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Chapter27
This was what a kidnapping was like. So far, I was not a fan.
The guy who grabbed me had made it disgustingly easy. He picked me up and threw me in the van. But once I was inside, instead of tying me up and being done with it, the men around me decided to go with the pain method of detaining me.
I'd been slapped around a few times growing up in the trailer park, but that was the minor league compared to this. The first punch to my head had an extra layer of brutality and sent me crashing to the ground. When I was laid out on the floor of the van, a boot to my ribs hit hard, and another blow to my head caused the entire world to go black.
From there, everything was fuzzy. The beating continued, but it was in flashes and bursts. At some point, my hands were zip tied in front of me and my ankles were bound together.
My eyes flickered open, but everything was blurry. It took a few tries until the world came into focus. There were a bunch of guys in suits I didn't recognize. Oh, wait. I knew the one guy. Borya. He was looking at me with his normal intense expression.
Had he kicked me in the face?
Rude.
I wanted to ask him but couldn't get my mouth to move. Everything was still too fuzzy in my head. The ground beneath me was freezing cold. It was freaking Miami. Where was the ground this cold?
It was probably the shock of the beating.
Borya was still staring at me, eyes narrowed as though he was the one on the ground nursing a concussion.
Or cracked ribs. Or shitty disposition.
Well, he did have the last one.
I held his gaze, trying to figure out what the hell his deal was, because if I thought too hard about any of the other guys around me, my mind went off in scary directions.
What did they want? No one was talking to me. Or threatening me. Or demanding things of me.
I was just here as a prop. Borya was not looking at me like a prop.
Gingerly, I tried to shift to a sitting position, but my ribs very loudly told me to sit the fuck back down.
Well, that was enough of that.
A few guys came in and started to speak angry words in Russian, not that I could understand a damn thing. They started gesturing towards me and one guy spit in my direction.
Fuck you too, asshole.
Borya glared at the spitter, for once turning that angry gaze on someone besides me. What on earth did that mean?
"Why isn't he here yet?" asked a bigger guy in a heavily accented voice.
I thought they were asking Borya at first, but he stayed put where he was leaning against the wall.
Footsteps sounded from behind me. Someone gripped my hair and tugged me up and back. "Alek will be here. He hasn't been able to let this little thing out of his sight."
That voice... I knew that voice...
Strong fingers gripped my chin and yanked my face to look at him.
Sergei. Alek's righthand man. I should have been terrified, but the concussion must've messed with my head. Or maybe I was already in so much agony; it was hard to think straight. "And here I thought I was the one to fuck Alek the hardest today."
A larger man knelt in front of me, twisting a hand in my shirt to pull me forward. And he wasn't larger in a muscular way, but in a potbelly and bad breath kind of way.
The bad breath was unrelated to the potbelly, but he was so close to my face, it was impossible to ignore.
"I thought you said she was an easy little thing?" As he spoke, his other hand ran along my bruised face and then lower to squeeze my breast hard enough to make me whimper.
The pain induced bravery rapidly depleted as I found myself sandwiched between these two forms of evil. "Sergei, please. Alek will never forgive you."
I didn't expect it to work, and it didn't.
Sergei yanked my head back so I could look right into his emotionless eyes. He didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt about doing this to me. "Alek will be dead before the night is over. You made him weak. Now Black Thorn will come through and make the city strong again."
"Leave the girl for now," comes from above the pile of where we're all tangled. Borya moved to stand above us. He was staring at me once again. The anger was gone but he was freaking impossible to read, and my vision was going blurry again.
Oh, wait. I was crying. Figures. Becks wouldn't cry. Alek wouldn't cry. It was just me. No wonder Borya wanted me away from his brother so badly.
Apparently, Sergei thought me being with Alek weakened him so much, it was a death sentence.
Borya growled at them. "I know my brother better than anyone. If he thinks she's been violated, he will be more volatile than before. He might be compromised but he is still dangerous. Get your blood flowing to the right head and stop being distracted."
Borya was speaking to the men manhandling me, but never took his eyes away from mine. He'd been accusing me of playing his brother ever since we met, but for the first time, I think he was beginning to understand that I had nothing to do with any of this.
But it was too little too late.
The other men must've agreed with him because they released me and walked off, discussing something in Russian, leaving me alone with Borya.
This might not be an improvement.
He leaned in close, running a hand through my hair, almost all of which was out of the ponytail by now.
"You're a curious little thing."
Was he going to feel me up now too? I tried to look away, as though that would keep him from seeing the tear that escaped.
The next thing I knew, Borya’s lips were on mine. Not an open-mouth kiss, but more a mashing of our faces together, which was excruciating, considering how injured my face was.
But then something cold and hard was pressed into the palm of my hand, and I realized the kiss was merely the distraction.
"Good luck, little sister," he said before pushing up and walking off as though nothing had happened, leaving me confused as hell, but with a knife in my hand.
