Page 25 of Nemesis

Vomit rises in my throat as I hear that lunatic drag his knife over Vasiliy’s flesh. The only sound that follows is the wet splatter of liquid as it sprays across the floor. I keep waiting for Vasiliy to react. A gasp. A cry. Anything to let me know he’s still out there, fighting. That he hasn’t succumbed.

Metal slices once more, followed by a quiet drip, drip, drip.

I blink.

I wish our captor would reach up and flick off the overhead lamp. Instead, I’m forced to see reality in 4K. Vasiliy’s metal chair is splattered with so much blood that it takes on a copper hue. Our captor bounces his weight between his feet, his back to me. When he’s not actively cutting, the knife swings down by his hip in a casual grip. He doesn’t wipe the metal clean every time, so the entire floor is marked with crimson drips, bearing a remarkable resemblance to the sidewalk when the rain trickles in.

“Why were you sent to the Solokov Bratva?” he asks again, knife braced under his last cut on Vasiliy’s chest.

“I’ve told you this already.”

I perk up at his voice. Finally.

“I fucked up one of my uncle’s deals. He didn’t think I was worth the trouble anymore.”

That answer wasn’t satisfactory, because my stomach flexes through another squelching sound, and the air sharpens with sour iron.

They’ve been at it for hours, and somehow, I’m even more confused now than I was when I first woke. They’ve mentioned so many different Bratvas and so many different men that I’ve begun to question whether the interrogation was going in nonsensical circles.

I only started catching on to Vasiliy’s lies about an hour ago.

When asked about his connection to me, he said he was watching over me, as ordered by my father. It took everything in me not to scream that I’ve never had a parent a day in my life. I was probably conceived by some poor addict who wasn’t able to scrounge up the two bucks for a rubber and subsequently left on the orphanage steps nine months later. Nonetheless, his last piece of advice for me was to stay silent and hide my reactions, and since this is only my first time being kidnapped and apparently his hundredth, I’m intent on listening.

I don’t want to die. I put on a good show of apathy in the studio, but nothing scares me quite so much as that long, dark nothing. I know I’d be forgotten in a day. I’m not the type of person who’s missed and remembered.

“When did Mikhail Solokov and Sasha Siderov establish an alliance?” the man asks, his voice growing impatient.

I’ve figured out that Mikhail Solokov is Vasiliy’s employer, but I have no fucking clue who Sasha Siderov is. It took me a while to realize he was saying different names. Siderov. Morozov. Solokov. Couldn’t these damn Russians find something other than “ov” to end their names with?

“A few months ago,” Vasiliy hisses out, but it doesn’t matter that he answers the mundane question right away, because another fist flies at his face. The impact sears through my ears. I curl up tighter, a pathetic little ball in the corner of the dark cell.

Don’t react.

“Fine.” A sharp sigh. “I’ll be checking your information against my inside contacts.” The man stands and strolls to the door, but then stops mid-step, tilting his head to one of the others standing guard at the entrance. “Feel free to rough him up a bit on his way back in.”

The grin they share is unsettling. The three guards move as one, stepping over to where Vasiliy’s hands are locked to the arms of the chair. His chains are wrenched off with sharp, careless movements before clattering to the floor.

Don’t react.

I replay Vasiliy’s words in my head over and over, carefully staring at the patched-up crack on the cement floor in front of me. I don’t dare to take my gaze off that crack—not when the sound of fists and boots smacking against flesh reverberates through the small room.

It goes against everything I thought I was. I’ve never bothered to think before responding to the circumstances. But I’ve also never pleaded with a man not to leave me before. When I saw Vasiliy step toward the cage door, something in my mind cracked open. Call it survival, or desperation, or whatever the hell you want. That single step away sent me into a blind panic.

The next hit thunders, summoning a fresh perfume of hot iron. The scent is so overwhelming, it’s a fight to keep my cough trapped in my throat. I only release my held breath when my head grows light and the sturdy ground sways. The last thing I need is to pass out in here.

I can’t look up, no matter how cowardly it is. I don’t want to see that bird with the broken wing again. The image of navy and cream feathers keeps fighting for dominance in my mind, and it only seems to get louder and clearer when I look up at Vasiliy’s abused body.

It’s strange how a memory can lie dormant for so many years, and then come raging out in the worst possible moment. I wish I had gone my entire life without remembering that sight. It was an act of mercy, I try to reason, but I don’t believe the excuse. Sometimes, broken things are best dealt with swiftly.

The ground vibrates under the dragging force of the metal cage door, the only warning I receive before a body collapses to the floor. I don’t move an inch. Not until the footsteps trail out the door. Not until I hear the iron slam shut.

Once silence settles back over the room, I can’t bear waiting any longer. I launch over to the splayed body.

“Vasiliy,” I gasp, hands hovering. I don’t know what to touch. Blood coats everything from his head to his hips, and his face is puffy and swollen.

“I’m…fine,” he eventually says, spitting against the floor.

“You are not fine.” I rip a strip of my dress and press it to the wound oozing on his brow.