Chapter 4 Ransom
RANSOM
The shots hit their mark, and the three of us move as a unit into the room. We’ve done shit like this enough times that we’ve learned how to work as a tight team.
Vic does a quick sweep of the room, making sure there are no threats lying in wait for us. That’s his usual job, making sure the way is clear, and clearing it if it needs to be handled.
“We’re good,” he calls out.
Malice strides forward and grabs Nikolai up from where he slumped over the bed, revealing that he fell on top of a girl. She’s in a ripped nightie, which is covered in bright red blood now.
“Get the fuck up,” Malice snarls, hauling Nikolai off the mattress and hurling him into a corner of the room.
The large man slumps down to the floor, leaving a trail of blood along the wall. He’s hurt badly, but he’s not dead yet, his chest heaving with labored breaths. His eyes are open, and although they’re hazy, there’s enough life there for him to realize what’s going on.
His hand starts to move, likely going for a weapon, but Malice is right there. He lashes out before Nikolai can do anything more than palm the knife that he had tucked into his pants, kicking the blade away and then stomping on Nikolai’s hand for good measure.
The sound of bones crunching under my brother’s boot rings out in the room.
Nikolai’s nostrils flare, but he doesn’t cry out in pain.
It’s obvious he’s the kind of guy who was born and raised in this kind of shit. Getting hurt, living on the knife’s edge. But he’s probably way more used to being the hunter, not the hunted.
Malice leans down and grabs Nikolai by the hair, his fingers curling among the short strands close to the scalp. He yanks the guy’s head up and looks him right in the eye.
“Do you remember Diana Voronin?” he spits.
Nikolai’s chest heaves with a rattling breath, but he doesn’t say anything. He narrows his eyes at Malice, looking like he’s about to spit at him.
Before he can so much as gather the saliva in his mouth, Malice stomps down on his hand again, harder this time, grinding his boot down even more.
Pain flashes across Nikolai’s face, and he bares his bloodstained teeth, breathing hard.
“I asked you a question, asshole,” Malice snaps.
“Mal,” I call, tossing him a knife. “A guy like this has probably killed plenty of defenseless women in his day. Maybe he just needs you to jog his memory.”
Malice takes the knife and bends down, anger and the thirst for violence radiating off him. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” His voice is soft. Dangerous. “Maybe he just needs a reminder.”
He cuts down the front of Nikolai’s shirt, exposing his skin. The man is pale as fuck, scarred and tattooed, although he doesn’t have anywhere close to the number that Malice has.
“I’d carve her fucking name into your skin,” Malice growls. “But you’re not worthy to carry it.”
Instead, he puts the knife against Nikolai’s chest and just starts carving lines down it, biting deep enough that blood wells to the surface immediately.
Nikolai roars, and it’s hard to tell if it’s him finally breaking from the pain or if he’s just pissed off. Either way, it’s not like it matters. There’s only one way this is all going to end.
I step closer, entering his field of view, and his feral eyes flip over to me.
“Diana Voronin,” I repeat. “She was a nurse. About this tall.” I hold my hand up, at about average height. “Dark brown hair, bright green eyes. She had a smile that she gave to just about anyone. Ringing any bells?”
“Fuck you and the bitch, whoever she is,” Nikolai bites out, his accented voice thick with pain.
Malice drives the knife in deeper, stabbing him right near his armpit on the right side.
I make a tsking noise with my tongue, shaking my head.
“Sorry. That’s the wrong answer. Let’s see if this works instead.
She was coming home from work one night.
She was a nurse, and she dedicated her life to helping people.
Someone shot her in the head.” I take another step closer, standing right behind Malice now.
“It wasn’t a stray bullet or an accident either.
It was right here.” I point between my own eyes, not looking away from Nikolai for a second.
“And at close range too, from what we learned from the report.”
“We know you did it,” Vic chimes in. He sounds as dispassionate as always, that tight control he keeps over himself intact even now while we stare down the man who killed our mom. “We want to know why.”
Nikolai glances between the three of us, and he looks fucked up. His eyes are bloodshot, and there’s blood bubbling from his lips when he finally speaks again. The bullets Malice put through his back probably punctured one of his lungs.
“I remember,” he rasps after a moment. “I do remember her. It was just business.”
“Business?” Malice demands, rage making him shake a little. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? She was our mother.”
“She was a loose end. She saw me doing… an assassination job, and I could not let her live after that. I killed her, yes. And I never thought about her again after. Do you shed tears for every piece of trash you throw away?”
It’s the exact wrong thing to say, and we all react to it. Malice grinds the knife in even deeper, and I clench my hands into fists, trying to breathe through the rage.
Our mother was a fucking angel. She was the best person I ever knew, and to this day, no one has ever come close to being as good as she was.
She was the one who would do everything she could to help someone in need.
She was the kind of mom who knew the best way to make us smile and wanted us all to be happy.
She was the last person who deserved to die the way Nikolai killed her.
We all loved her with everything we had, and hearing this fucker talk about her like this is enough to set us off.
Even Vic seems to be at the end of his rope. He walks forward, and he and Malice are right there in front of Nikolai, twin omens of doom. He rears back and then kicks Nikolai in the side, hard enough to shatter a couple ribs, probably.
Judging from the grunt of pain, that’s exactly what he was aiming for.
Malice pulls the knife out and drives it in again, twisting it a little.
That just leaves me. I hold Nikolai’s gaze as he takes all this torture and shake my head.
“You won’t even be good enough to be trash when we’re done with you,” I promise.
Between the three of us, we make him suffer. We take our time and we take turns, lashing out, delivering blow after blow.
I stomp on his other hand, and Vic breaks more ribs. When Malice lets Nikolai go, he ends up slumped over, breathing hard, trying to curl around his hurt places. So we give him a few more.
And then even more for good measure.
Malice stands over him when we’re done, and the look in his eyes would be close to feral if it weren’t so calculated.
He picks up a lamp with a heavy bronze base from the nightstand next to the bed and hefts it for a second, holding it in hand like he’s weighing it.
Then he brings it down hard on Nikolai’s head, crushing his skull with a crunch of finality.
The room rings with silence after that. The three of us stand shoulder to shoulder as we gaze down at Nikolai’s body, reveling in the death of the man who took something so precious from us.
Then a flash of movement catches my eye.
I glance over just in time to see the girl from the bed grab something from beneath the bed frame and dart toward the door. I almost forgot she was there in the heat of the moment, especially since she hasn’t made a damn peep since we burst into the room.
She’s fast, but I’m faster. Before she can escape, I grab her by the arm and yank her back.
Her clothes are skimpy and torn, and she’s drenched in Nikolai’s blood from being under him when he got shot.
She struggles wildly, trying to get away from me, and I hold her closer, pinning her to the front of my body with my arms.
“No. Please,” she whimpers, trying to wedge the rumpled coat in her hands between us so she can press against me. “Please!”
She tilts her head up a little as she works to free herself, and as I get a better glimpse of her tear-streaked face, I realize I recognize her. She’s the girl who ran into me the other night outside of Sapphire.
I remember thinking she looked upset then, but that’s nothing compared to how she looks right now.
Our struggle catches the attention of my brothers, pulling their focus away from the body on the ground to the petite one in my arms.
“Dammit,” Malice spits, narrowing his eyes at her.
The girl flinches at the harshness of his tone, shaking like a leaf in my hold.
Her face is pale, almost white from shock and fear, and fat tears run down her cheeks.
Her eyes are brown, but when the light hits them, little flecks of gold stand out in the dark depths, and it’s hard for me to look away for a second.
She looks so damned scared and broken down, and a part of me feels for her for having to see what we just did to Nikolai. She doesn’t even look like the usual kind of girl who would work in a place like this, and if it’s her first night on the job, that’s a hell of a first impression to get.
Those big, wide eyes lock with mine, and she freezes, recognition passing over her face as she realizes she’s seen me before too. We’re frozen like that for a second, and her wild thrashing slows as she blinks up at me.
Then the moment breaks, and the girl rips herself away from me, taking advantage of me being too distracted to hold on tight enough. She rushes for the door again, but Vic is there before she can get anywhere. He steps in front of the door, arms folded, his face set in a grim expression.
Off to the side, Malice raises his gun.
The girl immediately reacts, flinching hard and flattening herself against the wall like it’s going to protect her. Her chest is heaving, and she looks like a cornered animal, glancing around for anywhere she can hide herself.
Like this, I can see more of her. She’s got scars all up and down her right arm, and they look like the thick, deep kind left by something traumatic. There are more of them on her leg, disappearing up under the material of her torn slip, so I can’t tell how far they extend.
Her gaze flicks toward me while Malice holds that gun at her, pointing right at her head. There’s something in her eyes that calls to me, a look of hope, like she thinks I’m going to save her based on the little interaction we’ve had so far.
Fuck.
Usually, my brothers and I are a unit. We’re together on everything we do, and no one can come between us because we’re all on the same page.
But something about the look on this girl’s pale face makes me stop. It hits me harder than I expected, and before Malice can fire at her, I knock his arm out of the way, sending the bullet off target.
It slams into the wall next to the girl’s head instead, and she gives a little half scream, putting her hands over her face.
“What the fuck, Ransom?” Malice whirls around to look at me, his nostrils flaring.
“We can’t just kill her,” I say quietly.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look. That fucker…” I point down to the lump of flesh and blood that’s all that’s left of Nikolai now.
“He killed our mom because she was a loose end, right? Because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we kill this girl, we’ll be just like him.
” I glance over at Victor, who’s standing there with his arms folded, watching this all play out. “Back me up here, Vic.”
He just lets out a breath, not chiming in one way or the other. I get the feeling that he hasn’t picked a side yet, still running through a bunch of variables in his head.
Malice’s jaw tightens, and I watch several emotions play out over his face in quick succession. Rage is the primary one, but that’s just how Malice is, so it’s not a surprise. He’s clearly wrestling with himself, torn between our available options here.
“Come on, Malice,” I murmur. “You know I’m right.”
His nostrils flare with irritation, and he steps up to the girl, getting right in her face. The gun with the silencer on it is still aimed at her head, but his finger is looser on the trigger now.
“If you tell anyone what you saw, we’ll fucking kill you,” he tells her in a low voice. “No hesitation. No questions. No second chances. I don’t give a fuck what reason you have or who you tell. You open your mouth, and you’re dead. Got it?”
She nods, her eyes so wide and scared they’re taking up most of her face now.
He stands there for a second, taking her in, like he’s trying to figure out if she’s telling the truth or not. But even Malice, distrustful and angry as he is, can’t help but see the truth in the fear on her face. She’s clearly terrified of what might happen.
That makes him stand down just a little. Enough to take a step back, even though he keeps the gun aimed at her.
“What’s your name?” he demands.
The girl opens her mouth, and at first no sound comes out. Then she looks at the gun in Malice’s hand again and tries harder to find her voice.
“W-Willow,” she manages. “Willow Hayes.”
Malice looks over at Vic, and our brother nods.
“On it.” He types something into his phone, using that special skill he has for finding shit. A moment later, he nods, glancing back up. “That’s her. She’s telling the truth.”
Malice looks like he’s a second away from spitting on the ground and storming out, disgust and anger twisting his already sharp features. He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a rush, then steps back, lowering the gun at last.
For a second, the girl stays frozen in place, her legs trembling while she looks at him.
I clear my throat to get her attention, and when her gaze darts to me, I tilt my head toward the door.
“This is the part where you fly away, little bird,” I murmur.
That gets her in gear, and she flees for the door, scrambling to leave the room like she’s afraid Malice will shoot her in the back if she doesn’t go quick enough.
“Fuck,” Malice repeats, shoving his gun into the waistband of his pants.
I watch the girl go, dragging the piercing in my tongue absently between my teeth.
It might be a mistake to let her live, but I couldn’t just let Mal kill her.
We already killed the madame of this whorehouse, as well as the guard out front, and that’s not something I feel all that bad about.
But that girl was too sweet and innocent looking.
She wasn’t wrapped up in this shit like everyone else who died tonight.
“We should get back on track,” Victor says, putting his phone away. “We’ve wasted too much time already.”
“Right,” I agree with a nod, shaking my head to clear it. “Time to burn this sucker down.”
We split up, spreading kerosene throughout the brothel, getting ready to burn it to the ground to cover our tracks.