Page 16 of Hateful Vows
“I want their blood to soak my clothes,Lyosha. I’ll keep them as my favourite keepsake. A little trick I learnt from Alana Moretti,” she tells me with a deranged smile on her red-paintedlips, naming the infamous drug lord from Kalliste we met last week. Irina’s violence makes my throat dry, and I nod like a fool.
Our feet are silent on the polished floor as we continue inside the house. In our ears, Mikhail’s voice is a soft whisper. “Staff is busy in the kitchen and in your father’s private rooms. Five people in total.”
It was too easy to take over my father’s home security system. He’s grown complacent. Another reason he needs to die. His carelessness could get us all killed.
“Kill them all,” Irina says to Dan, who’s waiting at the back of the house.
“Copy,” he responds before we hear the faint sound of a door opening and closing.
These people have been with my father for years. Most of them saw him kill my mother and then beat Irina’s and did nothing. I know she harbours a deep rage against anyone who has seen the years of abuse, and decided to remain silent. I’m sure they didn’t have much of a choice but I agree with her. We can’t risk them running. Anyone loyal to my father will die.
“We don’t have access to the basement, so we don’t know what you’ll walk into. In twenty minutes, Ilia and Boris will come in with reinforcements no matter what happens,” Mikhail says and I grunt my approval.
My father is a predictable man. My weekly training session will involve physical torture, as well as what he loves to call ‘mental strength conditioning’. I don’t like not knowing who I have to kill today but that’s a musing for another day.
Irina and I descend the stairs to the basement. The scent of bleach, blood and urine mixes until it tickles the back of my throat and I almost retch. I can’t stand that smell. No matter how many times I’ve been down there—six hundred and fifty-one times—I can’t get used to the smell. My eye twitches but I clench my jaw.
“When we’re done, we’re torching the place down,” Irina mutters.
“Stay here,” I mouth.
As agreed, Irina hides in the shadows of a dark alcove before I proceed into the corridor and push the door of the torture chamber open. She’s the element of surprise no one will expect. Even though my skin’s covered with a cold sheen of sweat under my impeccable suit, I have to trust her to stand on her own. Any distraction will get us killed and I’m not dying today.
Not here. Not athishands.
The room reveals my father, as expected. The grey walls and artificial light make it look even more sinister. I know all aspects of this cage so intimately I’m surprised I don’t shudder. In the corner of the room, five monitors display the house cameras' feed. Everything’s falling into place.
Until I look to my left. Denis and Gregor Makarov, two men the same age as my father, respectively his second-in-command and enforcer, stand near a tiny girl attached to the metal table in the middle of the room. Their pants are down.
Fuck.
“Ah, you’re here. Perfect. We can start again,” my father says, barely glancing up.
In his hands, the blade of a knife gleams as he lowers it towards the girl’s face. She whimpers and the sound hits me in the chest stronger than a bullet.
I jump into action, launching at my father’s arm. The knife clatters to the ground.
That’s not the plan, but fuck the plan. I’m not letting another girl get raped and die in this god-forsaken house.
“Stand down, useless dog,” my father spits at me.
His fist hits my jaw. I pull my own back but thick hands grab at me from behind. A kick at the back of my knees has medropping down in front of him. “How many times do I have to beat the attitude out of you, boy?”
Spittle hits my face at the same time as he rains down hit after hit to my jaw and nose. A crack echoes in my ears and blood pours on my face and into my mouth. I struggle against Denis and Gregor, to no avail.
“What’s that?” Denis asks.
I look up at the monitors as my dad turns to do the same. Cold fear spreads through me. The cameras sizzle, then show the carnage of my father’s household staff’s murder. Their blood spreads on the ground, Dan’s face covered as he moves through every room.
My father clicks a few buttons on his computer. “The generator is on!” he yells before picking up a walkie-talkie.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Irina’s icy voice comes from the door of the torture chamber.
The distraction it provides is a godsend. Upon seeing Irina, Denis and Gregor draw their guns and aim. But she’s faster. And so am I.
The pain on my face barely registers with the adrenaline coursing through me. I throw myself at Gregor, his weight and build his only advantage.
Bullets fly, hitting true every time. My father drops the walkie-talkie, his howl my new favourite sound. Denis crumbles to the floor, hit straight between the eyes. Gregor lifts his hand and shoots.
