Then I wouldn’t be so valuable anymore.
Why the hell did this make my heart feel like it was ripping in half?
Anger blocked it out, pure red rage filling my vision.
I was not about to sit there quietly like a geisha and let him get away with this.
With a burst of strength fueled by fury, I jumped up, hauling the chair with me.
In one quick leap, I was out the door, swinging it at the startled guard.
It knocked him off balance long enough for me to grab his gun.
Not taking a precious second away from my objective, I whirled back into the doorway and shot the Collective leader through the back of the head.
He was sitting at an angle to Anatoli, so there was no lucky chance of killing two birds with one stone, but I watched with satisfaction as his body slumped forward and his forehead conked against the edge of Anatoli’s fancy desk.
Blood splattered all over the back of his laptop and the decorative antique books he had stacked on the edge.
With only a blink to make sure the first foe was down, I turned the gun on the second, curled my finger back around the trigger.
And was sent to the floor, my breath rushing out of me as both the chair I was still cuffed to and the guard landed on me.
The gun flew from my grip, and I saw Anatoli’s leather shoe kick it out of the way from the corner of my eye.
The guard was kneeling on me, his hand mashing my face into the once-pretty blue oriental rug that was now stained with blood.
Probably some of it was mine since I bit my lip hard when I hit the floor.
I waited for the familiar click or a blow to the head because there was no way I was getting out of this alive.
Still, despite the pain and the difficulty breathing with a two-hundred-pound brute perched on my back, I was triumphant.
Anatoli was still alive, but I’d surely put a massive dent in his plans to overthrow my family.
“Get up,” he told the guard, who scrambled for the gun and stood pointing it at me.
Then Anatoli shoved the chair aside, which had somehow become folded up in the skirmish, and leaned down to look at me, still sprawled on the rug. “What the hell were you thinking?” he asked, voice low and menacing.
“I was thinking that there was no way I was letting you join forces with the Collective. No damn way I’d let you work with them against my family.”
With a low growl in his throat, he rolled me over and grabbed my arm, tugging me to a sitting position. He winced when he saw my bloody lip, but only shook his head as he pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh.
“I’m not working with the Collective,” he said. “I’m gaining their trust to move against them. Or, I was.”
My eyes shot up to his. Those gray depths were crystal clear. Angry, frustrated, but he was telling the truth. My stomach sank as I glanced away from his gaze to the body slumped over his desk.
“I guess you already know who that is?” he asked.
“Enzo Santino,” I whispered. “One of the highest-ranking members here in LA.”
His eyebrow raised. “So then you know there’s only one higher-ranking person?” I nodded, and he continued in a flat voice, pointing to the corpse. “That man’s father. So…”
“So I just killed the boss’s son,” I finished.
He shook his head, almost sadly, almost with a trace of fear that had a shiver running up my spine to prickle the fine hairs at the back of my neck.
“You just signed your death warrant.”