Page 85 of Hateful Vows
And my brother has suffered unspeakable crimes onto his body and his soul.
I’m never getting out of here. And why should I? If this is how I die, I deserve it.
“Did you kill our father?” I ask, half-dazed and starting to shiver with the drug almost fully out of my system.
“Of course. He surely knew, too. Poisoned by his own garden, the one planted by his beloved wife. Poetic justice, don’t you think?”
Gio gets on his haunches once more, slapping a condescending hand on my cheek before swiping the tears that have fallen on my cheeks with his thumb.
“Don’t worry your pretty head with silly questions anymore,fratello. This is your new home. And I’m the only thing that will matter to you. I decide if you eat or don’t, if you get heroin, or not. If you soil yourself, or is afforded a bath. My thing.”
My eyes widen when the syringe appears in his hand again. “No. No, not again. Please don’t. Gio, don’t do this,” I beg, but he doesn’t listen. And it’s half-assed anyway, the craving strong and the drug needed.
He stabs a needle into my arm and poison flows freely through my bloodstream. I crouch in the corner of the room, tripping yet still aware of mismatched eyes and dark brown hair like silk that smelled of temptation and my ruin.
Will Irina miss me? Probably not. She has Aleksei now. At least, I can die reminding myself that I did that for her.
Gio holds a bottle to my lips.
I gulp greedily, looking into his dark eyes. They are void of any human emotions. He looks at me and gives me nothing. No hate, no love. No disgust or pity. Just nothingness.
“That’s enough,” he snaps and takes the bottle away. I whine because fuck, I need more. I’m so hungry and thirsty. Putrid paradise greets me back into its soft arms. I forget that I’m a prisoner. I forget that I have a wife, and that I never told her I love her. I forget everything but the rush of oblivion.
Until I start to crave the next.
“Perfect,” a voice says above my head but my lids are too heavy to lift up. “Thank your lucky stars that my proclivities aren’t the same as Misha,fratello.”
The voice continues its monologue but I can’t hear a thing. Nothing makes sense. He talks about how he was a slave for the Russian Pakhan for years. My subconscious recognises the words but it’s too far out of reach.
“Can I have more?” I ask.
The voice knows what I need and taps the syringe in my proximity. I can’t see it but I hear the tap of a fingernail on the glass clear as day. My mouth waters with anticipation, and I hold my arm to him. He said I could soon eat but I don’t really care for food.
“You’ll get more, soon,fratello. But not today.”
I blink my eyes open and lunge at him, but he pushes me back easily, kicking my ribs and cackling cruelly before closing the door behind him again.
Cold shivers rake down my body and I curl further onto myself.
How long until I completely forget my own name?
THIRTY-SIX
IRINA
“Ithink I’ve got something,” Toma jumps from his seat by the window and I straighten.
It’s been three weeks since Dante disappeared. The abyss he left inside my chest grows deeper every day that I can’t find a trace of him anywhere. Aleksei’s been a silent sentinel at my side and everyone has given their all to find him but it’s the first time a jolt of hope sparks in my veins in what feels like an eternity. We’ve had absolutely nothing so far. Not even Capaldi and his priceless technologies could do anything against whoever our enemy is.
“Look here.” Toma shows me his screen.
A man with regular build and a shabby mop of brown hair under a black, unbranded baseball cap walks toward the ferry in Kennacraig, Scotland. His eyes and face are hidden and it doesn’t look like a coincidence. “I started looking into the more remote islands. Some I visited before I relocated to London full time. This man took the ferry to Islay, before disappearing completely from my radar. Which isn’t too hard considering Islay and Jura are so remote and barely have any public cameras Capaldi and I could hack into.”
“What’s so special about him?” I ask, Aleksei at my back.
His body radiates coiled tension, and it gives me solace to know I’m not the only one locked in rage and pain. We can share it. Even Lucie and her sweet disposition have transformed before my eyes in the past weeks. She’s trained at the gun range every single day and I’ve seen her progress with the strength of her sorrow. I’d think it’s beautiful if I wasn’t so focused on finding my husband.
“The tattoo on his hand brands him as Moscow Bratva.”
