Page 64 of Isle of Pain

SOUL RIPPER

Is this what some people call marital bliss?

I spend my days between helping my brother run his Empire, tracking Misha Petrov and his goons down, and my nights between the thighs of the woman I love. In between are breaks with the cutest child I’ve ever seen. Granted, I have never seen any but she’s the cutest one for sure. Every day, Ember and Marie make me feel more like the man I knew I could be. I’m not good by any means of the word, but I’m theirs. I’m still tainted by my past but I’ve turned my need to atone into something good, helping Marie get better and raising my little girl to be the most fierce person I will ever know.

When my phone rings and the number shows Aleksei Dobrev, my hackles rise. I pick up and don’t greet him. He can tell me right away what’s wrong, I don’t have time for pleasantries like my brother.

“Nico, can you hear me?” he asks.

“Yes, Dobrev, loud and clear. What do you want?”

He tsks but continues. “I called Andrea but he’s not answering. I left him a message. I know where Barychev is.”

Barychev is Misha’s second in command, second best to the kingpin himself. He was the one who abducted Alana Moretti last year and orchestrated the exchange between her and her bodyguard, Igor, who happened to be Misha’s brother. I know Lana and Julian will want to make him pay for stealing someone they love from them, but the bastard is as elusive as Misha himself so we need to act fast.

“Send me the location.”

“Nico, he’s meeting with the Amsterdam Bratva in a secluded location in the Cotswolds. You’ll need reinforcement. I’m coming with you. We don’t have time to wait for Andrea to wake his ass up or stop fucking his wife.”

“Watch your fucking mouth.” My voice is a promise of pain but Aleksei is unfazed and hangs up. A chime rings, and the location loads onto my car’s dashboard. I veer and change routes. I’m just an hour away.

Barychev could have met the European Bratva leaders anywhere but he chose to do it on our territory, nagging us, taunting us with his presence. Red is all that fills my vision as vivid images of what I’ll do to him enter my brain and refuse to leave. The all too familiar blood lust and promise of violence boils inside me. I crack my neck to the right then left and take calming breaths through my nose. When I check my speed barometer, I’m way over the limit and take my foot off the gas. No way I’m getting pulled over when hunting has just begun.

I have no idea how many people I’m about to face but I trust Dobrev to do that work for me. I’m usually the one you call to exact justice, not the strategist. There’s nothing that irritates me more than waiting and planning. I snort to myself as it reminds me how good I am at following orders, in and out of the bedroom. I never made the connection until then.

Picking up my phone, I dial Marie’s number but before the call can connect, the screen turns black. I’m frozen in place,dread a living breathing creature inside my chest demanding attention. A honk blares next to me and I bring both hands back to the steering wheel and my eyes on the road, veering before I collide with the car next to me.

Fuck.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I yell into the cab of my car, punctuating each expletive with a punch to the wheel. Not that it fucking helps.

I dart towards the glove compartment but it’s empty. She took my charger when I dropped her off a few days ago. I have no way of contacting her. I have no way to tell her I’ll be there soon.

Not caring about anything but dealing with this bullshit anymore, I speed off towards my target in silence. The air is charged with my darkening thoughts and I suffocate under the weight of my own recklessness. That’s how my father got killed.

This is history repeating itself. If Marie hurts herself because she couldn’t reach me when she needed… I try and fail not to think about that. About how similar the ending could be. About how I’m the one who opened the door of our home ten years ago to let in a man I thought was my father’s second in command, his most trusted ally. My parents were not home, but I knew the man. He knew me. The vivid memory of his sly smile as he entered, clasped my shoulder and moved towards my father’s office sends a chill down my spine. I’m driving but I’m sent back then. He was in there less than five minutes before I pushed the ajar door fully open and asked him to leave since my father wouldn’t be back for another few hours.

“You’re right, kid. No need for me to wait here while your parents come home. I’ll see them tomorrow for dinner, eh?” He had said. It was not a question despite the intonation of his voice. I guided him through the house. As a goodbye, he patronisingly slapped my cheek. Three times. “Sleep tight.” I should have known something was wrong by the giddy wayhe had said that. But I hadn’t been as observant of other’s behaviours back then. I was still grappling with what was ‘normal’ or suspicious, what was left unsaid when someone spoke and why did people never said what they really meant with their words, but betrayed themselves with their bodies.

That night, as we all slept soundly, a fire started in my father’s office. The house was consumed quickly, a beam breaking over my mother’s body, snapping her spine and leaving her without the use of her legs. My father and I carried her out but he inhaled too much smoke and died at the hospital. He wasn’t even injured. He died and I lived though we were both in and out of the house at the same time. Andrea met us at the hospital. Too late.

With his skills for cybersecurity and my need for revenge, it wasn’t hard to track the man who did it. The way I made him bleed and hurt for five days straight, cutting each piece of his body carefully so he would stay alive, drugging him with stimulants so he couldn’t pass out or rest, sleeping myself only one hour at a time because I was so consumed with rage, is one of my fondest memories. He was my first painting.

I reminisce and oscillate between blinding white hot rage and calculated cold all the way until I reach what looks like an abandoned farmhouse. After parking two miles away, far enough to not drive any attention and hidden from the main road, I change into the black clothing I always keep in my trunk and take the pre-prepared backpack from there. It contains a few of my favourite tools and a painter’s suit, my soft cashmere balaclava–the only one on the market that doesn’t irritate my skin and makes me want to claw it raw–and my trusted gun and its silencer.

I have no way of knowing where Dobrev and his teams are. I can’t wait to deal with the vermin who think they can keep me away from my girls but I can’t get in there without anyreconnaissance. I walk the perimeter of the farmhouse on silent feet. It takes me barely twenty minutes to find Dobrev, his new ally Dante Ventura and—unsurprisingly since she follows her brother everywhere—Irina, hidden in the bushes with three of their men.

“If it were anyone else but me, you’d be fucking dead,” I say and they all whirlwind, guns pointed at my chest. I roll my eyes. “Fucking amateurs.”

“You called the Capaldi dog?” Irina squeaks but I ignore her. She doesn’t matter to me, and insults have always glided on my skin like wind. The only opinions that matter to me are from the people I love.

“Be nice,” Ventura tells Irina and she glares at him, which makes him grin like a lunatic. I’m not about to burden myself with understanding their interaction.

“I need your phone,” I tell Aleksei and hold my hand expectantly.

“We left all devices but this in the cars.”

He holds out an earpiece to me and I put it on, clicking my tongue. We need to get going with this operation because every minute I’m away from Marie without her knowing why I’m not answering my damn phone is a minute that could bring her closer to the edge. My recklessness could cost me yet another person I love and I refuse to let that happen. I won’t survive it.

---