Page 84 of Lord of the Underworld

The slightest grunt comes from me as Ihiro's knife drives into my side again. He's an expert about manipulating the blade between the ribs to avoid any internal organs while knowing where every nerve bundle is.

Part of me feels like I'm hovering from above, watching this happen. I hope that doesn't mean my soul has already left my body.

"Was it worth trading your life for your bitch?" It's that Irish fuck again. He spits on me. "What kind of man can't control his wife?"

"You, apparently," I say, even though I'd sworn not to speak. When he punches me in the jaw, screaming curses, I can't help but chuckle.

The light is painfully bright. There are two men with cameras darting around Ihiro, eagerly seeking a close up of the systematic deconstruction of my body, hoping for an expression of agony on my face. They'll never get it.

"Maldito cerdo, fucking pig!" Mendoza, that cocksucker, I think. "Your puta took my sons. My heirs!" he roars. He's preening for the camera like a rooster, ruffling his feathers.

The chain cranks, and they haul me up to my feet, then higher. My arms are yanked hard enough that I'm waiting for a muscle to tear in my shoulder.

Nothing yet, it will probably come soon enough.

A fist drives into my ribs, and I swing on the chain, turning one way, and then the other. My head drops back, and I stare past my bound hands to the hook in the ceiling.

There's a searing slash of a whip across my back, over and over. Something red hot, driving into my leg. I smell my flesh burn. The far recesses of my mind are no longer strong enough to hold my sanity, it's fraying.

My Oksana is here, smiling at me with so much love, making room to hold me now that my own will is not enough.

She talks constantly. Happy observations about the horses, the house, the vivid "October Blue" of the sky, even though it's November now. When we play chess, she keeps up a running commentary that I know she hopes will take me off my game. Occasionally, it does. My bride doesn't seem to mind that I usually don't answer back, but she knows I am always listening.

***

A week ago…

"So, Dariy Agapov used his wedding gift to hold me hostage as he went on and on about your brilliance and strategy, and how you positioned the Turgenev Bratva for superior strength." Her feet were in my lap, we were relaxing in the library in front of the fire. "I know he was hoping I'd tell you of his never-ending devotion, because he was certainly too scared to, the poor man. He kept looking at me, expecting me to agree with him, I guess." She let out a half-snort, half giggle. "I didn't know what to say, but I was thinking, 'I don't know about my husband's strategy and positioning strengths, but the man certainly gives five-star oral'." She slapped her hand over her mouth, looking horrified, but still giggling. "Wait. Did you -?"

I raised my eyebrow inquiringly, still rubbing her feet.

"I heard that!" she said accusingly. "Did you just laugh?"

"No." I said.

"You did!" she pointed at me triumphantly. "You laughed. I heard it."

"You're mistaken."

She crawled onto my lap, eyes shining. "What else makes you laugh? Are you ticklish?"

I flipped her underneath me, kissing her giggles away as she sighed happily, unbuttoning my shirt. Within seconds, we'd pulled away enough of our clothing and I pinned her to the couch, burying myself inside her while she tried to smother her moans in my shoulder.

"I love you," she whispered. "So much. Thank you for being my husband."

***

"Is he dead? He's not moving."

"Ihiro, you stupid bastard! Did you kill him already? Fuck!"

Oksana...

I thought the worst moment would be when I was torn away from Vadim, screaming and reaching out for him, but I was wrong.

It's facing his family.

Our group meets up with the Turgenevs along a stretch of the Moscow Canal. It's a bare stretch of gravel and broken glass, with two sputtering street lights.