Chapter 3 #2
The Cyrillic letters that covered his fingers probably spelled out something intimidating. More tattoos peeked out from his collar, disappearing under the crisp white shirt that somehow remained immaculate, despite the grime that covered every inch of this place.
“Adrik! Get down here. Now.”
After a few minutes, more footsteps crunched the gravel on the tracks as someone else made their way into what I was starting to think of as my tomb.
The newcomer was slightly less intimidating, maybe mid-thirties, with kinder eyes but the same hard edge that seemed to mark all of these men.
Brothers, maybe, or at least brothers in whatever criminal organization had landed me here.
They started speaking in rapid Russian. Harsh, guttural sounds that dripped with anger and frustration, even though I couldn’t understand a word.
Adrik gestured toward the dead body and then me repeatedly while the other one remained unnaturally still, those ice-blue eyes never leaving my face.
I caught repeated words, but the language was as foreign to me as this Godforsaken place I was in. The tone, though... the tone I understood perfectly. They were arguing about what to do with me.
“Why did you take me?” The words burst out of me before I could stop them. “What do you want from me?”
They ignored me completely, continuing their heated discussion in Russian as if I hadn’t spoken at all. I was about to speak again when the monster in the expensive suit switched to English, and I almost wished he’d kept speaking another language.
“You fucked up. This isn’t her.”
My heart stopped beating.
“What do you mean, this isn’t her, Nikolai?” Adrik asked in utter disbelief.
Nikolai. That’s his name.
“Look at her face, you idiot. You took the wrong fucking girl.”
Wrong girl. They’d meant to take someone else. Someone who mattered, while I was just… Why was I even taking offense to that? I should be grateful. I wasn’t who they were after, so now they can just set me free.
“Get rid of her.”
My eyes almost bulged out of their sockets as I heard the words that sealed my fate. He said them so casually, like he was discussing the weather or what to have for dinner. Not the life of another human being.
Terror clogged up my throat. I was going to die in this tunnel, and no one would even know what happened to me. No one would care. I’d just disappear, another casualty of whatever war these people were fighting. And for what? Money? Power?
“Wait.” Adrik held up a hand, studying me with renewed interest. “Let me check something.”
He pulled out his phone, swiping through it maniacally, looking for God knows what. His eyes moved between the screen and my face, back and forth, assessing.
“Boss, look at this.” He thrust the phone toward the icy-eyed killer. “She’s not just some random girl.”
Nikolai took a long look at the screen before looking at me and returning the phone.
“Adrianne Dornier. Half-sister to Alison Battaglia. Different mothers, same father.” Adrik said as if it were subtitles to whatever he’d shown Nikolai.
My blood turned to ice. They knew who I was. They knew about Alison, about my father, about everything I’d only recently learned myself. How was that possible?
“She’s still valuable leverage,” Adrik continued, his tone growing more confident. “Maybe not the prize we wanted, but she’s Matteo Battaglia’s half sister. She’s still family.”
Nikolai’s gaze settled on me again, those wintery eyes calculating my worth like I was livestock at auction. I could practically see him weighing options, deciding whether I was worth the hassle of keeping alive or not.
Finally, he spoke, and his words chilled me to the bone.
“Little Moth, it seems you’re worth more alive. For now.”
Little Moth? There was intentionality in the term, especially knowing that he’d seen the tattoo on my thigh, but it could have well been a butterfly transforming; he just chose something more derogatory.
Something less lavish and beautiful. Something more fitting with the thought that I was the poor knock-off version he’d taken by mistake.
I got it.
My sister was a lot more valuable than me. I didn’t hold that fact against her. But him? Who was he to degrade me this way, and why did it bother me so damn much?
“Adrianne. My name is Adrianne,” I corrected, and I was sure it was a delayed effect of the alcohol I’d had during my sister’s wedding reception, because I had no idea what made me speak this way to a proven killer with a gun still clenched in his hand. I shouldn’t even be addressing him at all.
The silence that followed was deafening. Adrik’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, clearly shocked that the scrawny hostage had just mouthed off to their boss.
From his reaction alone, I wanted to fuse myself into the train’s wall, but instead, I swallowed my fear and tried to stand as tall as I could.
Nikolai’s eyes went even colder, if that was possible. For a moment, I thought he might shoot me right here, add my blood to the stains already decorating this hellhole.
Instead, he did something so much more unsettling.
He smiled.
It was the most terrifying expression I’d ever seen on a human face. Cold, calculating, and completely void of any humor. It looked practiced and the most ungenuine smile I’d ever seen.
My family could be from the same underworld these men were, but I’d never seen their eyes hold such detachment and coldness.
“Interesno,” interesting, he murmured towards me before turning back to Adrik.
“She’s your fuck-up, so she’s your pet to babysit.
Have food sent to her. She’s no use to us if she collapses from starvation.
Get someone down here to clean up this mess and bury him where nobody can find him. We’re leaving soon.”
Then, without a single word to me, they turned around and left, leaving me alone again in this freezing train car. Only this time, I knew there was no salvation worth hoping for.
This was how I died. Alone, shivering in an abandoned train after being kidnapped by mistake by Russian men.