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There was absolute silence.
Then the gathered men burst out laughing.
Zeke tried to keep himself from heating up on the inside, but he’d known it was a longshot. These men never did anything peacefully. Especially negotiations.
“You’re bold, I’ll give you that,” Vasili said. “And you’re right, we can’t keep you here without raising questions. However, we can hurt you. You see, I don’t care what I have to do to claim the Incendiary. I don’t really care who gets caught in the crossfire. And I certainly don’t care about what’s headed my way once I have it in my possession, because once I do, I won’t have to care. You see?”
Neither Anna nor Zeke really did. Vasili noticed, granting them a small smile.
Unlacing his fingers he leaned forward in his chair, placing his hands flat on the desktop, saying, “You’re going to go back to your fathers with a fake ledger, tell them this little scheme of theirs worked, and then you are going to set up a meeting. This meeting will occur on the site to which the Incendiary is meant to be delivered. I will be invited, along with my men, to watch this great weapon finally arrive home. You will then assist me in creating a diversion, making your fathers look to the left while I sneak out with the weapon under my arm to the right. Why are you going to do this for me?”
Vasili observed them both for a moment, eyes drifting from Zeke to Anna. Then he gave a slight nod and one of his men stepped up, grabbing Anna’s arm, securing them behind her in a grip so tight she cried out. Zeke stepped forward, but three of the other men immediately drew their guns, pointing them at his head, making him stand down. Slowly, he took a step back again, away from the desk and the ruling head behind it. Vasili smiled again, no trace of warmth there.
“Because if you don’t do it—she dies,” he said, voice so even Zeke thought he might as well have been talking about the weather.
Zeke’s eyes met Anna’s.
He knew instantly she shared his impression of their unforeseen situation.
They were, quite simply, fucked.
Chapter 14 - Anna
The first part of the plan had been successful in that it had gotten them into the same room as Vasili Kuznetsov, but the possibility of this scenario hadn’t been included in the second part of the plan and all Anna could tell herself was that she had to roll with it. Whatever was about to be done to her, it was a threat, not a death sentence. She was convinced Vasili wouldn’t dare murder a child of one of the other ruling heads. It had never been done before. It was crossing a line that was drawn in the foundation of what the code had once been. Of course, Vasili had been right. Her calling on the code had been out of slight desperation and times had changed since it was first drawn up, but it still held true. It had to. She wouldn’t be harmed.
Even so, she couldn’t deny that the hold on her arms was growing more painful by the second. She was about to say something, try to do something to make them see she didn’t need to be restrained when she was suddenly pulled backwards toward the door.
“Zeke!” she cried out.
“Stop!” he yelled, reaching out a hand for her.
She couldn’t wrench free. Before she could even protest, she had been manhandled out of the room. She told the man to let her go, even though she knew it was futile. She looked over her shoulder, trying to spot if they were bringing Zeke as well, but she couldn’t see him. The man still pinning her arms behind her back pushed her ahead of him, around a corner and through the open door of another room.
He made her sit in a chair, finally releasing her. She rolled her shoulders, sending a slight glare his way, even though she quickly turned her eyes to the wall in front of her. Bookcases filled it. The room was smaller than the others. Like it was the bastard offspring of two of the more impressive spaces, tucked away in one of the corners of the house, out of sight and out of mind.
A side door on the right of the bookcases opened, Vasili stepping through it with a smile on his face. That smile sent a current of fear through her that no sense of entitlement from being her father’s daughter could save her from.
“Now, then,” Vasili said, making a beeline around an armchair to come to stand before her, his broad frame ever more imposing as he towered over her. “Anna Aslanova. You are going to be a part of a recently developed innovation. We’ve tested it on a hundred or so shifters and it’s perfectly safe, I assure you. Unless I press the button I’ve had installed on my phone. If I press this button, Anna, do you know what happens?”
She shook her head, knowing her eyes were dangerously close to defiant, trying to keep her fury down. Her fingertips were glowing. Vasili paid them no mind.
“If I press that button, a tiny jolt of electricity will be sent into a receptor in your brainstem and what that jolt of electricity will do is it will begin to fry your memories. One by one. If I keep pressing the button, the jolt won’t stop until you’ve forgotten your parents, your siblings, your name. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
How could she not?
The understanding dawning on her was like the brightest sunrise she had ever seen. For a moment, she thought her life was about to flash before her eyes. All those memories under threat.
It didn’t, but she was holding her breath all the same.
“We’re going to perform a minor surgical procedure on you, Anna,” Vasili confided. She hated the sound of her name in his mouth. “It will place the receptor in the necessary spot.” He reached back around her to press two fingers against the spot on her neck that was right below her hairline, saying, “Here.”
She wanted to avoid his touch, squirming a little under it, making him remove his hand. His smile widened a fraction. She hated how these men wanted their women subservient and yet clearly enjoyed when a woman fought back.
“Fuck you.”
The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them.
“Oh,” Vasili raised his eyebrows, glancing up at the guard who’d brought her into the room. She couldn’t see the look on the guard’s face since he was standing behind her, but Vasili’s amused expression told her exactly what they thought of her display of defiance. “We’ve got a live one here,” Vasili added, eyes back on hers. “I’m not the one who is screwed, my dear.”
