Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
SANTIAGO
“Idon’t understand what you are saying,” I say quietly as I squat in front of Aleksei’s prisoner. “But it sounds like you’re full of fucking excuses, gallina.”
Behind me, the sound of Aleksei’s chair legs hitting the concrete echoes.
He’s been rocking in the old dining chair, taking a break from our interrogation, letting me see if I can get him anything more out of our prisoner.
Which is pretty funny, considering I can’t speak Russian, though I am fluent in torture.
“Gallina is new.” Aleksei stands next to me. “What is that?”
“Chicken, you know, like a coward.”
He hums, nodding, before reaching over and twisting Dmitri’s ear so hard, the sound of his screaming nearly shatters my fucking eardrum. I move away, shaking my head, trying to get the ringing to stop.
Aleksei freezes and makes a weird sound.
“What is it?” I ask, palming my gun, facing him.
He’s as still as a statue, and his head tips to the side like he’s hearing something I can’t. Moments later, he makes another odd sound before he starts chuckling. Walking past me, he picks up his phone and switches it back on.
“I guess we’re not worried about tracing your phone anymore?” I shake my head, annoyed. I’ve been wanting to call Quinn for hours, but he’s been adamant we stay offline.
He waves me quiet. “Nyet, nyet. My wife is awake.”
A handful of words, and my blood is back to boiling. I tip my head in question, talking carefully so he gets what I’m saying. “Your wife?”
“Da.” The biggest, cheesiest grin appears on his face as he nods like a fucking bobblehead.
“Everything that was Sergey’s is now mine, including his beautiful wife.
It’s how he set it up in his final will.
Lucky me, hey? Though, you and I know she was never his, and she was never going to be his either. Melted period, right?”
“Moot point,” I correct him before diverting him back to the more important part of his little speech. “Okay, so how do you know Quinn is awake?”
He chuckles again, walking back towards me. Once he’s so close I’m choking on his ego and agarwood scent, he switches his phone to handsfree, letting me hear it ringing.
Kade answers. “Now is not a good time, Aleksei!” he growls out.
But under Kade’s abrupt greeting, other sounds are more obvious, deep pleasure-dipped groans, shallow, hurried breathing, and soft feminine moans.
Aleksei looks at me before talking to Kade. “So, your cock still works good, huh?”
“Shhh,” Kade insists.
And then there’s a shuffle of movement as Kade repositions the phone so we can hear for ourselves what’s going on. It’s a fucking symphony of sound.
Quinn is one of those people who enjoys sex, and she enjoys all the noise associated with sex. And right now, I’m so fucking jealous she’s going down on Kade and clearly enjoying his dick way too much.
“Bebe, you sucking Kade’s cock?” I snarl. I don’t mean to state the obvious or sound like a prick, but I do.
She hums a noise that's definitely a yes. The sounds they make together start to change, and even without Kade giving a blow-by-blow of his blow job, it’s clear she’s trying to deep-throat him.
The moist squelching, mixed with the guttural sound she makes when she opens her throat and tries to breathe past the cock in her mouth, makes a unique, beautiful sound.
I love it when I’m with her but hate hearing her make the sound with someone else.
Kade talks low, and I think he forgets or maybe he doesn’t care that he has an audience. He starts praising her louder, his voice getting all pitchy and broken as his desire grows.
“Quinny, fuck yes, just like that. Jesus, baby girl.” He stops talking and moans more fucking sex noises before the phone gets shuffled again. “I got to go. Stay away, fuckers. I’m having the time of my life.”
He hangs up, but only after we’ve heard him shouting out his climax.
“Wow, she can make me hard like that too,” Aleksei says, clearly impressed.
He throws his phone back on the table where all his tools are spread out, and he snatches up a clear plastic bag on his way back to Dmitri.
“What do you mean?” I ask, interrupting Aleksei, who’s speaking in rapid Russian to his prisoner.
Not that he gives him any chance to get a word out before he shoves the bag over Dmitri’s head and pulls it tight, starting to cut off his supply of air.
Dmitrii shakes his head from side to side, trying to escape, but the ropes around his wrists and ankles are too tight for him to move an inch.
He flicks his head around, trying to find a position where he’s not going to suffocate.
Given Aleksei used a clear plastic bag, I get an unobstructed view of Dmitri’s panic and of him slowly suffocating while I wait for Aleksei to answer me.
Aleksei looks at Dmitri like he’s assessing how freaked out and scared he is.
Once he’s happy with the terror he’s inflicted, Aleksei answers.
“The bond. It speaks to me of her mood. I knew something was going on, something nice going on. All I could visualize was her pussy. Her desire streamed through my system like it was my own, making me want to fuck.”
I shut my eyes, dealing with another sharp, bitter influx of jealousy.
First it was because of Kade; now it’s from Aleksei.
And yeah, he and I have been trying really hard to get along.
We’ve come a fair way in our attempt at reconciliation, spending time getting to know each other better, but right this second, I’m really fucking tempted to grab another bag off the table and suffocate the prick. Very fucking close.
I keep my eyes closed and use English that is easy to understand, even speaking at a snail's pace, so there’s no possible risk of misunderstanding on his part. “We need to leave right this fucking second, Aleksei. Do you know who Dmitri’s contacts are?”
“Some. But maybe he is keeping others a secret. Are we in a rush now?”
Biting my jaw as a way to stop myself from completely ruining our trial friendship, I take another few steps away from him, hoping to lessen the growing need I have to hurt him.
It’s the jealousy making me act crazy, but it’s my feral obsession with her and the accompanying necessity that I scent, see, hear, and feel her that’s pushing me over the edge.
The Russian chuckles, and it’s the same damn laugh he does when he knows he’s under my skin. “Okay.”
He rips off the bag, letting Dmitri breathe while he drags the chair so he can sit right in front of our prisoner. “You clean up. I will do a debrief with Dmitri. It’s only fair.”
“It’s only fair? Jesus, Aleksei, just kill him.”
“Nyet. It is important he knows how grateful I am.” He stops talking to me and sits in front of Dmitri, resting his elbows on his thighs in a very relaxed pose.
I can actually see the hope starting to build again in Dmitri’s eyes. Honestly, these Russians are well deserving of the crown of being crazy bastards.
“Dmitri,” Aleksei starts, and I leave him while I pick through the table, sorting out what we need to take.
And it takes forever because he first speaks snippets in Russian, then he practices his English by repeating each sentence.
“We have come a long way, haven’t we? All those plans we had to take Sergey out were genius, right?
Yes, yes, I know a lot of them were from my careful planning, my insider knowledge, and my genuine hate for my brother, but we had vision too. We succeeded, Dmitri. We succeeded.”
Aleksei takes a breath, and I see him smiling.
“He was scared for his life, and I owe you for that.
I mean, I paid you a lot of money, set you up in a house for you and your crew.
But saying that, you earned every dollar.
And, in turn, you earned my respect. Until you lost my respect.
I said no children and no Omegas, but you and Sergey went behind my back, setting up a way to hide it from me.
But I found out. Within only a handful of weeks, I uncovered your filthy secret.
“Neither of you had the intelligence necessary. Plus, your greed. Fuck me, your greed blew my mind. But your greed showed me who else was involved. From the top, all the way down, I have a long, detailed list of names. Every person on that list will pay for their sins. They are dead, they just don’t know it.
Fucking government officials thinking they’re safe behind their titles, here and all over the world, each of them are in my sights.
Death will come for them, and it will be the same for anyone involved.
No matter their sex, designation, skin color, or creed.
If they are on my list, they are there because I either met them or you and Sergey told me of their involvement.
“Their fate is decided, and I will make it my mission to be the judge, jury, and executioner of their crimes. It is my penance for every child and Omega I failed to protect.”
I twist around to make sure I am hearing right. Jesus, how can this be true? Aleksei has been playing both sides? But not only that, for something I’ve spent a considerable amount of time fighting against too?
Valentine, Ronin, and I formed the Trinity Alliance for the sole purpose of stopping child and Omega trafficking and all the subsidiary businesses associated with the trade.
No matter how hard we try, and how successful we’ve been, it hasn’t been enough.
We’re aware other people are doing their part.
I just never envisaged “other people” included Aleksei Petrov.
Aleksei is quiet for a few moments. Dmitri tries to say something, but Aleksei jumps in and continues his dual-language monologue.
“But in spite of you being such a fucking snake, I need you to know that the sheer level of terror and the anxious-filled, sleepless nights we caused Sergey made spending time with you, you mudak, easier to do.
I lived to see his fear; it gave me peace.
He was getting paranoid about everything and everyone, in the end, but he still had so much fucking ego.
“I told him you’d be hitting the restaurant tonight—shit, even you called and said you would be too—but he insisted we all still go.
He insisted because he was cocky, but he was a fucking lazy gavno too.
He relied on me to protect him from your men, which I did.
The reality is, though, they were dead before we even set tonight into motion. Same with Sergey, and same with you.
“See, that is the power of finding your reason. She is my only reason, which is why our timeline changed in the blink of an eye and why you are about to die now and not once I have everything here finished. I made a promise I’d never double-cross you—you remember that, right?
But I fucking lied. Lying and killing don’t make me question who I am inside.
Do you get that? The only thing that makes me question that is my Omega, my wife.
Quintessa Petrov is my reason. So, thank you for your service, but now I relieve you of your duties, you fucking disgusting suka.
I hope the devil delivers you the punishment you deserve. ”
Aleksei moves with the speed of light. He draws his weapon with frightening fluidity and accuracy. He fires shot after shot, emptying the whole cartridge of his gun into Dmitri’s shocked, fear-laced face.
The sound of each shot rings in my ears, the smoke from his gun hanging like a cloud around us, but neither makes me miss Aleksei’s soft-spoken words. They sound like a prayer, and the emotional wave they conjure feels heavy with devotion and reverence.
He closes his eyes, kisses his fingers on one hand, and taps his chest before standing like a statue, his eyes cast down, a peace settling over him. I feel like I’m intruding until I join him, offering my own version of prayer, making a long list of promises to the same goddess he worships.