Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Henry
The hood was ripped from my head so violently my neck snapped back, light exploding behind my eyes.
After an hour of being driven around in suffocating darkness, the fluorescent glare was blinding.
My pupils burned. My stomach rolled. My wrists ached where plastic restraints bit into my skin, my fingers beginning to tingle from how tight they’d bound them behind my back.
My ankles were secured to the legs of a chair, making it impossible to move.
As much as I loathed my father, I couldn’t deny I currently found some of the survival lessons he’d taught me extremely useful.
So I did as he’d instructed me all those years ago.
I stopped fighting the disorientation and focused on what I could.
The air was thick and wet, clinging to my skin like a film.
It smelled of rusted metal and piss, layered over something else.
Something that had seeped into the concrete floor and never quite left.
Beneath it all lingered a hint of bleach, as if someone had tried to scrub away whatever this room had seen.
A fluorescent bulb buzzed unevenly overhead, threatening to die but refusing to. Somewhere off to my left, water dripped in slow, maddening intervals.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Each one felt like a countdown to my demise.
And with each drop, my vision sharpened a little more until I could finally make out the two figures standing in front of me.
Mikhail Volkov’s guards.
They were just as intimidating as their boss.
Possibly more so. One was bald and thick-necked with tattoos crawling down his scalp and disappearing beneath his shirt.
The other had the same dark hair as Mikhail and bore an angry scar running from his cheek and through his eyebrow before it disappeared into his hairline.
The man with the scar stepped toward me first, landing a harsh blow to my stomach.
Air whooshed out of me, and my body tried to fold forward, but the restraints kept me upright, pain radiating outward in waves.
For a split second, black dots danced at the edges of my vision, but I swallowed down any hint of weakness, forcing oxygen back into my lungs in controlled, measured breaths.
When I lifted my head and met Scar’s eyes, I kept my expression flat.
Tattoo approached next, and I braced myself for another blow. Instead, he tossed the photos of Alexei’s murder onto the concrete floor in front of me.
“You are very talented with computers, da?” Tattoo asked, his accent thicker than Mikhail’s.
“I’d like to think so,” I responded evenly, though my abdomen throbbed with each word.
“And you’re able to recover corrupted files?” Scar added, cracking his knuckles as he glowered at me. “Can find digital records others claimed don’t exist?”
“Most criminals aren’t as smart as they think they are. There’s always a trail. You just need to know where to look.”
“And you just so happened to know where to look?”
“The news of Alexei Volkov’s death made headlines. It doesn’t take a genius to know to start with the security footage from the port where his body was found.”
“The security footage was corrupted with no chance of recovery.”
“Nothing digital is ever gone forever.”
“So you say,” Tattoo interjected. “Or maybe you’re the man who corrupted the files in the first place.”
I had a feeling this might happen. These men had no reason to believe me. I was a stranger asking them to doubt one of their own. The best thing I could do was keep an even head. Push down any nerves and not have them question my claims.
“If I’d corrupted them, why would I risk my life to come here with this information? I’m not fucking stupid.”
The punch to my jaw came so fast I didn’t have time to brace for it.
My head snapped sideways, and the metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth, my chair rocking slightly before settling again.
Pain tore through me from my jaw, to my cheek, and even to my neck. I ran my tongue over my teeth, relieved when nothing was loose.
Yet.
I slowly turned my head back to the front and spat blood onto the concrete, catching Mikhail’s interested stare as he watched from the shadows.
“You asked a question,” I told the two guards, my voice rougher now. “I answered.”
Tattoo stepped closer, looming over me. “You’re the only one who knew how to access those files. Not even our own computer expert managed to find these files. That means you were involved.”
“It could also mean your tech guy is horrible at his job.” I paused, then added, “Or he’s involved.”
This time, I had time to brace myself before his fist hit my jaw again. My ears rang, a dull roar pounding in my skull as my face absorbed the force of the impact. Warmth trickled from my mouth and droplets of blood landed at my feet.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a faint movement as Mikhail stepped out of the shadows just enough for the light to catch his face.
“You expect me to believe that not only did my uncle kill his own brother,” he began, his voice surprisingly calm, “but that other men in my organization helped to cover it up?”
“You can believe whatever you’d like. But that security footage doesn’t lie.”
Mikhail moved fully into the light, his boots echoing in the room. From my chair, he looked even taller than he appeared in the cemetery. Broad. Controlled.
His dark eyes assessed me the way a man might assess a weapon. Not whether it was dangerous, but whether it was useful.
“You are bold,” he remarked, cutting through the silence. “To accuse my family while tied to a chair surrounded by trained killers.”
“I’m simply providing facts based on the evidence I uncovered. You can interpret it however you’d like, but it’s hard to dispute footage of your uncle pointing a gun at your father and firing.”
Tattoo reeled back and landed a harsh blow to my stomach at the same time as Scar’s fist met with my nose.
My vision darkened again with flashes of white and red.
I tasted copper and salt on my tongue as I felt the skin split above my eye.
The scar Ariana had stitched up that hadn’t quite healed yet.
This time, they didn’t only hit me once. They kept at it. Jaw. Stomach. Cheek. Chest. Each blow deliberate.
A voice screamed at me to curl in, to protect what little air I had left.
I didn’t.
Instead, I took whatever beating they wanted to give me, keeping my gaze locked on Mikhail.
Finally, his voice cut through the room, loud and commanding.
“Enough.”
His men instantly followed his order, stepping away from me and flanking Mikhail as he moved closer.
Close enough that I could make out the faint flecks of gray in his dark eyes.
“At my father’s grave, you brought up Victor Kane. What does he have to do with this?”
“Like I mentioned, one of your soldiers attempted to abduct his wife from their home,” I panted, spitting more blood onto the floor. “It was the same man I noticed in the background of one of my daughter’s social media posts right before her supposed death.”
Scar bent down to retrieve one of the photos I’d printed out and handed it to him, my throat tightening as I caught a glimpse of Sarah’s smile in the image.
“This is your daughter?” Mikhail pressed.
I gave a small nod.
“She’s beautiful.”
I didn’t respond. Just waited for his next question.
“And you believe this man might have your daughter?”
“I know he doesn’t.”
“How?” His brow lifted slightly.
“Because I killed him.”
Mikhail glanced at Scar and Tattoo, all of them seemingly surprised by my response.
“You realize you just admitted to killing one of my soldiers, correct?”
“I observed him remove an unconscious, bound, and gagged Ariana Kane from her home on Star Island and put her in his boat. I followed them to a warehouse up the Intra-coastal. Killed him and took Ariana to safety. I doubt you’ll miss him since he was one of the men who held your father while your uncle shot him. ”
The three men shared another look before Mikhail refocused his attention on me.
“A few of my other men have recently…disappeared. The other three in the photos here.” He gestured toward the images. “Am I to assume they met a similar end?”
“Victor sent them to retrieve his wife. I made sure they couldn’t.”
Mikhail nodded, his expression giving nothing away as he paced the length of the room, each strike of his boots against the concrete floor increasing my nerves.
I’d been in my fair share of stressful and dangerous situations, especially during my military days.
But this was one of the scariest situations I’d ever been in.
Probably because it was the first time I felt like I had something to live for. I didn’t have that when I joined the military. Hell, I didn’t even feel like I had that a few months ago.
But with Ariana, now I did.
I just prayed I hadn’t made a colossal mistake in doing this.
“One of the first things my father taught me about this life,” Mikhail began finally, “about running this organization, is the importance of blood for blood.”
“Blood for blood?” I repeated.
He nodded. “Similar to the notion of an eye for an eye, I suppose. You make one of my men bleed, I make you bleed.” He stepped closer, leaning down, his face less than an inch from mine. “You kill one of my men…”
“You kill me,” I finished around a hard swallow.
“Exactly.” He straightened, walking toward a long metal table set against the far wall.
Knives hung in neat rows above it. Hunting blades. Skinning knives. One curved like a talon. He selected a smaller one and pressed the blade to his thumb. A bead of red immediately appeared.
“So tell me, Mr. Fontaine…” He returned to me, his footsteps measured. “Why should I spare your life?”
“Because I just confirmed what I think you sensed from the second you learned your father had been killed. Maybe even before.”
“And what is it you hope to get out of this?”
“It’s like I said. I want to find my daughter.
I have proof Victor was involved in some sort of human trafficking operation.
A doctor confessed to sterilizing over a hundred women on Victor’s orders.
All of whom had applied for jobs with Kane Hotel Group but weren’t hired.
Still, he had access to their personal information.
Where they lived. Family background. I’m sure you already know this, though.
You admitted you were aware of an arrangement your father had with Victor.
An arrangement it appears your uncle has continued. ”
“You expect me to believe my uncle disobeyed my orders and betrayed me just because he was seen with Victor Kane outside an art museum?”
“He betrayed your father long before he betrayed you,” I reminded him as a loud chime cut through.
Scar removed his phone from his pocket, checking the screen. He stepped toward Mikhail, speaking in Russian, low and fast.
I didn’t understand what they were saying, but I sensed it wasn’t good news.
Mikhail stared into space for a protracted moment, his expression hardening, fingers flexing around the knife handle.
Then he slowly walked back toward me.
Too slowly.
For one excruciatingly long second, I wondered if this was it.
If this was how I’d die.
Based on the murderous look on Mikhail’s face, it probably was.
But instead of lifting the blade and slashing my throat or plunging it into my chest, his fist crashed into my jaw. The chair tipped backward, metal scraping against concrete as I slammed onto the floor.
Pain exploded through my skull. The world tilted sideways as blood stained the floor around me.
The last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me was Mikhail Volkov standing over me, my blood staining his boots.