Chapter 6
ALIK
Ihate you. She used the last of her strength to say those three words and I can’t stop thinking about it. She sounded so defeated. Her green eyes turbulent before she couldn’t keep them open anymore.
That was a week ago.
Dr. Ruiz has been here every day, morning and night, checking on the patient, monitoring her progress. Giving me increasingly suspicious looks when I can’t produce her name.
Marya. That’s what I’ve started calling her. A name pulled from the folklore of my childhood and one that suits the Pagano woman perfectly.
She is improving, the doctor tells me, but still incredibly weak. It’s impossible to say how long it will take her to recover from the torture that svoloch’ put her through. Her mind will no doubt take longer than her body.
After Marya passed out in my arms, her pulse rate continued to be erratic, her breathing too shallow for the doctor’s liking.
Ruiz has kept her mildly sedated since. I’ve tried to leave her in peace, to give her time to recover, but every night I find myself lingering by her bed and repeating her words in my head. I hate you.
Oh, moya voitelnitsa, as soon as you wake up, you’ll discover how hateable I really am.
There isn’t a single reason why I should care what she thinks about me. It shouldn’t even be a blip on my radar. But for some unfathomable reason, I can’t stop obsessing over it.
Me. One of the coldest, most ruthless Arkhangels my bratva has ever produced. The killer whose humanity was beaten out of him in boyhood. I am suddenly spending sleepless hours standing by this woman’s bed, anxious to know what version of her I’ll get when she finally wakes up.
The one with fire in her eyes and fight in her veins, the natural-born warrior, a flesh and blood Marya Morevna?
Or the one who seared me with a lifeless look, her soul as broken as her body, the victim of a villain more horrific than the monsters in fairytales?
She doesn’t want to be locked up here, I get it. But I’m not letting her go. It’s been more than a week since her uncle’s house exploded. I haven’t heard a word from Cosenza, and I haven’t found proof that Rocco Pagano is still alive.
If that fucker and the rest of his clan are dead, his niece is now my only shot at finding out where Rina went after Pagano sold her. Either she knows, or she knows someone who does, and she’s mine until I can get the truth from her.
Blyad! I dig my nails into the back of my neck. I’m losing my fucking mind. And my edge. First, I abort an Arkhangel hit, then I sabotage months of infiltration and, instead of taking Rocco Pagano from under his own roof, I kidnap this woman instead.
No, not kidnap. Rescue.
Not that she sees it that way. To her I’m just like her scum of the earth uncle. One jailer no better than the other.
The thought is worming its way under my skin, making it impossible to sleep. That, and she’s taken over my bed. I slept in a chair next to her the first night and I’m not making that mistake a second time.
Talk about losing my fucking mind. The last time my dick gave me this much trouble I was a sex-starved virgin.
Every time I step into this room, I have to keep the unruly bastard on a tight leash and even then I’m almost always half-hard.
Exactly why my visits are for informational purposes only. To confirm she’s still breathing.
I give Marya a final once-over, checking her IV and straightening the bed covers before I slip out of the room. My phone vibrates in my pocket as I hit the hall. A text from Cosenza. Fucking finally.
I feel my mouth twist into a cruel smile as I read his message.
Rocco Pagano is alive.
Cosenza has him in a secure location.
I’m going to get my knife into him after all. A preternatural calm settles over me. A sense that all is about to be right with the world.
At long last, the fucker is mine.
It’s late. Ruiz has come and gone. Marya’s deeply asleep. Excitement fizzles in my veins as I pull on my leather jacket, concealing the knife and gun I always keep strapped. I’m out the door seconds later, on my bike and headed to the pin Rem dropped.
February in Chicago has some real bite, but growing up in Novosibirsk has made me immune to the cold. My hands are in perfect working order when I park my bike behind Rem’s warehouse, my fingers itching to get to work.
“Valentin.” Rem nods when I enter the burned-out shell of a building. “Welcome to the party.”
“The invitation took fucking long enough.” I step around abandoned building materials to meet Rem and one of his men in the center of what looks like an overcooked restaurant. “Couldn’t find a place suitable enough?”
The Italian feigns a wounded look. “Is that what passes for manners in your country? Here’s a tip—you want a seat at the table, try not to offend the hosts.” The Cerreti underboss’s stance is relaxed but there’s a hardness in his expression that I’m not stupid enough to ignore.
We might share the same enemy, but we are far from friends. Pissing him off isn’t going to get me what I want. “Spasibo. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You do that. Now, if the pleasantries are fucking over, let’s get down to it. I’ve got better things to do than hang out with your ugly mug all night.” Rem nods at his man. I recognize him from our run-in at the symphony several weeks ago. “Johnny, grab Valentin’s party favor.”
Johnny disappears into a darkened part of the space, returning moments later dragging a huddled mass of a man behind him.
Rocco Pagano is tied at the ankles and wrists, wearing nothing but underwear, sweat, and what looks like a pint of his own blood. As Johnny dumps him at my feet I see there’s a cut on Pagano’s chest that’s still bleeding. “You got started without me.”
“Consider it a finder’s fee. The fucker has a lot of questions to answer and sins to pay for.” Rem kicks Rocco in the ribs. The man gurgles out a groan. “There’s still plenty to drain, don’t worry.”
“As long as he bleeds his secrets, I’m good.”
Rem gives me a long hard stare, like he’s trying to extract mine as well.
Let him try. My mask became a permanent fixture years ago; there’s nothing here for him to see.
“As long as you remember our deal, Russian. He’s yours for as long as you need to extract your intel, but you leave him alive. He’s mine to kill.”
“Da. I remember.”
“Benne. We’ll leave you to it. Another of my men will be stationed outside. He’ll lock up once you leave.”
“And check to make sure our friend is still breathing?”
Rem’s shrug is unapologetic. “Like I said. He’s got a lot to pay for.” With that he and Johnny leave.
Rocco’s head lolls against the concrete floor, eyes closed. I press the toe of my boot against his temple. His eyelids flutter then flare wide when he sees who is standing over him. “Y-y-you.”
My smile is nothing short of evil.
“F-fu-fucking traitor,” Rocco spits out. “I—I’mma…fucking…k-kill…you.”
A threat that’s dead on arrival. “And yet I’m not the one wearing more blood than clothing.”
“You f-fu-fucking s-sn-snake.” Rocco’s skull knocks the floor, his body twisting hard against his bindings. Movements that become even more panicked as I strip off my jacket and start to remove my shirt. “Wha-what the fuck? Wh-y are you stripping?”
“Getting ready to play.” I finish unbuttoning my shirt and yank the halves free from my pants. Rocco is thrashing now, face bruised and bug-eyed. He visibly jumps when I bend over him.
“Sick fuck,” he spits out. “Get a-away from m-m-me.”
I run a finger across his face, pressing against a particularly dark bruise, pleased when pain radiates off him. “No such luck, svolotsch’.”
“Pervert,” he spits out.
“Trust me, by the end of this you’ll be wishing I fucked you instead, you homophobic fuck.
” I ignore Rocco’s sputtered protest and grab the lengths of rope that Cosenza has helpfully left nearby.
The Italian’s sputters turn to curses as I fasten one length to his bound wrists and pull his arms taut over his head, anchoring the rope around an abandoned pile of flooring tile.
The curses turn to screams as I do the same thing with his bound ankles, tying the second rope to an industrial-sized gas stove several feet away.
When I’m done Rocco Pagano is strung tight, limbs pulled off the ground, body bowed under the tension.
His pulse is up, that cut on his chest bleeding faster than before. Like a beacon calling me. I finish stripping off my shirt. It’ll be easier to wash off pieces of Rocco Pagano this way.
That and the cretin at my feet needs to know who he’s dealing with. A truth that hits him when he sees my exposed chest and back. The elaborate ink that wraps across my spine, shoulder blades, ribs. The infamous markings of my bratva’s most feared assassin.
“Vaffanculo! No, no. You can’t be—”
“In the flesh.” I’ve freed my knife from its sheath. Tap it against his head, between bloodshot, terrified eyes. “And it’s time you and I have a little chat.”
I drag the tip of my knife down Rocco’s nose, chin, flabby neck, to just above the open wound on his chest.
“W-why? C-che cazzo! What d-d-do you want?!”
I use my knife to deepen that cut. To slip the edge of the blade beneath his skin. To peel it back like flesh from an overripe peach. To slowly, so very carefully, skin him alive.
I clamp my hand over Rocco’s mouth to muffle the screams. He asked a question; he needs to hear the answer. “You took someone from me. Now you have to tell me how I can get her back.”
It’s almost dawn when I get back to my apartment building. I managed to wash off most of Rocco’s blood and skin at Cosenza’s blown-out warehouse, but some is stubbornly stuck to my pants and under my nails. My brother says that’s why I should wear gloves, but then I’d lose feel for the work.
Extracting information is a precise skill. So is stripping someone down to muscle while keeping them alive. Which Rocco still is, despite how much he begged me to finish him off. As much as I would love to remove him from this planet, I’m not done with him yet.
I park my motorcycle in the underground garage and send a message to Cosenza confirming his captive is still breathing, that he needs a doctor, and that I need more time with him.
Before he passed out from the pain, Rocco only gave me enough information to confirm what I’d already guessed about Rina’s disappearance.
He still has questions to answer, like the name of the bastard he sold her to.
Those unanswered questions—my waking nightmares—are whipping through my head as I take the elevator to my floor.
The bloodletting should’ve calmed the animal clawing inside me.
Instead, I feel like I’m no closer to finding Rina than when I infiltrated Pagano’s organization months ago.
No closer to knowing what hell he and his partners put her through.
I’m deep in my own head when I open the apartment door. The hall is dark, just as I left it. The rooms beyond still, quiet. But the smell is different. I tense, forgetting for a split-second why the air is scented with coconut and lime.
Then I remember. It’s her shampoo.
Marya’s.
She’s what’s different. A beating heart in a place I’ve keep cold and solitary for as long as I can remember.
Neither of us want her here. But somehow, the fact that she is sets me off kilter, unusually eager to wash away the evidence of tonight.
I toss my jacket onto a hook, already on my way to the kitchen when I hear the sound. The slightest squeak. The shifting of weight. The rush of air as something comes down and cracks me across the head.
The thud of my skull hitting the floor.
Then nothing.