Chapter 25 - Avraam
“Take me instead,” I shout, demanding he let Ruslana go and do whatever he wants to me. “Take me. I’m the one you want.” I mean it with every fiber in my body. If it’s a choice between me and her—it should be me.
“I never wanted you, you fucking arrogant fool. She is what I wanted from the beginning. You should never have interfered with my plans.”
Royce is furious with me. He can barely hide the shake of anger in his voice.
“Well, I did interfere. So you have every right to be angry with me—so take me instead. Let her go.”
“I don’t want a weak fucking asshole like you. I watched you—I watched how you became soft at the hands of this girl. This piece of nothing.” He shakes her roughly.
My heart clenches and my anger surges. He’s hurting her. He was already hurting her by the looks of things, and I don’t even want to imagine what he had planned to do to her.
Behind him on the floor, I can see her clothing, cut up and lying in shreds. I clench my jaw. Focus . Keep your eyes on him.
All I have to do is keep his attention on me for long enough that Renat can sneak around the back. Just keep him focused in this direction.
“It’s not weakness, Royce. Its compassion. Emotion. We are human. We all have it.”
He shakes his head, “It’s fucking weakness and people like you should be harvested from the earth. Only the strongest should be allowed to live on.”
He’s a fucking lunatic. How am I supposed to maintain a conversation with a complete lunatic?
My eyes catch Ruslana’s and urgency fills me. I will do anything for her. That’s all I need to remember.
Next to me, Rodion looks like he wants to burn the world to the ground to get to his sister. He is shifting his weight from foot to foot. He’s ready to erupt, go crazy, do something rash. But both of us have to play it cool.
The sight of Ruslana, looking so vulnerable, so exposed—it’s painful to see. She is crying, but on her face is a look of defiance. She is a survivor. A fighter. She is strong.
She was already trying to escape when we arrived. She wouldn’t go down without a fight.
“Why did you kill my men—and the Kuznetsov’s men? Why kill them if all you wanted was the girl?”
“I had to keep you idiots occupied,” Royce huffs annoyed by questions that have obvious answers.
A little more time.
I need to give us a little more time.
“You can’t get away, Royce. Just let her go. We have you surrounded. There are too many of us. You can’t expect to fight all of us.”
He laughs, loud and bitter, the sound echoing in the basement of the warehouse. “I don’t need to fight all of you. I can just kill her.” He presses the knife harder against her soft skin and I wince, watching the blade slide into her—shallow, but drawing blood.
I look away, unable to maintain control if she is in pain.
Thank fuck he brought her here. Of all the places in the world.
I haven’t used this place in months, but he clearly didn’t know I had a movement trigger system set up and a camera system.
When the beams were triggered I got a notification, and I knew it had to be him. No one else but my people know about this place.
Thank fuck we found them in time.
It looks as though we only just made it.
But she isn’t out of danger yet.
“She’s just one girl,” I say to him. “Why do you care so much about one girl?”.
“All of you are here to save one girl. One, useless, fucking bitch of a girl. What is wrong with the men today? Don’t you know that they control us? They manipulate us. Women are only good for one thing and we should take it. It’s time for us to take control of this place again. We can’t let—“
His rant is dragging on but it’s perfect. It’s all the time we need.
Renat comes from behind and swings the hammer at Royce’s head. It connects against his skull with a loud crack and Royce lets go of Ruslana.
I leap forward, running towards her, Royce staggers and pulls a gun out from inside his jeans.
He sways and clutches his head with one hand, but the other hand is lifting towards Ruslana. Even now—even when he’s in pain—his only thought is to kill her.
He aims his gun at her and fires a shot.
I grab her body and spin her, turning my back towards Royce and shielding her—the bullet slams into my back and the air is punched from my lungs.
We both fall to the floor and gunfire erupts in the enclosed space of the basement making it sound like a war zone.
I keep Ruslana tight against me, only lifting my head once the shooting stops.
Her brothers have killed him.
His body is shredded with bullets, lying lifeless and still in a growing pool of his own blood.
His eyes are staring blankly up at the ceiling, empty and cold. But the strange thing is—and I only realize it for the first time when I look at him now—his eyes were always that empty. There was never any heart or soul in his gaze. It is what made me so wary of him.
But not wary enough.
I should have trusted my gut and gotten rid of him ages ago.
“Ruslana?” I whisper her name and she lifts her head, her eyes locking with mine.
I see fear, and relief in her gaze.
“You found me,” she whispers and I swallow hard, fighting tears of relief. “I found you,” I say, hugging her against me again, holding her so tightly—as though I might never get to hold her again.
Rodion’s voice booms through the room.
“Ruslana, are you ok?” he asks, leaning over us.
I feel her being tugged away from me and I let go, knowing I can’t fight this. Knowing her brothers will take her with them.
When I move, I realize I’m in pain. It’s shooting through my side and there is warm, sticky blood running down my hip.
I look towards Ruslana.
In the confusion, in her shock, she hardly says anything at all as they lead her away from Royce’s corpse and whatever horrors happened in this basement today. As they lead her away from me.
Rodion removes his jacket and wraps it around her shoulder while I stand up, wincing and gasping.
I’m frozen in place, feeling numb. Overwhelmed by everything that’s happened and the idea of losing her.
I watch her disappear through the door. Out of my sight.
Renat slaps me on the shoulder. “Thanks for keeping him occupied,” he sighs.
“Yeah. Sure,” I mumble back. Pressing my hand over the bullet wound on the front side of my body.
“Oh, fuck, sorry man,” Renat says, seeing the blood. “It looks like it went clean through you. You better get that seen to.”
I nod, “Yeah. I’ll get it sorted.”
I follow him up the stairs, out to where we parked the cars.
Ruslana is already gone.
They piled her into that car and drove her out of here at full speed.
She’s gone and I doubt I will ever see her again.
I sway, unsteady on my feet. I must have lost more blood than I thought.
I hear Renat saying something, then he pushes me into the passenger side of my own car.
I’m in and out of consciousness as he drives me to the hospital. One of his brothers is following us.
Outside the hospital, they leave me in front of the emergency section. I watch them, in a daze, as they drive away in their own car.
At least they brought me here. They didn’t leave me to die.
Knowing that I am the one who kidnapped their sister I would have expected them to just let me bleed to death.
I drag myself into the emergency entrance and nurses rush towards me shouting medical terms I don’t know.
My body is lifted onto a hospital bed.
She’ll be ok.
That’s the last thing I think before I pass out completely.
She’ll be ok.
***
“He’s waking up,” a voice drifts past me.
I open my eyes and take a deep breath. The steady beep of a heart monitor sounds above me.
“Hey there, we were worried about you for a bit—but you’re doing great,” a woman in a white jacket says, smiling broadly.
“Where am I?” I mumble.
“You are in the League City Hospital. You were brought in yesterday with a bullet wound. Surgery was successful. We stopped some heavy internal bleeding, and the bullet went through and through—just missing some vital organs I might add—but all in all you are going to be fine.”
I sigh and try to sit up but pain shoots through my side.
“You might want to move a little slower,” she laughs.
“When can I go home?” I say in annoyance. I hate hospitals.
“You need a few days of proper care, we need to keep an eye on you. Then you can go home.”
I roll my eyes, sinking back into the bed.
The days roll by and the pain in my side gets a little better, but my heart is aching in ways I can’t describe.
I miss her terribly.
I don’t think I have ever missed someone like this before.
I should be happy that she’s safe. That is all that should matter to me, but it’s not. I want to see her.
Every person who walks past my hospital room door sets my heart jumping because I keep waiting for her to walk through it. I know it’s a stupid hope—but I can’t let it go. I want to see her so badly.
On the fourth day, the doctor very reluctantly signs my release papers and lets me go home under very strict orders that I have to rest.
I thought that coming home would make things easier—that being here would at least feel familiar—but the moment I walk through the door I can smell her scent and my heart aches inside me.
She’s not here anymore and never will be again.
And now this house feels like an empty shell of what it used to be.
But, despite my heartache, a massive smile spreads across my face when Dex comes limping towards me.
“Hey old man,” he laughs, gesturing over my slow movements.
“Speak for yourself,” I laugh back. “How are you feeling?”
He pats his side where the knife almost pierced straight through his kidney. “Yeah, it hurts, but I’m good.”
“I thought I told you to stay home and rest.”
“Yes, but I heard you were coming home today, and I wanted to just stop in, say hello, check in on you—my wife made brownies which I left in the kitchen. I’m just happy you’re ok man,” he says with a warm smile.
“You too, Dex. You too.”
He sits with me for about an hour, talking about what happened, eating brownies and drinking coffee—then he heads back home to his family and I am alone again.
Days drift by and I can’t stop thinking about her. I can’t even work because I have been forced to take time off to heal. There is nothing to distract me. Dex visits, but the visits are short because both of us are healing.
Day by day I am stronger, feeling better, but my heart is aching.
After two weeks I feel almost fully back to my old self, I just need to add in some gym time to rebuild my lost strength. But nothing is motivating me, and nothing feels right without her.
I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I don’t know how to get over this.