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“You will not live past this night.” I reach out, tipping Jakov’s bloody, swollen face up into the light. “Your life is over,negodyay. You only have the means of how it ends left to negotiate. There is no reason for you to fear Adrian Drakos any longer.” I squeeze his jaw, pressing in on the places where his teeth once were, and he lets out a moan of pain.
“You only need to fear me, now. I will end this, if you tell me what I need to know. Quick and clean. If you continue to drag this out, I can take you apart in so many pieces that you will look at them scattered about as you die. Make your choice,syn, or I will make it for you.”
I can see the moment it clicks, the sheer terror, the hopelessness, and then the resignation that settles over his face, each emotion clear and vivid. I can see the precise second when he realizes that hewilldie, that the cigarette he smoked outside that club is the last one he’ll ever taste, that he will never eat another meal, have another drink, or come inside a woman again. His life, now, is over. He has hours, minutes, seconds, and his last choice will be how many are left and how painful they are.
Tears spill down his face, dripping in a hopeless trail down swollen and bloodied cheeks, and he nods almost imperceptibly. The words come out slowly, halting and pained, but they come without resistance now.
“There was a woman there. Adrian had many beautiful women visiting his villa, but this one was extraordinary. A blonde goddess. She was there with three others.”
I feel my pulse spike, a jolt of adrenaline flooding me at the first taste of the information that I’m seeking.
“Others?” I frown at him. “Who? What was her name?”
He shudders, and my hand twitches threateningly toward the table of implements.
“I’m trying–to remember–” He coughs thickly, still weeping, and manages to force out the name. “He called her Natasha…no, that’s not right. Natalie–Natalia! It was Natalia. Ob–obe–”
Holy fuck.Yuri’s information had been good. I’d been careful not to mention Natalia’s name, not to lead Jakov in the direction of his salvation, instead letting him find his way there himself, if he really knew the name.
“And the others?” I press.
“Another big Russian man. I can’t remember his name–I can’t! Really!” He squeals it out, and I laugh, chuckling as I look at him.
“I believe you. Who else?”
I see Jakov slump slightly with relief at the idea that I believe him. “A priest. And another blonde woman, pretty, but not as gorgeous as the woman Drakos was with.”
Fuck.I bite back a groan of satisfaction. With every word Jakov speaks, the more I’m certain that he’s not mistaken. “So that’s what’s occupying him?” I press, leaning in and seeing Jakov shrink back. “He’s so busy with this woman that he won’t pursue you?”
Jakov shakes his head. “No. She’s not there any longer. The night before I tried to steal the ring, she and Drakos had a huge fight. They’d been together for a handful of weeks, but they both had–strong personalities. They fought and made up a lot. We all heard it–the fighting and the fucking, but this one was louderthan usual. After the fight, she left. That never happened before. Usually, their fighting would end in rough sex all over the villa. We’d all have to stay out of the way to avoid running into them. Drakos would lose his fucking mind if anyone saw her in so much as a nightgown. He was insanely jealous.”
It takes a long time for him to get all of that out, but I can be a patient man. When the last words are stuttered out of his swollen lips, I cross my arms over my chest.
“So that’s it? She just left? Went to a hotel on Santorini?”
I can see the flicker of resentment across Jakov’s face, the moment when he considers retorting back–how the fuck would I know that, perhaps. But instead, he just sags in his shackles, his throat convulsing. “I don’t know where she went,” he groans. “But!” he almost shouts the word as I reach towards the table, babbling a fearful stream of information. “I heard what she said during their fight.”
“And what was that?”
“She said something about–” His throat convulses again as if he’s trying hard to swallow and can’t. “She mentioned Moscow. That she could survive there on her own if she needed to, without his help. She talked about not wanting to spend the rest of her life on the run, going from country to country. How she had no way to start over without help, no money, and no fake passport, and how angry that made her. How she didn’t want to be dependent on a man. That especially pissed Drakos off. He said that she should have thought about that before–”
“Before?” I press, narrowing my eyes, and Jakov coughs again. There’s a moment of resistance on his face, a last struggle to finish his statement.
“Before she killed her father.”
The words come out flat and hopeless, as if he knows they’re the last he can give me and, therefore, the end of his life. His eyes shut, tears streaming out faster now, and I reach for the gun on the table, silencer already affixed. I feel the warm sense of satisfaction filling me, the knowledge of a job well done, that I have the information I need.
“Good man,” I say soothingly, stepping towards him, and I see his shoulders shake with sobs as I press the muzzle of the gun to his temple. “Shh, it’s over now. You’ve earned this.”
He stiffens before the trigger is even pulled, his body reacting with horror to the death he knows is coming, but when it comes, it’s quick. A muffled shot, a burst, and then his body sags in the chains.
Jakov is no more.
It’s her.I’ve never felt more certain of it. I could go and take her now, abduct her from the club and bring her here, torment her to her breaking point, and then arrange to take her to Viktor. But even as I think about it, a better idea comes to mind.
She’s so close, soveryclose to trusting me.The revenge will be so much sweeter if she trusts me,I think to myself as I start to clean up the remnants of the job. I have resources at my disposal, resources that I’ve tucked away for some time now–but I can use them. I can be the sort of man I used to be, the kind of man that she would see as her ticket out of this place. When she trusts me, when she believes that I’m only there because I want her so desperately, I’ll bring the entire house of cards crashing down around her.
Is that entirely a lie? Why are you drawing this out, if not because you want her, because it’s clouding your judgment, making you want to delay the moment when she’s no longer available to you?
