My eyes open slowly, my lids sticking to each other.
The first thing I notice is that I’m sitting down and completely bound to a metal chair.
Plain gray walls surround me, and rusty metal machines flicker in the corners. I shake my head; no, they’re not the ones moving—it’s my vision.
I try to move, but thick ropes hold me in place. I’m sitting on a metal chair, my hands bound behind my back and feet strapped to the metal.
This isn’t a new experience for me. With enough wiggling about, I can flip the chair backward then bend one of its legs, and once I free my ankles, I’ll have more leeway to release myself.
Before I can act on my plan, I’m surrounded by the lucky seven who captured me. They didn’t even bother to take me to one of their compounds and just moved me inside the warehouse. If the location holds no importance, then it should mean my life or death doesn’t matter.
Vladimir steps forward, handing his jacket to one of his underlings, and makes a show of rolling his sleeves to his elbows and revealing his Bratva tattoos. While doing so, he watches me with his usual grumpy, brooding expression that makes him such a bore.
“I didn’t know we were close enough to play kinky games, Vladimir. Before we start, my safe word is Let me go.” My tone is humorous, but it doesn’t camouflage the taste of betrayal burning down my throat and over my chest.
Rai didn’t only poison me, she also handed me over to her men so they’d finish the job.
I’m supposed to be mad, to let my anger take over, but any semblance of it is squashed by that fucking burning feeling.
“You’re quite edgy, aren’t you?” I continue in the same joking tone. “Is this place similar to where you usually live?”
“This will be your grave if you don’t answer our questions.”
“I don’t like knife play either. All that blood is a hassle to clean.”
“Are you done being a smart fucker?”
“I’m just communicating legitimate concerns, Vladimir. We need to have ground rules for these things.”
“Rules?” He scoffs. “Since when do you believe in those?”
“Since the Bratva. Your rules are no joke, mate.”
“I’m not your mate. Now either answer me or we’ll start with the knife you hate so much.” He pauses to drive the information home. “Who’s your insider with the Irish?”
“And I should tell you because…?”
“Because if you don’t, you’ll regret it. That’s your final warning, Hunter.”
“I know we’re doing kinky stuff, but we’re not exactly at the point in our relationship where we’d have a cheeky heart-to-heart, eh?”
Vladimir raises his fist and punches me across the face so hard, I flinch in my seat and blood explodes from my upper lip.
Motherfucker.
“This will only get worse with every wrong answer.” He tightens his fist. “What are your plans?”
“Going home to my beautiful wife. Do you think she’ll mind whatever kink we’re exercising here since she’s the one who set us up together—”
I’m cut off when he jams his fist into my face, nearly breaking my fucking nose. I gasp on air, spitting away the blood that’s gathered at my mouth.
Vladimir doesn’t seem bothered by the red that’s smudging his fingers, but then again, he specializes in torture, so this entire scene is his playground.
“I repeat, what are your plans?”
“I just told you. It’s not my fault you don’t believe me.”
He punches and kicks me in the stomach at the same time. I fall backward with the chair and hit the ground with a loud thud.
I spit blood on the ground as Vladimir’s henchman lift me up so he can hit me again, this time using both his fists as if I’m his punching bag.
While Vladimir isn’t the most reckless like Damien or the most ruthless like Adrian, he’s the most brutish and doesn’t hesitate to use his force to get what he wants.
I need to do something before he smashes my face into the ground and walks all over it, but I have no clue how much they’ve figured out. This could be a ploy to make me talk, but that’s improbable since Vladimir doesn’t move without concrete evidence.
Until I figure that out, I can take torture. Having my background comes in handy at times like these. I had torture training, which was basically being tortured until I was hallucinating and feverish and on the verge of death. After all, the only way to survive torture is to go through it.
Physical torture is nothing. I lived through it and know exactly how to handle it. Pain is concentrated in nerve endings, and the best way to get past that is to numb it. If you don’t think about it, the agonizing sensation eventually vanishes.
The pitfall in my plan is that I can’t forget the reason I’m here in the first place, the reason I am now serving as Vladimir’s punching bag.
My wife.
That type of torture is way different from a physical one. That type of torture is what has led countless men to their breaking points.
Sucking in a breath, I meet Vladimir’s gaze. While it seems like he’s watching me with a neutral expression, deep down it’s anything but. He must be celebrating the chance to finally hit me. After all, he’s hated me ever since the day I came back and snatched Rai from under his protective shield.
It’s not actually jealousy since I don’t think he’s capable of feeling romantic things, but it’s more that he thought Rai was his responsibility after he pledged to Nikolai that he’d protect her.
“How did you get me, Vladimir? Because we both know it wasn’t strength.”
“Do you want to feel my strength, Kyle? I’ve been taking it easy on you, but if you insist, I have no reason to refuse.”
Easy? He disfigured my face and calls it easy?
“I just want to know why you have to be so difficult by tying me up and stuff.”
“You’re here to answer for your sins.”
“Sins?” I laugh through the blood. “Have you suddenly turned into God or something? But it’s useless since I don’t believe in holy things.”
“Just because you don’t believe in them, doesn’t mean you get to escape them.” He drives his fist into my face until a crack of bones echoes in the air.
It hurts like a mother, and I grit my teeth against the constant pulsing of pain.
“If you want to play…” He shows me his fists, which are now dripping with blood—my blood—all over the ground. “I’ll indulge.”
“Where is she?” I murmur, staring at the door opposite me. “Is she there? Or are there cameras through which she can watch the show?”
He grabs me by the collar, nearly lifting me and the chair off the ground. “You answer to me.”
“I answer to no one.”
“Then would you rather die?”
“Come out, Princess!” I call, my voice straining. “Don’t you think you’ve watched enough?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Vladimir hits me again.
“I thought you wanted me to talk—now you want me to shut it? Make up your mind, you grumpy-arse fucker. Come out, Princess. I thought we shared things,” I say with humor, which is my usual way of deflecting reality, but the words stab me inside my bloody soul. I really thought we shared things, but she went ahead and stabbed me in the back.
“You don’t speak to her. You speak to me.” Vladimir’s strong voice booms in the silence of the room, his accent getting thicker.
“I won’t talk unless I see my wife, so if you want to kill me, then go right ahead. But as you know, you won’t get anything out of my corpse.”
“You think I won’t kill you?” Vladimir pulls his gun from his waistband and points it at my temple. “You’ve always been a pest who didn’t belong in the brotherhood. I don’t care what Nikolai or Sergei see in you, or that you think you’re all that just because you eliminated some targets like a fucking dog for hire. You have no loyalty, know no principles, and follow no morals, and because of that, you don’t belong here.”
“Finally. Your true fucking colors, Vladimir. Aren’t they nice and bloody shiny?”
The reason he respected my presence is because the bosses were the ones who ordered it. If it was up to him, he would have kicked me out a long time ago. So now that he’s finally getting his chance to get back at me, he’s using it to the fullest.
I have no doubt he will pull the trigger.
“Are you going to talk or should I turn those fucking eyes dead?”
“The only person I’ll talk to is my wife.”
Why do I keep calling her my wife when she betrayed our vows?
But I guess I betrayed those first when I turned our wedding into a bloodbath.
No idea how it happened, but I was taken by surprise. Being blindsided by an aspect of my life has weakened me, and this doesn’t even seem like a phase.
The door opens and I remain still as the sound of heels echo on the ground.
I raise my eyes up. They’re swollen and one of them is half open, blood dripping over the lid. And yet, I make out Rai standing in front of me. She puts enough distance between us so I couldn’t reach out for her even if I somehow had my hands free.
She’s still wearing the black dress from earlier, which means she must have come here as soon as I dropped her off.
The traitor wanted to see her handiwork for herself. Well played, Rai. Well fucking played.
But instead of divulging my true emotions, I grin, showing her my bloody teeth. “Vladimir here seems to have a misconception, Princess. Save me from his kinky games.”
“Stop being a smartass,” she says in a monotone voice, crossing her arms over her chest. “That won’t work on us.”
Wait a fucking second… “Does this mean you never lost your memories?”
“No, but I fooled you, didn’t I?”
Bloody hell.
She did. She really did, and I had no way of focusing enough to uncover the lie because I was worried about her safety. I completely let go of my logical side in favor of the fucking thing beating inside my chest.
“Well played, Sokolov. Nikolai must be so proud of his little devil creation.”
“I don’t care about your games.”
“You don’t care, huh? Figures, after you poisoned my drink.”
Her expression remains the same, as if she abandoned her emotions somewhere and came here void of anything. “Tell Vlad what he wants to know and maybe I’ll have him spare your life.”
“What makes you think I have something to say?”
“I heard you talking on the phone the day I fell down the stairs, Kyle. I know what you’re planning.”
Fuck. Was I too loose? Usually, I wouldn’t let my guard down, but I was still on painkillers at the time. Not that blaming the meds will solve the issue at hand.
“Did you think I would stand by as you destroy my family?” Her tone turns lethal. “I’ll protect them with everything in me.”
“Go right ahead.”
“You think I’m bluffing?”
“No.”
“Then why the fuck aren’t you talking?”
“Because it’s pointless.”
“Don’t test me, Kyle. I’ll have you killed.”
“Do it then. You already poisoned me, so killing me wouldn’t make a difference.”
A blush covers her cheeks, but it’s not out of embarrassment—it’s anger, or rather, rage. Why the fuck is she angry? I’m the one who’s supposed to be boiling.
And yet, all I feel is the cut of her betrayal in a place I thought was long dead with my parents.
“You’re ready for death, aren’t you?”
“I was born ready for death. I had my resurrection in death and to death I shall return. Isn’t that poetic?”
“You’re sick.”
“I think we’ve already established that.”
“Let me finish him off.” Vladimir digs the muzzle of the gun into my temple, causing my head to tilt back.
I don’t stare at him—he’s not important. My gaze stays locked on Rai’s, caught by how her eyes darken then lighten, flitting around as if she’s not sure whether to take the gun from Vladimir and shoot me or if it’ll be better if she kills me with her bare hands.
A few seconds pass before she shakes her head. “Leave me alone with him.”
Vladimir’s shoulders snap back. “No.”
“I can take care of this. Just wait for me outside.” When he doesn’t make a move to go, she touches his arm, her voice lowering but not softening. “Trust me.”
Vladimir punches me one more time for good measure, and I groan even though I smirk at the fucker. He motions at his guards to follow him, then places the gun in Rai’s hand. “We’ll be right outside.”
The door sliding shut traps me and my wife together.
Our marriage started by blood, and with blood it will end.
