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Another memory returns, one of my hand touching the rug under a table in our cafe. My palm was red when I lifted it back up and my lips part when I remember it was blood.
My father wasn’t at the cafe to open this morning either.
Tears well in my eyes at the prospect of my father being murdered. What I don’t understand is why anyone would try to kill him. We weren’t robbed. Arkady didn’t seem to know where my father was. I don’t think Arkady would lie because it wouldn’t be worth the effort for him.
I rest my head on my knees in frustration. My father is likely dead. I don’t know if it’s worth figuring out the reason. If I’m locked in a cell, chances are I’m the next to die. I just wish I knew why.
I lift my head out of my lap and my eyes widen at what I see in the light under the door - someone’s shoes. The same shoes I saw before someone knocked me unconscious at the cafe.
My body trembles in horror when I hear the bolt to my cell unlock. Light pours in as the door opens. I scramble to a far corner, pressing my body into the back wall.
The shadow of a man stands in the threshold. I feel him watching me cower, and I’m sure anyone sick enough to bring me to a place like this probably enjoys the sight. He steps further inside and I see his arm reach for the side wall.
There’s nowhere for me to hide. My arms wrap around my legs tighter and I duck my head to shield myself, wrapping my arms around the back of my neck. The light turns on and I can see gray cement below me. I brace myself and raise my head to face the man approaching, stunned at what I find.
Viktor.
He stands in front of the door, looking at me in a way he hasn’t before. There’s so much hate in his eyes I can feel them stabbing into my skin. I raise my head higher as he comes towards me, noticing the sleeve of my shirt.
It’s covered in blood.
My eyes draw to the far side of the room, following a thick trail of blood until I discover the source. My father’s body lays slumped in the other corner, pale, with his entire shirt saturated in blood.
I let out a throat-rattling scream at the sight of him, scrambling my legs in a futile attempt to escape reality, but I’m still here, locked in a cell with my father’s corpse.
A prisoner of Viktor Mikhailov.
Chapter10
VIKTOR
Tatyana’s guttural cries float through the cells, into the hall, and fade into the receiving area of the docks. I draw in a long breath, wanting her to take in this moment and let it seep through her body. Her eyes are red from tears and her chest heaves as she recovers between sobs. She looks to her father’s body, then to his blood on her shirt, then to me, darting her eyes to and from each of the landmarks in the room as she connects them in her head. I stand over her and feel nothing for the pain she’s in, apart from a sense of justice.
No child should lose a parent for such a petty reason as Pyotr Ivanov gave me, for refusing to obey his order. There could have been more to it, but as far as Pyotr Ivanov was concerned, I played a part in his scheme to betray my father
Before my father became successful. Our family was still struggling. Pyotr Ivanov and my father were friends. Pyotr was the person who helped my father get his first job shipping goods by air, the job that helped spark the creation of my father’s empire. As my father began gaining his fortune, he asked Pyotr to be his partner and he refused.
The more success my father attained, the further they drifted apart. I started seeing Pyotr less, and he started becoming resentful towards me. I remember the day he and my father finally aired their tensions. Pyotr felt he should be the man running operations and refused to work under my father. He gave my father his terms: step aside and let him run the business my father built, or he would walk away.
He could have made a nice living for Tatyana and himself if he could just get past his envy for my father. Pride is a foolish reason to do anything.
I told Pyotr that I fucked his innocent daughter as he lay dying, and I promised that even after he was gone I’d make her suffer. Watching Tatyana shrieking, crying, mouthing incoherent words through sobs, I know this is just the beginning. My promise to her father will be fulfilled.
She can’t make it right as she told me she wished.
But shewillsuffer.
I walk toward the back wall, reaching upwards to a meat hook hanging from the ceiling. The metal rings jangle against one another as I pull the hook lower. When it’s at shoulder height, I stop and remove my jacket, unbutton and take off my shirt and hang them both on the hook.
When I turn back to Tatyana, I do it slowly, letting her truly see the man her father wronged. Her eyes crawl towards me, fixing on my shoes and raising slowly up my legs. When she reaches my torso, her eyes dance up and down my arms and chest, looking at the tattoos I’ve earned over the years.
I am no novice to the business of vengeance, and I want her to know it.
I walk to her, crouching down to her level. She averts her eyes to avoid mine. I grab her chin into the palm of my hand, digging my fingers into the soft skin of her cheeks and force her to look at me. The scar on her neck comes to my view, reminding me of the day she got it from the man slicing into the side of her throat as our village was under siege. I saw an innocent child about to be killed and did what I could to stop it, never doubting that I made the right call to save Tatyana’s life. But right now I find myself questioning whether I made the right decision all those years ago.
“What I did to your father was justice,” I snarl.
Her eyes look at his crumpled body lying on the cart where I killed him. His skin is mottled to a pale yellow with large violet spots where blood pools. Bloat has set in, pushing the buttons of his shirt forward. The pick that I used to stab him is still in his chest.
