Chapter 29
TATI
They both left me here when the shooting started.
Yanov, then after a few minutes, my father followed, leaving me here, tied up in this dirty ass basement.
I can hear a commotion outside and upstairs, and I don’t know what’s happening, but I know that whatever’s going on, I’m not going to get another distraction like this again.
My arms are taped together behind my back and my legs are taped to the chair legs, but the chair isn’t nailed down. I can probably scoot this thing across the floor, meaning I’ve got a shot at getting out of this.
I can see the glint of a small knife on the table of torture devices just a few steps from me.
I just need to get to it. I just hope whatever is happening upstairs keeps happening long enough for me to get loose.
When Yanov and my father come back, they aren’t going to waste time trying to torture me. They’re going to kill me.
It’s tricky. The chair is heavy and doesn’t want to budge very far. I manage to lift myself up to standing and carefully, I start moving my legs toward the table, dragging the chair with me one inch at a time. God, this feels like it’s going to take for fucking ever.
I hear gunshots right over my head. Who or whatever is attacking has gotten in the house.
I hope to God it’s Viktor or the Red Devils or both.
What kind of shit luck would it be if it turned out to be one of my father’s rivals?
Like they couldn’t have picked a worse time to launch an attack on the brotherhood.
Whoever it is, I’m not about to stay here after all this and catch a bullet in whatever planned genocide they might have going on.
Or worse, I’m not about to be their big conquest for defeating the great Nikolai Aronin.
I’ve heard such stories of women and children unfortunate enough to live to end up being spoils in a Bratva war.
Usually, the protocol is to leave nothing alive.
And if whatever the offending brotherhood did was bad enough, entire bloodlines get wiped out no matter where they are in the world.
But sometimes they take hostages. Sometimes, the women have to suffer through a lot of terrible things before finally joining their families in whatever mass grave has been planned for them.
As I jump and scoot, a maddening giggle erupts from me. The irony of my dying here and the opposition achieving the destruction of Nikolai’s bloodline with a single bullet might be funny if I weren’t the pregnant daughter tied to this fucking chair.
I finally get to the table. The knife is only a few inches out of my reach.
Standing here with my ankles taped to a chair isn’t exactly how I imagined things would go, but here we are.
The chair is pressing against the edge of the table, so I’m only going to be able to twist so far to get my hands in range of the fucking knife.
Okay, so this is the hard part. Getting the thing in my hands. Shit.
I hear hard footfalls above me and furniture moving. A fight. Great. Just keep fighting, boys.
It takes me a couple of tries, but I manage to lean forward and get my hands over the back of the chair, then twist myself around until my hands are hovering over the table.
Trying to grab at the knife blind while twisting around is a lesson in flexibility and patience. Just before I reach a point where I think I’m just not going to be able to do it, my hands touch the smooth wood of the knife. Yes!
I grab it and turn back around, but I don’t sit. I’ve got to get my hands free first. I sigh and carefully flip the knife up and over until I feel the cold blade against one of my wrists. Let’s hope I can cut this tape without slicing my wrists open.
I press the blade to the tape and after a few seconds, I hear it tear. I’ve never been more thankful for a sharp torture knife in my life. It doesn’t take long for the tape to loosen enough for me to get my hands free. After that, it’s nothing to cut the tape around my legs.
And just in time, too. The door to the basement opens.
I dart into the shadows under the staircase.
When they come down, I’m going to dart up.
If they try to get me, I’m swinging this knife.
As I hunker down and wait, all I can think is that I don’t care who’s coming down.
If they come for me, I’m stabbing the fuck out of them.
Coming down the stairs dragging a body is my father. He’s got the person under the arms and as he moves down step by step, their feet hit each step with a thud.
A shaft of light catches the face of the person he’s holding, and I have to cover my mouth to stop the gasp from coming out. It’s Viktor. His eyes are closed and his head hangs limply as he’s dragged to the bottom step.
Nothing but fear swirls inside me. If my father was able to get him…
He gets to the bottom step and drops him on the floor, then looks around. The moment he sees the chair and discarded tape on the floor, he sighs. “Tatiana, I really don’t have time for your games. Come out here. Now.”
I’m practically holding my breath as he stands there, his head turning like a lighthouse spotlight as he looks for me.
He finally sighs, and I can hear how out of breath he is from dragging Viktor down here. My father isn’t out of shape by any means, but Viktor is a big guy. It’s no surprise that he’s winded. I’m actually surprised he was even able to achieve getting him down those stairs.
“He’s not dead,” he says. “Yet. But believe me, he deserves a bullet in the head for all this. Any other Pakhan would have ended him by now.”
My hands are sweating, making the handle of the knife slippery. I grip it harder, trying not to let it slip right out of my hands.
“You see, he’s like a son to me, Tatiana,” he says. “As much as Nikita was. More, in a lot of ways. I’m distraught by how far he’s fallen. By how far both my sons have fallen.”
He turns and looks down at Viktor, tilting his head as his eyes turn down in that way that makes him look regretful.
“If you want to watch him die,” he says in a measured tone, like it’s nothing, “stay where you are. However this works out, punishments must be dealt. If you insist on staying hidden, then yours will start with watching him die.”
He kneels down and grabs Viktor by the hair, lifting his lifeless body up to a sitting position. He reaches in his boot and pulls out a knife, pressing it to his throat.
I’m moving before I realize what I’m doing. “Stop,” I say as I step out from behind the shelves. My knees are shaking hard. “Please.”
He looks up at me and freezes, then his eyes turn to the knife in my hand. He doesn’t say a word, but I know what he’s thinking as he looks back up at my face. Drop the knife.
If I drop it, I’ll be defenseless. If I don’t, he’ll kill Viktor. I’m not a warrior like he is. I don’t even know how to shoot a gun, let alone handle a knife against my father. I don’t have a plan… How can I save Viktor?
Reluctantly, I let the knife fall from my hand. The sound it makes when it hits the floor rings like defeat—flat, hollow metal on concrete.
He nods at me and says, “Kick it over here.”
I do, and it slides across the floor until it’s a few inches from Viktor’s foot. He sighs and puts his knife back in his boot. “Now, was that really so hard?”
He stands and waves me over. I’m trying to will my feet to move. They feel frozen to the ground.
“Come on,” he says. “Don’t make me come to you.”
I get my feet to move and I walk to my father. To my death. There’s no way around it. He’ll never let me live after everything that’s happened. As soon as I’m close enough, he reaches out and grabs me by the back of my neck, yanking me to him.
“Stupid little girl,” he snarls at me in Russian. “After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve given you despite the sin you committed when you were born.”
A heavy pain shoots through my chest when he says that and my eyes start to burn with tears.
In all these years, I always suspected that he hated me because my mother died giving birth to me.
I’ve been lying to myself this whole time, trying to convince myself that no matter how cruel he was, he wasn’t a monster. Only monsters hated their children.
“I believed you were my punishment,” he says, a heavy sadness weighing in his eyes.
“A curse put on me for the evil that I’ve done.
” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it.
It sounds more like the prelude to weeping.
“You have been like a ball and chain around my neck, reminding me of the beast I’ve had to become.
Well, no more. It all ends tonight. With you dead, the curse I’ve been plagued with will finally be lifted. ”
“Please,” I say to him in Russian, hoping our native tongue will sway him. “Papa, please don’t do this. You’ll be killing your grandchild.”
“I’ll be sparing that child from a life of pain.” He tightens his grip on my neck and pushes me down. I fall to the floor and immediately start scrambling away from him. He walks slowly toward me, the light behind him darkening his face except for the shine in his eyes.
“Please, Papa,” I beg him. “Please don’t—”
He suddenly moves fast, rushing toward me and yanking me to my feet by my hair. I start screaming. The sound jumps out of me in panicked waves as he pins me to the wall and presses one forearm to my neck.
I claw at his arm as he leans into me and cuts off my air.
I try to scream, but nothing comes out but a strangled screech of panic and pain.
He looks into my eyes, leaning in as he snarls in Russian, “When you see your brother in hell, tell him it was I who sent you there. Tell him he was my greatest disappointment.”
The edges of my vision start to go dark as I start trying to kick him. My feet hit his body, but he doesn’t let me go. He’s determined to end my life…
And then one of my kicks connects hard and suddenly, the pressure lifts a little as he stumbles backward.
I scramble away as he yells in pain, grabbing his crotch.
Gasping for air and struggling to stand, I only get a few feet before he grabs at me again.
His hand grabs at my shirt, but I get away from him.
I stumble and fall, but the knife is just in my reach.
I grab for it, and my fingers touch the handle just as he’s grabbed my ankles and started pulling me backward toward him.
I roll, swinging the knife at him. The blade slices his face and he releases me, stepping back and covering his cheek with one hand. He looks at me with the wide-eyed shock of a man who wasn’t expecting for his child to fight him back.
I hold the knife out as I get to my feet.
My hand is shaking, but I’m keeping it as steady as I can.
Fear isn’t going to stop me. Through clenched teeth and a sore throat, I rasp, “If you want my life or the life of this baby, you’re going to have to fight me for it. I’m not giving it up to you willingly.”
Strangely, he smiles and says, “At least some part of my blood still runs through your veins.” He lunges at me and I swing the knife, slicing his hand.
He still manages to grab my wrist and hold the knife over my head.
I kick him hard in the shin. He winces, but he keeps a firm hold on me.
I kick him again and he grunts in paint, but he doesn’t let me go.
“Let me go!”
He twists my wrist hard, but I keep holding the knife until finally, he uses his other hand to pry my fingers from around the handle.
Once he’s gotten the knife from me, there’s a half-second of hesitation as his eyes flit off to the side to a point just behind me.
In one fluid motion, he turns me around, pressing the knife against my throat as he pulls me backward.
And then I see what he’s just seen. Viktor is awake and kneeling, his eyes trained on us.