Page 6 of Possessive Vows

Dimitri Volkov

The pines dance in the windas thunder rolls over the hills. Lightning flashes across the sky, illuminating the rocks peeking through the lush vegetation of Russia’s taiga in summer.

I loom over the opening of the abandoned well and relish the wheezing gasps of my victim.

The sound of water splashing carries clearly up through the hole despite the storm raging overhead. I drop into a squat and take a pull off my cigarette, letting the burning tip show my face before flicking the ashes into the hole.

“Pull him up,” I demand in Russian as I stalk over to the warped slab of concrete a few meters away.

The two men I brought with me rush to follow my command, eager to impress me and prove their loyalty to my family.

“Strap him down only by the throat. I want to see him flail,” I snarl with a gesture to the concrete.

Beaten beyond recognition, the man still tries to spit at me from the bloody, toothless gaps in his mouth as my men cart him past me. I lift my lips in an evil smirk and praise the gods of the sky as lightning flashes as though on my cue, giving him a clear view of my cold, dead eyes.

Fear clashes with the man’s foolish stubbornness.

I will break him. He will tell me everything.

Only then will I put him out of his misery.

When my men step away from him, anger shines from his swollen black eyes.

I bend down, pick up the handle of the axe from the pile of tools, and let the head scrape along the rocks as I approach him. His empty nail beds ooze blood as he claws at the iron shackle around his throat.

“I will ask you only one more time,” I warn as I step up onto the concrete slab.

His pupils shrink as lightning backlights my silhouette as I stand over him.

“Where is my worm of a younger brother?” I ask.

He stutters out a pathetic denial. I step on his thigh, pinning his leg to the slab, and swing the axe. The jarring crunch of splitting bones travels up the handle and into my shoulders. His foot rolls into the grass. Blood gushes from his leg. He screams and thrashes.

I lean more of my weight on his thigh and motion to the man closest to me. He grabs the shovel from the burn barrel and offers me the handle. I press the glowing metal to my victim’s stump.

Without a word, I give the shovel back to my assistant, walk around the asshole’s head dragging the bloody axe, and step on his other thigh.

He groans and whimpers like the stray dog he is. With a frantic shake of his head, he blurts, “America!”

Too little, too late. I chop off his other foot and cauterize the wound before stepping on his elbow.

“New York City,” he cries.

I swing. His severed hand spasms against the concrete.

The fool spits out part of his tongue and gags on his own blood.

I step on his sternum and cock my head to meet his glazed eyes.

“Which family?”

I don’t need to elaborate. My brother wouldn’t have crossed the ocean without a target.

“Vivaldi,” the man croaks.

I lift the axe with both hands high above my head. Relief and terror war within the man’s eyes. I bring the blade down with my entire body, but it stops an inch shy of severing his spinal cord, so I yank it free and repeat the motion.

His features, twisted in agony, roll away from his jerking body. Gore splatters on my shoes and pants. I sneer and toss the axe back toward the pile of tools before stepping off the concrete and glaring back at the twitching body.

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