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“I’d prefer Bogdan to come with us since he knows the truth about what Maranzano did. We’re going to need him,” Andrei interjected to prevent a drawn out debate. “I assure you, the guards will protect them with their lives should the need arise.”
“Then let’s go,” Bogdan grumbled and walked off.
“Andrei?” Zafira stared at him as she caught a momentary unguarded look on his face as he watched Bogdan leave. “What did Bogdan do?”
With a curse, he shook off the melancholy weighing him down.
“Nothing you should be blaming him for,Comare. Beware, don’t lose the one good thing in your life because of pride.”
Andrei walked out before he said too much, all too aware that he himself didn’t practice what he had just preached.
Chapter Seventeen
The Guzun interrogation bunker at Cimitirul Ciocana, Chisinau, Moldova…
Since it was well past the midnight hour, the cemetery was cloaked in gloomy darkness. Row upon row of weathered headstones glinted in the moonlight where they stood sentinel over their occupants slumbering below. A chill wind rustled through the skeletal trees as the four imposing men arrived silently with their prone prisoner slumped over the shoulder of the bulkiest of them.
Their footsteps crunched on the gravel path as they wound through the graves toward a large mausoleum at the edge of the cemetery. Constructed of cold gray stone, it loomed like a solemn fortress with the last name ZUKOV etched over the entrance. The sound of the iron doors creaked ominously through the silent necropolis as they pulled them open.
“Make sure the gate is locked behind us, Vadim. I don’t want any uninvited guests interrupting us,” Arian said as he started to descend the narrow staircase spiraling into the darkness below.
The meager light barely illuminated the slick stone steps. Reaching the bottom, he flipped an electrical switch, bringing dim lighting to the hidden bunker. The others followed silently. Bogdan, with marked unconcern, dumped Gabriel’s body on the floor.
“Ugh!” The grunt followed as his head cracked against the wall and painfully woke him from a chemically induced slumber.
The interrogation room was all cold concrete and damp earth. Rusty pipes lined the low ceiling, and chains hung from hooks on the walls. A single bare bulb cast ominous shadows across the single steel chair set beneath it. This was a place of fear—of secrets, pain, and death. No cries would ever reach above ground to disturb the eternal rest of those interred.
Gabriel’s heart hammered in fear. The burlap sack over his head blinded him to his surroundings. With his hands bound behind his back and the cold concrete icy against his skin, it was a struggle, but he managed to sit up.
“What the fuck is going on?” he yelled. His voice resonated around unseen walls. “Where am I? Who are you? What do you want from me?”
Only ominous silence answered his pleas. Whoever had brought him here did not utter a single word. He didn’t even know how it had happened. All he remembered was having a drink at the bar of the hotel… then nothing.
Gabriel strained his ears for any clue but could make out nothing except the frantic pounding of his own pulse.
The terror of the unknown gripped him in its icy fingers. As beads of cold sweat trickled down his neck, he came to the conclusion that his deeds had finally caught up with him. The Guzuns knew he had been working with the Sicilian Mafia, but they had already taken their pound of flesh from him for that. A myriad of questions ran through his mind. Why would they once again capture him? Moldova wasn’t theirs. He could come and go as he pleased. Or was that it? They didn’t want him anywhere in the country? Or was it someone else? But who?
Blind and powerless, he shivered uncontrollably. Many of the choices he had made in his life were never his own. Janos Smirnoff had paved the road he had traveled from when he was a child. Deceiving the Guzuns, however, by supplying Maranzano with intel of their organization, had been his decision. If they were the ones watching him silently with a confidence that he could feel sizzle in the air, this time he knew, there would be no escape.
Bile rose in Gabriel’s throat as his imagination supplied visions of what torment might be inflicted on him in this dark place beneath the earth. He strained against his bonds but only succeeded in abrasions around his wrists. He had no option but to wait as his breath choked with dread for whatever his captors had planned. He gasped in fright as hard hands yanked him to his feet and tied his legs and arms to a chair.
“Blin! Let me go! You have no right to—”
His relay was cut short as the burlap sack was abruptly ripped from his head. As Gabriel’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, his heart dropped into his stomach. He immediately recognized where he was—the Guzun's mausoleum interrogation bunker. It was confirmed as he found himself facing four very familiar men watching him with their eyes full of vicious disdain.
However, it was the man in the middle, the one who terrified him the most, that he stared at with trepidation—his cousin Andrei Smirnoff. Even before he became the Pakhan of the Red Bratva, Andrei's reputation as the most feared assassin in the criminal world was well known. Gabriel had witnessed firsthand the creative cruelties Andrei inflicted on those who opposed him.
“My dear cousin, it’s so good to see you again,” Andrei said in a tone that dripped with false warmth.
“Wh-What is this, Andrei?” Gabriel stammered. “I’ve stayed out of the way, I haven’t been—”
His words were cut off as Andrei struck him hard across the face. Gabriel’s head snapped to the side. He gasped for breath as the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth.
Raw fear took hold of him as realization struck. He wasn’t leaving this place alive. Andrei’s manic glare told him his cousin was walking a tightrope. There would be no mercy, no quick end.
“Pl-Please, Andrei,” he whimpered. At that moment, he was robbed of all bravery and stood helpless against the tears filling his eyes. “We’re family. You… Let me explain…”
Andrei stepped closer as he tugged on a pair of black leather gloves. Gabriel recognized them—they were his favorites for interrogations. He’d be begging for death soon enough.
