Alessandro
In the hospital, it was almost too calm.
The comforting white walls, the tranquil room where all I could hear was my breathing, and the sound of Yuri’s monitor was a sanctuary at this point.
I stood over Yuri’s body, watching him sleep. He’d regain consciousness soon enough, but he looked peacefully asleep for now.
Peaceful because he didn’t know that Katya had been kidnapped by that bastard, if he did, I wondered if he’d be able to sleep as well or if he’d be like me that hadn’t been able to get more than an hour of sleep each day.
We were razing down Triev properties one after the other and every time turned up as empty as the last.
It was as if all my effort was futile, a waste, but I had no plans of letting up.
Somebody knocked on the door, and my brothers entered, quieter than they ever did in my office, out of respect for Yuri.
“I thought you’d be here,’ Frankie said, coming to stand beside me. Dome went around the bed, to lean on the windowsill.
“Nothing still?” I asked them both even though I already knew the answer. They’d have called me the moment there was new intel.
“Nothing about Katya yet,” Dom answered, frowning. “I’m starting to think maybe his taking her wasn’t something too many of his people knew. No matter how high up.”
Frankie nodded. “That’s very likely, it would have been the cunning thing to do.”
“But we’re practically undoing all the progress they’d managed to make in the city so far,” Dom opined, “I mean, we’re tearing down a lot of properties he’d managed to acquire for his family, and he still refuses to make a move.”
“That’s true. He’ll be making demands soon enough.” I nodded at what Frankie said.
As if on cue, my phone rang, and I answered it without bothering to check who the caller was. Maxim would call with a burner phone.
I wasn’t even surprised when I heard his voice.
“I’d hoped you’d take longer with your demands,” I said coolly into the phone. Both my brothers looked at me, listening quietly.
His laughter irritated my ears especially through the phone.
“Come now, I couldn’t let you ruin everything I’d laid down.”
“What? Besides sorry excuses for businesses and warehouses, what else does the Trievs have?”
“Well, I’m sure compared to you we probably don’t have a lot, now, do we? Except maybe your precious wife.” I gripped the phone tighter and narrowed my eyes. “Who, may I say, is downright seductive, especially when beaten up. If I’d known she was in the market for a husband, I might have snatched her right up…earlier than I did, I mean.”
“I will say this once, Maxim, so listen carefully. I will forgive everything you have done so far, from my cargo ship to kidnapping my wife, but only if you return her now.”
He whistled into the speaker. “Well, that’s great, Ales. Exactly what I was hoping for because I do, in fact, plan on returning your precious Katya. But first, I have demands, as you might have already guessed.”
I didn’t say anything, he’d start listing them soon enough. “No, wait, I have just one demand actually, aren’t you a lucky man? I want all your assets in New York.” That made no sense.
“In exchange for my wife, you want me to hand over everything in my territory?”
Maxim laughed again, and the sound of it reached inside my ear for my brain, to grate it. “Come one, Ales, I am not a fool. I know how to make demands. I meant hand over your New York territory. Since the merger with the Petrenkos, I’m sure you are managing such a large territory must be straining.”
He was being unreasonable, and if he was as sneaky as I suspected, it might have been on purpose.
It hurt to say, but as much as I loved Katya, this exchange was completely unreasonable. “I will do nothing like that,” I stated clearly.
“I’m sure I can change your mind, Ales. I really can, but I cannot guarantee you will like my…methods.” He was using Katya to threaten me.
“Give me a reasonable offer I can accept. I won’t trade everything we have built here for her.”
Frankie’s eyes narrowed when he heard what I said.
“Oof! I’ll be sure to relay the message, I’m sure she’d love to hear just how little she means to you. Honesty is, after all, the best policy. Be expecting my mind-change methods soon, Mr. Sorvino.” The call ended.
Katya
The escape plan was a big failure, but only in one way. I was restrained now, but I’d gotten a good look at the layout outside Maxim’s bedroom. The next attempt would be a lot better.
Successful.
As soon as I could get out of the restraints.
“You know, Baba Geneva didn’t appreciate being hustled and tied like a cow.” Maxim’s voice, coming from behind me. I turned my head as far as it could go, but barely caught a glimpse of him. His footsteps made me know he was moving, coming closer to me.
“And as punishment, you have decided to tie me to a chair?” I asked, my voice laced thickly with my disdain for him. “Very original, Maxim Triev. I am sure this trend you’ve started will catch on.”
“Is that humor, Katya? In your situation, I’d have thought you’d be a bit more….”
“Afraid?”
“Something like that.” He walked around to stand in front of me, arms crossed across his chest as he stared down. If my legs were not also tied to the legs of the chair, I would have crossed them. As things were, I lifted my chin defiantly and glared because that was all I could do.
For now.
“The only person who should be afraid here is you. When I get my hand on you, I promise to do things to you worse than death, so better make sure you kill me before I can.”
He tutted and leaned down so his face was level with mine. “I’m flattered you want your hands on me, Katya, but please remember you’re a married woman. I am many things, but not an adulterer.”
Then he stood up and turned around. I thought he was going to walk away, but he whirled around and struck me across the face.
Hard.
My left cheek hurt, starting to sting very slowly. There would be a cut there, courtesy of the silver ring he wore on his right hand.
Then he rushed for me. Reaching behind my head to pull at my hair and force my head back so I was staring up at him.
“Your husband has refused my terms, apparently, to him, you are not worth as much as you had thought.”
I leaned closer, as close as the chair allowed me to get, and sneered. “Or you are shittier at your job than you had thought.”
Maxim laughed. “We’ll see about that, Mrs. Sorvino.”
Then he went out, leaving me alone in the bare room. It was hard to tell whether it was a space connected to his bedroom or somewhere else entirely in the mansion. Looking around was when I noticed the camera he’d set up, standing in the corner, pointed at me.
When the door opened again, Triev goons carried in a table, and laid out plenty of tools on it, with Maxim leaning against the door frame, watching with disinterest. When they’re done, he tells them in Russian to connect the video to the Sorvinos.
All the while, I watch with my head still up, a little bit of blood isn’t enough to make me afraid.
Not even when I’d been a kid.
“Are you ready, my beautiful starlet? We’re about to make a mind-blowing production. Although I suppose in this case I should say mind changing.”
Something came through on the earphone plugged into one of his ears and his smile widened. Then he winked at me and whirled theatrically.
“Welcome, Ales, to the fulfillment of my promise. Watch carefully because if you blink, you just might miss an important scene.” Maxim went to the table, humming, and brought back a sledgehammer.
He walked behind me and tutted. “You need to look at the camera honey, if you keep trying to look at me, you’ll break your neck. Which wouldn’t be great because I would prefer to do that myself.”
As he spoke, he caressed my cheek with the back of his hand. He tried to, at least because I moved my face away. Then he paused, and for some seconds, nothing happened.
Then he backhanded me so hard my neck almost broke from the force. The inside of my cheek cut, and I spat out blood. Wincing when I licked over the place with my tongue.
“I said look at the camera you fucking cyka!” he was close to me when he shouted that, I felt the spittle.
I looked away, turned my head to the side to stare at the wall, and heard him heave a sigh behind me.
“If you won’t listen, then maybe you don’t need your ears. Maybe you don’t even need your whole bloody head.”
I saw him raise the sledgehammer from the corner of my eye, but then he stopped, maybe for the camera.
“Wait, this could kill you,” he said, and I heard the crack when the hammer landed on the concrete floor of the room. “I don’t want you dead just yet.”
His hands grabbed me by the sides of my head, and he forced my head back. He was bent over me, smiling, his medium length brown hair falling forward.
“Did you know, lovely Katya, that I asked your darling Alex to give me everything you both have in New York in exchange for you, and he refused.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Really, because I can. He just doesn’t understand what could happen to you here, that’d why I decided to make an educational video. To teach him.” My lips were sealed.
Maxim leaned closer to me and whispered. “That’s why I need you to beg him to save you. Cry and weep like a little baby because I promised some dogs a bone, and you’ll be what I’ll throw to them if I don’t get what I want.”
“If you think I will cry, Maxim, then you don’t deserve the credit people give you.”
He hushed me and shook his head as if he was scolding a child. “You don’t understand what these men will do to something so…seductive as you. If you think I’m a wild animal, wait until you meet my friends, it will be a whole treat, I promise. They will tear into you like cardboard, so do something for yourself, my dear. Do what I tell you, ok?”
He eased up a bit, but I spat in his face and said loud enough so Alex and anybody else watching could hear me.
“Khuy tebe! I will do nothing for you.” Maxim let me and wiped his face.
Then he took my head again and bashed my face with his forehead. I grimaced, but he’d only just started.
The assaults were fast, hard, precise.
He walked around to my front, stepping to the side so the camera could capture it perfectly. Then he placed a hand on my shoulder, gripping it tightly, and buried a punch in my stomach.
I lurched forward against the restraints and his strong hold, but he didn’t stop. The punches kept coming until I coughed out blood, whether from the assault on my stomach or the injury in my mouth, I couldn’t tell.
I didn’t care; all I focused on was not crying out.
Not a sound would come out of me, not for his pleasure.
He came back again, gripping my throat and pulling at it while pushing down on my shoulder with his other hand. It felt as if he was trying to dislodge my neck from my body, all while strangling me.
“You know,” he said, staring down at me with darkened eyes. “I just realized that this is no way to treat a woman. I mean, of course I’m having fun, but there’re better ways to have even more fun, wouldn’t you agree, Katya?”
I gasped for air but glared at him with hard eyes. My hands gripped at nothing bound behind the chair. I was starting to feel lightheaded.
“Yes.” He let me go, and I fell forward, coughing and gasping for air. Maxim walked around me and gripped my hair, pulling my head back and exposing my neck. Then he leaned down and ran his nose along it, sending bile up my throat.
He took in a deep breath and sighed.
“Ales, I know you have no children yet, but if there were any children about, I advise that you don’t let them watch the next video. Since you refuse to give me what I ask for, I fully intend to enjoy all the assets I currently have at my disposal.”
My hatred for Maxim Triev could not have intensified if he turned out to be the devil himself. But I would allow that video to end like that.
As loud as I could, gritting through the pain maxim was inflicting on my skull, I shouted to Ales, because I knew he was watching.
“Forget me, Ales,” I said, “don’t do anything he says. If you find me dead, I want you to burn everything to the fucking ground!”
Every fucking thing.