Chapter 39 #2
Rodion taps a finger to his watch on his wrist as we walk up to him and Andru who’ve been waiting for us at the back of The Vault. “You’re late, angel.” He affixes me with a hard stare when my cheeks blush and I bite on my bottom lip.
Z brushes past my body, making me shiver involuntarily. “Sorry. She was busy getting her dirty halo fixed.” He grins, and I flush even harder when Andru groans.
No dad wants to hear about this crap.
“Is that shame creeping up your neck, Alyona?” Rodion teases, dropping his voice low against my ear. He pulls me into his body with one arm and guides us inside The Vault.
Stroking my hand to my neck and nudging him with my hip, I confess, “More likely it’s Z’s fingerprints.”
Z leans into Rodion’s other side. “She wore my hand like a necklace, brother. It was her turn to pray on her knees.”
“Can you three save this stuff for when I’m not here?” Andru grumbles, unable to stand it a second longer.
I giggle and swallow, clearing my throat when we descend a staircase.
Rodion senses my confusion and says, “Viktor’s idea to hold the meeting on the lower level.”
When we walk through the double doors into the lower level of The Vault, we have to push past dust sheets and tarp that crunches beneath our feet.
“He’s doing renovations, too,” Rodion informs me.
I notice a row of clear Plexiglass cells in various stages of construction and raise an eyebrow at Rodion, who just smirks down at me.
“Voyeurism is a big kink. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?
” he taunts, and memories of him and Z in the shower burn through my mind.
Pulling back another piece of plastic sheeting, we hear voices and find Viktor, Levi, Adam, and another large man sitting around a long white table with leather straps on each corner. I’ve always known Viktor hosts fetish parties down here, but I’ve never been down here myself.
Adam stiffens when he sees the twins and Andru. “You didn’t mention you were bringing company,” he bites out.
I jab a finger toward the two henchmen he brought with him. “Neither did you.”
“What can I say, I have trust issues after Jane Doe ended up in my trunk.”
“Please take a seat.” Viktor gestures toward the leather bench beside him. Adam settles down on the other side. Everyone takes a seat except for Z and Levi. Z stands at the head of the table next to Levi who hovers close to Adam. There’s a subtle flinch from Levi when Z takes his position.
“Excuse the surroundings,” Viktor says. “I’m having some renovations done, but I thought this would be a more private setting.”
“Who was that Jane Doe girl?” Adam asks, ignoring Viktor.
So, no pleasantries then.
“You tell us?” Rodion says, placing a hand on my thigh beneath the table.
“I was talking to Ally, or is it Alyona?” Adam sneers.
My eyes track the snake on Z’s throat as he swallows, and then warns, “I think it would be in your best interest if her name doesn’t pass your lips at all.”
“You do know it was my brother taking care of her for the last two years?” Adam narrows his eyes on Z.
“Was and now she’s back where she belongs.” Z's broad shoulders flex beneath his T-shirt. I noted when he got dressed that his outfit was unusually casual for him, but nothing Z does is without purpose.
“So, you were fucking them behind Jeremiah’s back?” Adam screws up his face in disgust.
“No,” I snap. “You fed your brother those lies, and it sent him fucking crazy.”
“Did he really kill himself?” His fist crashes down on the table, making the metal buckles on the restraints clank against the surface. “Don’t fucking take me for a fool.”
“Your brother was the fool, and it was more likely he didn’t mean for the car to go over the edge,” Rodion responds with a bored tone. “Drinking and driving ends lives. He was an idiot.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Adam snarls, and Andru begins laughing, dark and deep, making a chill chase up my spine and filling the air we breathe.
“He doesn’t think. He knows who he is, and if you knew, you’d err on the side of caution with your tone,” Andru says, the veins pulsing in his neck.
“Who are you?” Adam rears his head back to glower at Andru.
“I’m the man who took an hour out of my morning to meet with Chad Reed. You may know him as Spike. I hear he earned his name from using a spiked bat to kill his classmate when he was fourteen.”
Viktor perks up at that information. “Sins of Eve president?”
“One and the same.” Andru nods.
Adam’s eye twitches, and he shifts in his seat.
“In that hour, I ended your arrangement with the Sins of Eve chapters. Got an espresso, and something called a bear claw. Delicious, by the way,” Andru says with a smirk. “I also made a couple of calls to acquire six of the eight facilities you use to run your business.”
Adam’s spine straightens, and his eyes dart to the other man he brought with him, who takes out a phone and begins flitting his fingers over it.
“Who I am, to answer your question,” Andru continues, a deadly bite in his tone, “is Andru Vetrov. You cannot conceive my wealth, reach, and power, boy. I can take your life apart until it’s just ruins and then I’ll piss in the wreckage of it while you try and climb out, all before lunch.”
Goosebumps sprinkle up my arms. Rodion’s hand tightens on my thigh.
“What the hell did I do to warrant your wrath?” Adam asks through clenched teeth.
“You touched what belongs to us,” Z growls.
My stomach tightens when I see the glint of his curved blade, and then he moves quickly and precisely.
He jabs four quick movements into Levi’s side, just below the ribs, aiming upward, before anyone can react.
Z grips Levi with an arm around his shoulders.
Levi’s eyes widen in shock, and blood sputters from his lips.
Then Z slices him from hip to hip, opening him up and spilling his intestines into Adam’s lap with a sickening slosh.
Blood splashes up Adam’s face and onto the table.
Levi’s hands reach to contain his insides, his knees buckling.
The other man jumps up, and stumbles backwards, fumbling for a gun on his hip. Viktor moves like a shadow, disarming him, and smashing him into the table, his arm locked up his back with a grunt.
Blood covers Adam’s entire body, crimson spray paints his face, and pieces of Levi sit in his lap.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
“I prefer a bloodier approach.” Z drops Levi’s body with a disregarded shove and bears down on Adam, holding the bloodied blade to Adam’s throat.
Holding his hands up in surrender, Adam frantically starts babbling. “People know where I am. I wouldn’t come here without assurances.” His chest rises and falls rapidly, sweat beading on his brow and upper lip. “There’s more of my men outside if I don’t walk out of here.”
Laughing, Rodion says, “We’re aware of the two men in the Range Rover outside, Adam, and don’t be na?ve. If we were going to kill you, we wouldn’t invite you to your slaying. We’d slip from beneath your bed like a nightmare, and soak your sheets crimson.”
I almost feel sorry for the idiot…almost.
Hissing through his teeth, when Z slices a tiny nick into his skin, he says, “I get it. Message heard loud and clear.” His eyes bounce to each of us.
“Good. I’m glad we could discuss this like civilized businessmen.” Andru gets to his feet and offers a hand for Adam to shake.
Adam watches the hand warily before taking it.
“I’m going to keep this one,” Viktor announces, jerking the man he has bent over the table. “I have some soundproofing to test.”
“No, please Adam, don’t leave me with him,” the man cries out.
Oh God.
“Alyona, shall we?” Rodion stands and takes my hand helping me to my feet. “Do you fancy getting some lunch?” he asks like we didn’t just witness Levi’s brutal death. I don’t think I’ll eat for a week.
“Burgers!” Z interjects taking up the other side of me, using a cloth to clean his knife.
They really are madmen. My madmen.