29. Natalia

29

NATALIA

The warehouse looks like the set of a slasher movie.

Broken boards covered in mold hang from the ceiling like rotten teeth. Shattered glass is scattered across a floor that could be covered in either rust, dried blood, or both. I contemplate it for all of two seconds before I decide I'd rather not know.

"There's still time to back out." Andrey's lips brush against the shell of my ear.

I square my shoulders and wrench my hand away from his. "I want to be here. I want to see you in action."

He gazes at me thoughtfully. Is that admiration or disgust? "You might get more than you bargained for," he warns.

"If I can't take it, I'll walk away," I assure him. "But it'll be my choice. Just let me try."

He opens his mouth to say something, but then thinks better of it. "Then let's go." He takes my hand again and leads me through the warehouse.

I lean into his side. "I know this place is mostly for maiming and murdering, but you could still sweep once or twice."

Andrey smiles wryly. "The worse it looks, the more likely civilians are to stay away from it."

The only light comes from the moonlight slicing through the holes in the roof. It dapples the dusty ground and debris. Further into the space, one shaft acts like a spotlight for a line of men tied up in front of a crumbling brick wall. Their arms are pinned above their heads and their legs are fastened spread-eagle to iron hooks set into the bricks.

I count eleven souls in total. I recognize the one on the end as "Detective" Harris.

Something curls in the pit of my stomach. It's hot and viscous, and I don't have a name for it.

"Natalia?" I flinch at how close Andrey's voice is.

"I'm okay," I assure him. I point one quivering finger at Harris. "I think you should question the ‘detective' first."

His tongue sweeps across his bottom lip. "You're sure?"

I circle my hands over my stomach. "He didn't hurt me, but he spent the whole drive telling me about how he was going to hurt my children when they were born. I want to hear him scream."

Andrey watches me for one extra second. I know he's checking to see if I'm okay, but I don't know how to tell him that I'm more than okay. Taking action—even if it's violent and brutish—feels so much better than being a victim.

With one last nod, Andrey turns to Shura, who's manning the prisoners. "Bring me the detective."

Shura unties Harris from the wall and nudges him to the center of the warehouse. A tarnished metal hook designed for raising up cattle to be butchered is dangling from one of the steel beams.

Shura and Leonty loop the rope around Harris's hands to the hook. Someone unseen cranks on a lever and the hook rises just enough to force Harris onto his tiptoes. He groans, his face slick with sweat and blotchy, red patches of panic.

Andrey steps to my side, his breath tickling my ear. "One last chance. If you need to?—"

I turn and glare at him. I don't even need to say the words out loud: I'm not going anywhere.

Shrugging, he lifts his hand to my face and traces the curve of my jaw. His eyes burn into mine before he turns towards Harris, and I watch him become someone else.

Like a switch has been flipped, Andrey is not Andrey anymore.

He's not a handsome man in a stuck elevator, kissing me back to life.

He's the pakhan of the Kuznetsov Bratva.

He's death itself.

"Detective Harris, yes? I don't think we've been formally introduced."

Harris swallows. The blotchiness on his skin fades until he's sheet-white, though he sets his jaw firmly. "You won't get anything out of me."

Andrey lets out a harsh bark of laughter. "What makes you think I want anything out of you?" He tips his chin towards the line of captives in the far corner. "I have them for that."

"Then kill me and be done with it."

Andrey carefully pulls off his suit jacket, folds it in half, and drapes it over the side of a moldy-looking chair. He's wearing a crisp, open-collared shirt, so white and clean as to look utterly bizarre in this filthy place. A shiver runs down my spine as he paces back and forth, cracking his knuckles one by one.

"‘Kill you'?" he echoes. "You abducted my woman and threatened to hurt my children. You won't get the mercy of a quick death."

Harris's eyes flare wide, but he has to blink against the sweat dripping from his forehead.

My chest tightens, but I find that I can't look away.

Andrey unsheathes his gun and toys with it. Harris's eyes follow his every movement. Up until, with a mournful sigh, Andrey sets it down on the same chair where he left his jacket. "My Natalia doesn't like guns. So I'll have to find more creative ways of punishing you."

Andrey snaps his fingers and one of his men wheels what looks like a black, metal toolbox across the floor towards him. It reminds me of one my father kept in the garage.

But the similarities end the second Andrey lifts the lid.

My father had tools for DIY home renovation, but this case is for DIY torture. Pliers, scalpels, and a dozen other gleaming points and razored edges I don't have words for. It's row after row of metal pain.

Harris twists on the hook like a fish. "No! No," he moans. "Please."

"What happened to all that bravado, Harris?" Andrey questions calmly. "Don't let yourself down now."

"Listen, I was f-following o-orders…"

"From whom?"

Harris opens his mouth, except nothing but sweat and spit fly out of it. He's stammering so hard that he's unintelligible.

"Fucking speak, Harris."

"You'll kill me anyway."

"Yes. But you'll earn yourself a quick death. Isn't that worth cooperating?"

Harris's eyes dart from side to side before he finds the audacity to look at me.

"You dare—" Andrey takes a sharp step forward, his voice shaking in a way I've never heard it do before. "You dare to look at her?"

"I-I didn't hurt her!" he cries, meeting my eyes again. "Ask her!"

Andrey storms to the center of the room, stopping close enough that he's snarling in the man's ear. But the harsh sneer of his words carries all the way over to where I stand. "Look at her again and I will cut your fucking eyeballs out and stuff them down your throat. Is that understood?"

He nods in pure, abject fear.

"Good."

Then Andrey punches Harris in the stomach. I wince at the sound of flesh on flesh—at Harris's groan of pain—but it doesn't bring the expected wave of sympathy.

You threatened my children, asshole. You deserve this.

As if he can read my mind, Andrey hits him again and again. His muscles shift and flex as he unleashes a storm of punches onto the tied man, using him like a literal human punching bag.

With every blow, Andrey paints another mark on Harris. A bruise here, a cut there. Blood rises to his skin until it breaks through the surface and drips to the floor. Harris's grunts turn into screams and punctured moans.

He pleads desperately for mercy we all know isn't coming until one blow to the head sends his eyes rolling back into his sockets. His face sags between his shoulders until I'm looking at the top of his head.

"He didn't last long," Andrey snorts.

Shura walks forward with a bucket of water in hand. "Shall I wake the scum up?"

"Not just yet."

Andrey turns in my direction. He walks over and cups my face with his clean hand, the thumb stroking along the edge of my mouth. "Are you okay?"

My mouth drops open when Andrey uses his other hand to unbutton his white shirt. Blood stains the button holes and the cuffs as he pulls it off his shoulders and tosses it over the chair where he left his jacket.

"I'm okay, Andrey," I insist, wrapping my hand around his wrist to hold him closer. "I want to stay."

His eyes brighten as a slow smile spreads across his face. "You're a fucking miracle." He pulls me to him and kisses me hard on the lips.

Then, all too soon, he lets me go. I'm still buzzing from the contact as he stalks back to his prey, muscles rippling under a thin spotlight coming from the moon above.

I can't take my eyes off him. It's true that his life is a dangerous thing. But so is he.

And if I have a prayer of being safe in this world… it's with him.