29
TATI
They both left me here when the shooting started. Yanov, then after a few minutes, my father followed, leaving me here, tied up in this dirty ass basement. I can hear a commotion outside and upstairs, and I don’t know what’s happening, but I know that whatever’s going on, I’m not going to get another distraction like this again.
My arms are taped together behind my back and my legs are taped to the chair legs, but the chair isn’t nailed down. I can probably scoot this thing across the floor, meaning I’ve got a shot at getting out of this.
I can see the glint of a small knife on the table of torture devices just a few steps from me. I just need to get to it. I just hope whatever is happening upstairs keeps happening long enough for me to get loose. When Yanov and my father come back, they aren’t going to waste time trying to torture me. They’re going to kill me.
It’s tricky. The chair is heavy and doesn’t want to budge very far. I manage to lift myself up to standing and carefully, I startmoving my legs toward the table, dragging the chair with me one inch at a time. God, this feels like it’s going to take for fucking ever.
I hear gunshots right over my head. Who or whatever is attacking has gotten in the house. I hope to God it’s Viktor or the Red Devils or both. What kind of shit luck would it be if it turned out to be one of my father’s rivals? Like they couldn’t have picked a worse time to launch an attack on the brotherhood. Whoever it is, I’m not about to stay here after all this and catch a bullet in whatever planned genocide they might have going on. Or worse, I’m not about to be their big conquest for defeating the great Nikolai Aronin.
I’ve heard such stories of women and children unfortunate enough to live to end up being spoils in a Bratva war. Usually, the protocol is to leave nothing alive. And if whatever the offending brotherhood did was bad enough, entire bloodlines get wiped out no matter where they are in the world. But sometimes they take hostages. Sometimes, the women have to suffer through a lot of terrible things before finally joining their families in whatever mass grave has been planned for them.
As I jump and scoot, a maddening giggle erupts from me. The irony of my dying here and the opposition achieving the destruction of Nikolai’s bloodline with a single bullet might be funny if I weren’t the pregnant daughter tied to this fucking chair.
I finally get to the table. The knife is only a few inches out of my reach. Standing here with my ankles taped to a chair isn’t exactly how I imagined things would go, but here we are. The chair is pressing against the edge of the table, so I’m only going to be able to twist so far to get my hands in range of the fucking knife.
Okay, so this is the hard part. Getting the thing in my hands. Shit.
I hear hard footfalls above me and furniture moving. A fight. Great. Just keep fighting, boys.
It takes me a couple of tries, but I manage to lean forward and get my hands over the back of the chair, then twist myself around until my hands are hovering over the table.
Trying to grab at the knife blind while twisting around is a lesson in flexibility and patience. Just before I reach a point where I think I’m just not going to be able to do it, my hands touch the smooth wood of the knife.Yes!
I grab it and turn back around, but I don’t sit. I’ve got to get my hands free first. I sigh and carefully flip the knife up and over until I feel the cold blade against one of my wrists.Let’s hope I can cut this tape without slicing my wrists open.
I press the blade to the tape and after a few seconds, I hear it tear. I’ve never been more thankful for a sharp torture knife in my life. It doesn’t take long for the tape to loosen enough for me to get my hands free. After that, it’s nothing to cut the tape around my legs.
And just in time, too. The door to the basement opens. I dart into the shadows under the staircase. When they come down, I’m going to dart up. If they try to get me, I’m swinging this knife. As I hunker down and wait, all I can think is that I don’t care who’s coming down. If they come for me, I’m stabbing the fuck out of them.
Coming down the stairs dragging a body is my father. He’s got the person under the arms and as he moves down step by step, their feet hit each step with a thud.
A shaft of light catches the face of the person he’s holding, and I have to cover my mouth to stop the gasp from coming out. It’s Viktor. His eyes are closed and his head hangs limply as he’s dragged to the bottom step.
Nothing but fear swirls inside me. If my father was able to get him…
He gets to the bottom step and drops him on the floor, then looks around. The moment he sees the chair and discarded tape on the floor, he sighs. “Tatiana, I really don’t have time for your games. Come out here. Now.”
I’m practically holding my breath as he stands there, his head turning like a lighthouse spotlight as he looks for me.
He finally sighs, and I can hear how out of breath he is from dragging Viktor down here. My father isn’t out of shape by any means, but Viktor is a big guy. It’s no surprise that he’s winded. I’m actually surprised he was even able to achieve getting him down those stairs.
“He’s not dead,” he says. “Yet. But believe me, he deserves a bullet in the head for all this. Any other Pakhan would have ended him by now.”
My hands are sweating, making the handle of the knife slippery. I grip it harder, trying not to let it slip right out of my hands.
“You see, he’s like a son to me, Tatiana,” he says. “As much as Nikita was. More, in a lot of ways. I’m distraught by how far he’s fallen. By how far both my sons have fallen.”
He turns and looks down at Viktor, tilting his head as his eyes turn down in that way that makes him look regretful. “If you want to watch him die,” he says in a measured tone,like it’s nothing, “stay where you are. However this works out, punishments must be dealt. If you insist on staying hidden, then yours will start with watching him die.”
He kneels down and grabs Viktor by the hair, lifting his lifeless body up to a sitting position. He reaches in his boot and pulls out a knife, pressing it to his throat.
I’m moving before I realize what I’m doing. “Stop,” I say as I step out from behind the shelves. My knees are shaking hard. “Please.”
He looks up at me and freezes, then his eyes turn to the knife in my hand. He doesn’t say a word, but I know what he’s thinking as he looks back up at my face.Drop the knife.
