12. Vasiliy
One inch.
The blade dips into my bicep, denting the taut skin for a moment before my flesh splits open below.
Warmth drips down my arm, splattering to the ground in a soft tick, tick, tick.
I’m all too aware of the dwindling distance between that line of burning pain and the brachial artery lying one inch to the right.
With the astounding amount of blood dripping down the rungs of my metal chair and seeping into my pants, I’m forced to wonder if a single nick could bring me down.
It’s a consideration I didn’t have to worry about during my other stints in captivity. Not so much the death part—sometimes I think it’s a miracle I’ve made it this long.
I hiss out my next breath when that knife rips free, only to come down again. One centimeter away.
No, it’s the blatant ignorance that I find myself weighing.
My entire torso is littered with emotional decisions.
This interrogation has turned into a hack job only a true novice could accomplish.
My muscles strain as I watch the glint of the blade curve by the artery with a careless flourish.
The pain is easily separated, oil rising to the top of a water glass.
The risk is not.
“Do you know how difficult it is to organize a ransom?”
The man hovering above blocks out the streams of light.
It’s not until he takes a step aside that my eyes finally regain focus on his features.
I make a good show of looking over his entire form, from the tips of his boots, all the way up to his dark, pitted gaze that reveals every desperate thought swirling beneath.
I have to admit, some deranged part of me takes a small measure of pride seeing his formerly pristine leather boots sullied with splatters of my own blood.
“I can only imagine.”
Those red fingers grip the blade’s handle, which protests with a small creak.
It’s the truth, regardless of the goading effect it has on my captor.
When the Morozov Bratva picked someone up, you could be sure that the next time their faces were seen was when they were scooped out of the Moskva River in pieces and ID’d by lab technicians.
We weren’t really the catch-and-release type.
But we also didn’t take women.
No.
A lump forms under my next swallow. I can’t let myself think about her right now.
I need his focus to stay on me. The second I start dwelling on her, I’ll drown in unknowns.
Why do they want her? Who would benefit from her ransom?
If they’ve been doing their research, I have no doubt they could flip her over to a local skin trade on the black market for a quick buck, and yet, they seem wholly convinced she’d be worth more to someone else.
What would they do to her if that knife slipped just a little lower, and I bled out in this chair?
Stop.
“You’d think a simple picture would be enough to get at least one of the parties interested, I mean, everyone knows they’ve been looking for years…”
His rambling trail is difficult to follow through the sway of dizziness, but I force myself to pay attention. Maybe I was wrong about the centimeter. I always expected my death to be messy. I just didn’t expect to fight the pull.
“Maybe,” I clear my throat, ignoring its dry burn from the single word. “Maybe I should speak with my boss. Organize a trade-off. They’ll trust me.”
Shit, I don’t even know who this guy thinks I work for anymore. Siderov, Solokov, my uncle, or all three. It doesn’t really matter. Octavia was right. We need to get out of here before we run out of time.
Maybe, if I weren’t quite so distracted from blood loss and plotting, I would’ve anticipated the hit and tucked my chin.
Pain blooms across my cheekbone the moment my head snaps back. Warmth and salt fill my mouth. Blood, I realize, flicking my tongue over the cut ruptured by my own teeth.
“I don’t need your help,” he snaps, rubbing his own bleeding knuckles like I delivered the ache on purpose. “Stafford!”
The whining door answers his call. I don’t even need to glance up to pick apart which guard walks into the room. His familiar footsteps, heavy-footed and short, rumble the legs of my chair. My interrogator is already on his way out the door, still cradling his wrist from the hit.
“Move him back to the cage. I’m done for the day.”
With those parting words, the door on the other side of the room slams shut.
His heels click off into the distance. I kick out one tingling leg, trying to get some blood pumping back through my stagnant system.
It doesn’t really work—likely because there isn’t much blood left to pump.
It’s funny how inconsequential that sticky, warm solution seems when it’s spread across the floor.
For some reason, it didn’t feel inconsequential when it was dripping from Octavia’s arm in that clever offering. No, her blood felt devout. Something worth collecting on my knees and securing to an altar.
Something’s off.
I’m not sure exactly what it is. In fact, I’m not too sure about anything now. Each thought slugs along like a projectile fired underwater. The cage…where is the cage? I think I left something in it. I need to get back. I need to…
The weight of a boot shifts somewhere behind my chair, shoving me back into the present.
Octavia.
It’s the silence. That’s what’s bugging me.
The other guy, the leader, from what I can tell, is loud and boisterous.
Sure, he almost accidentally killed me with a moronic slice not five minutes ago, but I’ll take that over quiet any day.
Especially when there’s a snake coiling behind my chains, reveling in his freedom from surveillance.
I straighten as best as I can against the metal backing. Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think this specific guard has ever been allowed to handle us without an audience. Not since…
My chest clenches. Those heavy steps clip across the floor until the massive oaf passes right by my chair. Directly to the cage.
Not since Octavia stepped in front of me and bit a chunk out of that asshole’s neck.
My shoulders strain and twist, trying to catch a glimpse in the very direction I’ve refused to look in for the past hour.
“Hello again.”
My stomach sinks. I twist further away from the dangling yellow light. The chains bite into my skin, but I couldn’t give less of a shit. Not when I see the hulking, dark form stepping up to the bars of the cage. Stafford, I remember the others calling him.
Twisting, I catch another shadow, mostly concealed in the darkest corner of the cell.
Good girl. Stay back.
“What, you don’t feel like talking?” He clicks his tongue, folding his arms into his chest. The worst of my dizziness dissipates with the rising threat. “I thought you’d at least like to apologize.”
“Fat chance,” I hear a soft, high-pitched voice spit. My chains clatter against strain. Don’t antagonize him, I want to shout, but it would only drive his growing excitement.
An unpleasant laugh seeps into the air. “I can’t believe they’re all fighting over an untrained brat like you.
” His head tilts in consideration. Fuck.
Not good. But then those steps rumble once more, this time approaching me.
I can’t even celebrate the shift in direction because something about his entire game feels wrong.
“Maybe your friend, here, will volunteer to pay your penance?”
I’m nodding before his last word spills free from his lips. “I will pay your price.”
“No!”
To my horror, the small shadow launches up from the back of the cage, materializing into the light. Stupid fucking girl.
“I said I will pay it,” I repeat louder, straightening to twist even further toward the cage. One of my wounds reopens, spilling dark dribbles down my chest. I don’t even glance.
Without turning, Stafford freezes mid-step, lips twisting in a knowing smile when his eyes meet mine. He may not be the leader of this poorly run operation, but he’s much more calculating than the rest. Octavia’s bite seems to have launched some sort of fixation. He wants to play with his prey.
“No? Do you want to settle up, little lamb?” he asks, still facing me with that fucking smile.
Reaching over to the nearby stool, he plucks up the blade.
Red still coats the metal, not yet dry from his predecessors’ ministrations.
I shove my arm off the chair’s ledge, stretching it as far as it will go with the unyielding restraints.
“What will it be?” I lift my swollen wrist. “Do you want to finish what your boss couldn’t?”
“Stop! Don’t touch him,” Octavia shrieks from the cage, ignoring every single rule I’ve laid out for her. I’ve done everything I could think of to keep her from growing an attachment to me. Why the hell does she continue to try to protect me?
“Quiet,” I snap. Let him focus on me, zlaya.
Please.
Except she doesn’t relent. “Leave him alone. It’s me you want, isn’t it?
” she cries out, pulling some vital string packed inside my chest. Cold creeps down my spine.
“I’m the one who messed up your neck, and I’d do it again.
I can still taste your blood on my tongue.
My only regret is not biting deeper and ending your pathetic life! ”
The change is like a puff of smoke, there and gone in a single blink. One second, Stafford is barely a step away from my chair, fiddling mindlessly with the knife. In the next, he’s nothing but a vengeful shadow stomping across the room. I shout out, thrashing in the bolted chair.
She doesn’t cower in the back of the cage like I so desperately need her to. When Stafford reaches the silver bars, her hands are already wrapped around the grooves, in perfect reach. Those bright green eyes flicker in the dull light.
“Get back,” I shout. More clots open across my chest and arms. Everything throbs, and yet, the only sensation pumping through my veins is the icy sliver of terror. I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in my entire fucking life.
My words are useless. A pang echoes through the room as her small body is thrown into the cage wall, those pale arms captured through the bars.
I forget to breathe. I don’t remember how, not as my mouth fills with thick, sharp fluid that spills from the corners of my lips. Must’ve reopened that wound, too, I realize. A feminine grunt snaps me back to the scene behind me.
“Maybe you’ll learn manners if you have to wear the reminder yourself,” Stafford says, lifting the blade. A roar leaves my chest when he wraps his entire hand around her narrow throat. The other lifts to her face, not hesitating before dragging his blade through one perfect, unmarred cheek.