33. Liana
THIRTY-THREE
LIANA
The Cortes Compound, Brazil
Three Years Ago
A creaking sound woke me up and I gasped, sweat slicking my skin.
Blinking hard and feeling disoriented, I looked around but saw nothing—nothing but darkness and the same damp cellar.
Dim light from outside my prison showed shadows moving along the wall. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, and I knew someone was there, watching us.
The whispers and ghosts became my company, taunting me. Dared me to fight, to survive this horror. Hours, days, weeks, months… They were so long and they all blurred together. The only thing that kept me going was Amara’s pulse. I checked it every morning and every night. It was my reason to keep on fighting.
Shivers and the clattering of Amara’s teeth pierced through the nightmare, and I focused on that noise. I focused on shielding her ears from the screams tearing through the hallway, splitting my skull and heart in two.
But I kept her little ears shielded, humming a song and praying it was the only thing she’d ever remember of this hellhole if we got out.
Another creaking sound and the door opened with a loud, metal clang.
The nightmare itself—in flesh and blood—appeared at the cell door. He didn’t come alone, his reinforcements right behind him.
Perez came forward, his footsteps loud against the bare concrete, his evil grin and calculating eyes on the girl in my arms, and a scream tore from my throat. He reached out and yanked my daughter away, throwing her on the filthy twin bed. I clawed and fought, desperate to get to her.
“Stop fighting,” he purred, and my eyes locked on the little body sprawled on the mattress.
“If you get c-close to her, I’ll k-kill you.” My voice shook as violently as my body.
“You are a spitfire.”
He watched me with such a disgusting thrill in his eyes, projecting all kinds of images into my mind of the ways he could defile me. Or even worse, Amara.
“Fuck you,” I spat.
By now, I should know better than to engage with him. The man liked the challenge too much, and I walked right into his trap.
“What did you say?” Perez drawled, his voice dripping with venom.
“Fuck you,” I repeated, nausea tilting my stomach. I was hungry, and I knew Amara was too. “Get any closer and I’ll end your miserable life.”
Out of nowhere, he produced a switchblade and was on Amara in a heartbeat. He opened and closed it, then pressed the sharp tip of it to her neck.
Amara cried and whimpered, her innocent eyes darting back and forth. She was too young to understand what was happening but old enough to know she was in danger.
“Get away from her,” I screamed, dropping to my knees and crawling to her despite the chains that limited my movements. It earned me a slap across my face. One of his men kicked me and a yelp tore from my mouth. My back pressed flat against the stone wall, watching and waiting until I could strike him with a deadly blow.
One word, over and over again, rang in my ears. Kill, kill, kill .
As if Perez could read my thoughts, he gave a nod to one of his men who closed the distance to my daughter’s bed and reached down, his big palm clutching her little throat and lifting her in the air. She choked and cried, but she was only a kid. She was no match for him.
“Please,” I cried, reaching for my daughter as Perez restrained me, almost ripping my right arm out of its socket as he jerked me back. “Please, please… leave her alone.”
He laughed, his dark eyes gleaming with malice. “Your weakness.” He tutted. “Foolish to let me see it.”
Perez liked to toy with his victims. He enjoyed their suffering, which was why I’d stopped fighting when he tortured me long ago. But not her. She was only two years old—and she was sick.Her liver was slowly failing, and each day without medicine was making her weaker.
If I ever got out of this hell, I vowed I’d never beg anyone for anything. I’d become the mirror image of my mother, the great Sofia Volkov, and send terror through any man who dared to touch me or cross me.
“She still has some organs that work,” Perez taunted. “Let’s see what we can do with those.”
Terror shot through me and I yanked on my bindings, screaming. “Touch her and I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you.”
I was slammed against the rough wall. The air whooshed out of my lungs and unshed tears burned in my eyes as I prayed for someone—anyone—to save us.
My reason told me nobody would.
Not my sister. Not my mother. Nobody.
When I let these evil men believe I was Louisa, taking her place in the sick arrangement my mother’s lover had made with Santiago, I held out hope that my sister would come for me.
Instead, I was left to suffer alone.
Until they broke me. Until Amara came along.
“We can use her organs,” Perez spat, his eyes locked on Amara’s frail body. “She’s not good for anything else.”
Letting the adrenaline into my system, I let out a battle cry and threw myself at Perez with fisted hands, ignoring my aching joints that yanked against chains. I was powerless, chained like an animal, but it didn’t stop me from trying to kill him.
“You evil son of a bitch,” I screamed, slamming my fists into his face over and over again. His guards’ attention now focused on me, Amara was left alone.
Blood pooled from my nose. Tears blurred my vision.
But I refused to stop.
I wouldn’t stop until I took my final breath, which might be sooner rather than later at this point.
“Hold this wildcat still,” Perez said acidly, a sinister grin on his face. “Apparently she hasn’t learned her lesson yet.”
One of the guards pulled me back, slamming me against the stone wall of the cell, when he suddenly fell to the ground. Dead.
“What—”
Another body fell. And another. Perez was the last one to drop, unconscious.
My knees buckled and hit the filthy floor, shudders tearing through my body like a hurricane. I blinked over and over again, my blurry vision refusing to clear up.
“Amara,” I rasped, but there was no answer.
“She’s out cold.” I stiffened at hearing an unfamiliar voice. Was it another guard? What did he want from us? As if he could read my thoughts, he added, “I won’t hurt you. I’m getting you out.”
His words trailed off as he brushed my hair off my forehead.
I reeled from his touch, blinking profusely as he slowly came into focus. An older man with eyes that were almost… kind. Too kind? I’d learned to be skeptical, and he was no exception, no matter what he claimed.
“Don’t touch me,” I rasped. “If you’re going to help us, do so. But don’t ever fucking touch me.”
He blew out a breath.
“At least your spirit is still intact,” he said, releasing me from my chains. “Can you walk?”
I grunted, shifting and then straightening up in answer. Every inch of me hurt, but I ignored the pain. I would crawl if it meant getting us out of here.
On unsteady feet, I made my way to Amara, her complexion deathly pale. My heart trembled in fear as I reached out to touch her pulse. I held my breath for one, two, three seconds… There it was. Faint, but steady.
I bent over to lift her into my arms when the stranger stopped me midway.
“We’ll be faster if I carry her and you follow behind.” Mistrust shot through me as I hesitated. He must have seen it on my face because he sighed. “There will be more guards coming, Liana. We don’t have time to move at a snail’s pace.”
Shock vibrated through me. “I’m Louisa,” I spat.
“We both know you’re not.” He leveled me with a look. “Although honestly, it doesn’t matter which Volkov twin you are.”
My head spun, dizziness overwhelming me from the fatigue of the struggle and days of no food. But I wasn’t ready to put Amara’s safety into another man’s hands. Not without knowing something about him.
“Who are you?”
“Kian Cortes,” he answered swiftly, which made me pause. Is he telling the truth? It all felt too good to be true.
“Why are you saving me?”
“Because it’s The Syndicator’s will.”
I frowned. I had never heard that term. “You mean the kingpins? The Syndicate?”
He chuckled. “No, that’s not what I mean.”
“Tell me something nobody knows about you,” I finally said, tasting blood in my mouth. “Or I’ll kill you.”
A heartbeat passed as he watched me somberly.
With a cold determination on his face, he said, “If you share this with anyone and betray me, I will punish you.” I swallowed, nodding my agreement. “Two decades ago, Emory DiLustro’s mother and I were going to disappear together.” Something I couldn’t quite distinguish flashed across his expression. “Anyhow, I promised her that I’d watch over her daughter. I failed eight years ago; I won’t today. I’m getting you and this kid out of here.”
“That’s not much of a secret.” I frowned. “Besides, Gio DiLustro, her husband, would have come after you.”
“DiLustro would have failed, because nobody can come after The Syndicator.” He underestimated Gio’s obsessive, albeit crazy personality. state. That man hated losing anything, especially women. “Now you know my secret, Liana Volkov. Betray me and?—”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence.
“I won’t,” I vowed. “But my daughter?—”
His tone was soft when he spoke next. “She’s not yours, Liana.”
“She’s my daughter,” I hissed, not bothering to correct him about my name again. “Mine.”
He tilted his head, the pitying look in his eyes telling me he knew everything. She wasn’t mine, at least not for long. Not without a new liver. He knew it. I refused to acknowledge it.
“With Gio alive, it’s safer that Amara is with you,” he finally said, then added, “For now.”
No, not for now. Forever.
But I kept those words to myself and instead, ignoring the pain in my body, I straightened my back and pinned him with a stare. “How can I be sure this isn’t just another one of Perez’s twisted games that you’re playing?”
“I guess you can’t be.”
I closed my eyes, Amara’s vulnerable state heavy on my mind. I didn’t have a choice but to trust this man, if for nothing else but her survival.
With that thought, I focused on the objective: getting Amara somewhere safe.
“We need to go,” I finally said, and for the next two hours, Amara and I sat in the back of an old army Jeep, our teeth rattling with every bump on the dirt road. Two hours of silence, Amara fast asleep while I kept a watchful eye on Kian Cortes.
“Where are you taking us?”
“I have a remote safehouse in Venezuela.”
I stiffened. “Y-you… are you taking us back to Santiago?”
No way was I going back to that monster. He’d be no better than Perez and just as detrimental to Amara’s life.
“I’m not,” he answered, parking the Jeep, then coming around to open the door. I didn’t dare to look around, fearful that my supposed good luck was about to come to an end. All my attention was on the man who got my daughter and me out of the hellhole in which we were destined to die.
“Why did you stop?”
“We’re going to check in to the hotel on the other side of this vineyard.”
“Why?”
“So you and the kid can get cleaned up while we wait for new documents for both of you. You’re going to start a new life in Venezuela, hiding in plain sight.”
I studied our surroundings. “Where are we?”
“Still a day or two away from our destination.”
“What about the car?”
“We’re going to take a different car from here.”
“Why?”
“So we look less conspicuous,” he said in a semi-exasperated, semi-resigned tone. “Driving into Venezuela in this Jeep will draw unwanted attention.”
“Why?”
He shook his head, then smiled at me. “Is that your favorite word?”
“I wouldn’t say so, no,” I admitted. “But I don’t trust you.”
He took Amara, who still hadn’t woken up, from my arms, and started walking northeast, glancing over his shoulder. “Then you better keep up, or I’ll be too far from you with the only bargaining chip you have.”
I scooted out of my seat and walked speedily toward him, ignoring the throbbing ache in every inch of my body.
“Amara isn’t a bargaining chip,” I said after a few minutes. “And those who dared hurt her will regret ever living.”
He stopped, then turned to pin me with a disapproving look. “Vengeance is poison, girl. Only fools drink from that cup.”
“What other options do I have?” I sneered. “Seeking justice? That’s a fairytale that I can’t afford. But vengeance… vengeance burns and devours. Vengeance satisfies.”
If only I knew then how much truth there was to Kian’s words.