We entered, and I immediately held my breath. I had been expecting a bloodbath. His face smashed in and leaking blood. His mouth missing teeth. Open cuts and sickening angles of broken bones.
Instead, I saw something much worse.
He was fine, unharmed and only looking slightly disheveled.
Seated on a chair with his arms bound, he looked almost… normal. But that was the illusion I had to move past. Nothing that used to be normal actually was. Cops and doctors weren’t the heroes I needed. This Mafia boss was.
It was the sinister stare of loathing and pure hatred that Jack directed at me that chilled me to my bones. As I stepped in, holding Mikhail’s hand, he sneered and laughed maniacally.
“You pathetic fucking whore.”
I fisted my free hand at his insult.
The fear his hellish smirk gave me left. In its place were anger and fury.
Andre shook his head and smacked him hard. His head whipped to the right, but he didn’t lose that smug expression.
“You are. That’s all she is, a fucking whore, spreading her legs for the wrong men.”
“He is not the wrong man for me,” I stated, proud to hold Mikhail’s hand and know he’d never let me down. Not like Jack had. Not like others had.
“They are. Fuck, can’t you open your eyes and see?” he shouted. “You’re ruining your fucking life siding with these assholes, Claire. You are making the biggest fucking mistake of your pathetic life to even think that any of these Orlov bastards give a shit about you.”
When Andre lifted his hand to hit him again, I shook my head.
I wasn’t staying for long. But now that I’d come, I wanted to say my piece and go. It’d be nice if he heard it over the ringing in his ears that Andre’s hard hits would cause.
“You’re ruining your goddamn life!” Jack strained to break out of his ties, as if seeing me down here, calm and collected and free, was enough to push him over the edge.
Seeing me aligning with Mikhail was his clearest example of how he’d lost.
He was captured and about to die.
“At least I have a life to live,” I taunted coolly.
“Fuck you, you stupid cunt. They’re just using you. He’ll ditch you! He doesn’t give a fuck about you. I tried to warn you. Itoldyou, dammit. I told you that you didn’t want anything to do with these monsters.”
“Thesemonsters?” I asked with a harsh bark of a laugh. “What about the monstersyouteamed up with?”
“Shut the fuck up.” He lowered his head and gritted his teeth, as if he could turn into the Hulk and snap out of these ties.
“No. I don’t think I will.” Hugging myself since Mikhail reached for his gun, his glare flinty as he stood next to me as the support I wanted, I stared down the man who’d almost gotten me raped and killed.
“Who were you working with when you snatched me off the street?” I asked, realizing I didn’t have to only be a doctor for Mikhail. I could do my part in getting this idiot to talk, too.
“I’m not telling you shit,” he yelled.
I almost wished he would. I’d much rather Mikhail kill the ones responsible, not just any old person.
“What were you doing, working for the Giovannis?” I asked, determined to get an answer for these hardworking men who only ever wanted to save me.
Jack shook his head.
“What were you doing for the Popovs?” I asked next, growing irritated with his lack of answers.
“Fuck you, Claire. Don’t act like you really want to help them. It will only ruin your life.”
“My life,” I said as I stepped back, “is only just beginning as far as I’m concerned.”
