Page 73 of Bears Not Included

I kiss Faith’s hand gently one more time, then glance at the doctor and silently beg him to make sure nothing happens to her. Despite Doctor Sandland working for them, I hope I can trust the oath he took when he became a doctor. He nods as if he knows what I’m asking.

Veronica leads me down another passage, through another door, and through another passage. Where's she taking me?

Eventually, we come into some sort of arena. A glass wall spanning from the ceiling to the floor divides the entire white-tiled expanse of the room. The other half of the room is in darkness.

“When you’re ready, press the button on the remote that is on the table over there. I’ll be waiting for you outside in the corridor when you’re done.”

Veronica leaves and closes the door behind her. My gaze wavers between the closed door and the darkness on the other side of the room towards the remote that lies on the table.

I move toward the table and pick up the remote. The longer I’m here, the more time I’m away from Faith.

I press the button.

Light floods the other half of the room. I sway, then hold onto the table as I take in the sight before me.

Seated on a chair, wearing a familiar purple satin shirt with wads of necklaces around his neck and white pants, is Kirill Yenin. He is unbound, yet he doesn’t move. There’s worry and fear in his eyes.

Behind him, dressed in their signature bespoke suits, without a hair out of place, with zero expression on their faces, yet as beautiful as lethal gods, wearing black latex gloves, are Deacon Walsh, Callen Andrews, and Mason Blackstone.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Livia

My confusion is only overridden by a fury so profound that I want to break through the glass and kill Yenin with my own hands. Hatred surges up in me and consumes every part of my being.

“You bitch, fucking cunt, you think you’re going to get away with this? Call your fucking bears off me, or you won’t live to see another day, you fucking bear whore. Do you know who I am? I fucking rule the world—” Yenin screams at me, spit flying from his mouth, his eyes bulging with indignation and fear. I hear him clearly despite the glass partition separating us.

He has more to say, but he’s cut off when Mason puts a hand on his shoulder, and suddenly Yenin is doubled over in pain, and I can hear his tears and snot drip onto his pants.

I only notice a long steel table on their side of the room when Deacon moves toward it. My gaze flickers over the contents lined up along the table's length. I see stun belts, stun guns, spiked batons and floggers, knives and throwing stars, hooks, nails, whips, and bottles with skulls containing, I don’t know what. There are so many other things I can’t name, like the array of apparatuses that look frighteningly medieval. Torture devices, I’m looking at torture devices.

“What do you want us to do to him first, Livia?” Deacon says.

My breath falters as I stare at him. And finally, I connect the dots. A part of me is stunned and speechless by Deacon’s, Callen’s, and Mason’s actions. I can’t explain it because it hovers at the edge of my thoughts, whereas the rest of me is consumed only with Faith and what happened to her.

Yet they brought this man to me. And they’re asking me what should happen to him first after directing my attention to a table of torture devices.

I look at Kirill Yenin. I see him as filth, the worst kind of human being on earth.

I want him to die. No. I want him to suffer.

I lift my attention to the three men who know every part of my body, and then I turn my head and peruse the table of torture instruments once more. It doesn’t take me long to see that accompanying the standard devices is a gun that looks eerily similar to the one Yenin used. A cane that looks familiar as well.

“Punch him in the face,” I say, my voice frosted. The instant my command is given, Callen wraps his hand around the bundle of jewelry around Yenin’s neck and plants his fist straight into his face.

“Again. Again. Again.”

I relish the sound of Yenin’s cries as his face gets bloodier and bloodier.

“Punch his stomach.” Mason follows my command. I tilt my head, and I think of my cousin and everything he did to her. “Again,” I say. Yenin is on his knees now, begging them to stop like the coward he is. Faith never begged him. She had more pride than he would ever have.

Mason lifts him by his hair and punches him so hard in the stomach that blood spurts from his mouth, and then he drops him to the ground, the same way Yenin dropped Faith.

“Cut his clothes off.”

I watch with indifference as they cut off his clothes, deliberately slicing into his skin the same way he did with Faith.

He’s crying uncontrollably now. Begging me for forgiveness. Naked, they allow him to crawl to the glass, to me. He’s pleading with me, his hands leaving bloody handprints on the glass.

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