Chapter 23 Drowning
Drowning
Anton:
I left the hospital as gray dusk threatened rain.
I spent twenty hours watching Fee drift in and out of consciousness while Eden monitored her vitals. During those hours, I told her I loved her, even when I wasn't sure she could hear me.
Her scent still clings to my shirt, jasmine shampoo, and beneath it, the wine-sweet warmth of her skin. I breathe it in as Ruslan settles into the passenger seat, his medical bag secured between his feet.
Six months I waited. Six months getting my head right, my heart ready, building a life where I could offer Fee something besides violence and late-night disappearances.
Then I finally asked her out.
Then, a boutique shooting, kidnapping, drugs, and a psychopath planning to reprogram her mind. I'm not superstitious, and I hope to God Fee isn't either, because if this were an omen, I'd be the worst fucking bet she ever made.
So here's what happens. I kill every threat, starting with Kirill. Then I take Fee on that date. It'll be somewhere elegant where the wine isn't followed by gunfire and the only thing I'm killing is time.
She made me want to live again. The moment I saw her, I knew. That fire in her eyes, that sharp mind, the way she doesn't flinch from who I am.
Kirill hurt her. Planned to destroy everything that makes her Fee. He'll suffer for it.
The leather steering wheel is cold under my grip. Fresh stitches pull along my left arm when I shift gears, a reminder of how close Kirill's knife came to my throat before I trapped his wrist.
"She's going to be fine," Ruslan says, breaking the silence.
I nod once, keeping my eyes on the dark road ahead. Rain taps against the windshield in an uneven rhythm, like nervous fingers drumming on a table.
"Anton." Ruslan's voice has that edge that means he's about to say something I won't like. "The drugs Kirill gave her, they're not just compliance drugs."
The tension spreads through my chest like dark mist through my veins. "What else?"
"They're part of a three-stage protocol. First, disorient; then rebuild; then bind. Eden found traces of specific compounds in her bloodwork."
"Speak plainly."
"He was going to reprogram her. Slowly. Until she believed whatever he told her to believe," Ruslan says.
"He was going to trap her inside her own mind. Make her a prisoner who couldn't escape." The leather steering wheel creaks under my grip. My vision narrows, darkens at the edges.
"Yes."
The world narrows to one clear thought.
"It's a good thing I didn't kill him on the dock. He's going to regret every second he spent planning this," I say. "How long would it have taken?" My voice sounds foreign even to me. Flat. Empty. The voice I use right before I pull the trigger.
"Full conditioning? Three weeks. Maybe four." He pauses. "She would have fought it at first. Every dose would have felt like drowning. But eventually, her brain would have rewired itself. Self-preservation. The mind protects itself by accepting the new reality."
"She would have believed anything he would have said? Do anything he asked from her?"
"Yes."
Kirill wanted to chemically lobotomize the woman I love until her brilliant mind became his puppet show. He doesn't get to die for that. He gets to suffer.
The wipers cut through the rain. The dashboard clock reads 7:13 PM. Hours of darkness ahead. Perfect.
The warehouse comes into view through the downpour, a hulking shadow against the bruised sky. I pull up to the gate and roll down the window. Cold night air hits my face, carrying the scent of industrial decay.
The guard recognizes me instantly. He nods and opens the gate without a word.
"Is everything in place?" I ask as we start moving into the abandoned warehouse's parking lot.
"Yes. Lorenzo has already started with Aleh. Dislocated every joint: shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles. He looks like a rag doll. Then he broke what was left to break that wouldn't kill him. Methodical enough."
He shifts his medical bag. "After that, he used a car battery.
Electrical burns across the chest, inner thighs, genitals.
Lorenzo wanted him to feel pain like contractions.
The current stopped his heart twice. I had to restart it.
" Ruslan's ice-blue eyes meet mine. "The compounds are keeping him conscious, but he won't last eighteen hours.
Maybe twelve with that level of trauma."
A pause.
"I gave Kirill something that allowed him to speak. But he said something about Moira." That thin smile appears. "Lorenzo removed two fingers with bolt cutters. Left index and middle. Clean cuts, minimal blood loss."
I look at Ruslan, and before I can say anything, he continues.
"Lorenzo wanted Kirill's tongue. Would've been poetic, silencing the mouth that threatened her.
But tongue wounds bleed like a severed femoral.
He'd be dead in four minutes. Lorenzo told him he was leaving him for you.
So he's intact. Mostly. Everything that matters, anyway.
After that, I left to meet you at the hospital.
Lorenzo and his torturer are keeping Kirill alive for you. "
"Good."
My phone vibrates.
Yuri's message lights the screen: I'm in. Kirill ran this operation by hiring local muscle and brought only Aleh with him. Confirmed that the two Armenians work for Gregor Markov, aka Grigory Markov.
Me: Found Markov?
Yuri: Working on it.
Me: Thank you, brother.
Yuri refused to rest. Said he was good enough to do the job from his hospital bed, one hand holding his side while the other flew across his keyboard.
Dimitri's been at Hartley's brownstone, assisting Yuri in accessing Kirill's network through the computers left at the house.
"I need something special for Kirill," I tell Ruslan as we step out into the rain.
"The same compound he planned for Fee, but modified.
I want him to experience what she would have felt, the disorientation, the drowning sensation.
But amplify the pain receptors. And most importantly, distort his perception of time. "
Ruslan nods, already understanding. "A day will feel like a week."
"Good." My voice drops lower. "And support his body so it doesn't give up. I want him to be aware of all of it."
The warehouse door scrapes open, revealing a space lit by harsh industrial lights. The concrete floor glistens with puddles of water and something darker.
And then I see them.
Aleh hangs from the ceiling like a broken marionette, his limbs bent at impossible angles.
Every joint dislocated, bones visible through bruised flesh.
His face is a swollen mass of purple and red, eyes nearly sealed shut.
Blood trickles from his nose, his ears, the corners of his mouth.
The electrical burns form a spiderweb pattern across his chest, angry red lines that disappear beneath the waistband of his torn pants.
Lorenzo has transformed him into a living anatomy lesson of what the human body can endure without dying.
Beside him, suspended by heavy chains but physically intact save for the missing fingers, is Kirill. Meat hooks hang from the ceiling nearby, their curved points gleaming under the lights.
Kirill's eyes find mine, glassy from whatever Ruslan gave him earlier but still defiant.
"Finally...the ghost arrives." His voice is raspy, slurred. "Come to avenge your little virgin? She was so beautiful when she slept. So trusting."
I ignore him and turn to Ruslan instead, who has started preparing. Kirill ignores him, and he keeps talking to me.
"She told me things, you know," Kirill continues, desperate to provoke a reaction. "Your precious Fee. About her fears. Her dreams. For months, while you thought you were watching her, she was talking to me, to Phoenix."
I smile at his weak attempt to wound me. I saw the conversations Fee had with Phoenix. "You want to talk about Fee? Fine. But first, let me tell you about Vadim."
Ruslan starts lowering him. I close the distance until I'm standing over him, close enough that he can smell the coffee on my breath.
"Your brother was scum. He wasn't just stealing from the Basovs; he was a liaison to the sex trafficking ring here in the city using the Basov ports."
Kirill looks at me, directly in my eyes.
"The operation moved girls as young as thirteen across state lines," I continue. "Some of them never made it to their destinations. Your brother sold them like cattle."
His breathing quickens, pupils dilating. "You killed him."
"And I'd kill him again without hesitation. Sex trafficking children, that's an automatic death sentence. No negotiations."
"You don't understand. He protected me and our mother. That money—"
"—came from selling children. You should've stayed hidden with your mother. Should've used that brilliant mind for something besides revenge." I tap my temple. "But you couldn't let it go, becoming what killed your brother."
"Vadim told me the money was good," Kirill says. "Said he was protecting us. Our mother. That the jobs were clean, simple transport." A laugh rattles in his chest. "I believed him. For years, I believed him."
"And when you learned the truth?" I keep my voice flat.
"I was already in the business." Kirill's eyes hold mine. "Already had blood on my hands. Already understood that some lines, once you cross them..." He pauses, swallows. "You can't uncross them. You can only decide if it was worth it."
"So you kept going."
"Seven years is not a long time to build a successful international organization from nothing.
" His defiance shifts into something colder.
More honest. "The Volgograd Brotherhood doesn't exist without those contracts.
Without that specific revenue stream. It's surprising how much money a man will pay for a particular type of merchandise.
And how many men are willing to pay it."
The clinical detachment in his voice is worse than any rage.