Page 86 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

My jaw threatened to drop, but I knew better than to display such weakness in front of my father. I turned to look at him and swallowed hard. I could feel my Adam’s apple ride up and down in my throat with the effort. “What is this, Father?” I asked.

He nodded solemnly. “It’s time for you to cut your weaknesses loose, Vito. Now step in and finish the job.”

He put a crudely made shiv in my hand, pushed me forward, and shut the door behind me.

Audrey was tied to the chair with thick rope. Her mouth had been gagged, but her eyes spoke to me. She had the red imprint of a slap across her face and crusted blood drying at one corner of her mouth. Someone had backhanded her hard. I took one hesitant step forward, sweaty hand slipping on the taped grip of the razor-sharp shiv Father had handed me in the hallway, and saw the telltale imprint in the middle of the slap mark—the imprint of the ring Father always wore.

How many times had I seen that mark on my own face? If I was too slow in training, or too forgetful, or too soft—boom, a strike like lightning, and that brief delay between the shock of realizing I’d been hit and the pain setting in.

I was seventeen. Not yet a man, but no longer a boy. I was staring into the terrified eyes of the girl I loved, who was roped to a rickety chair in a dimly lit basement in a godforsaken castle run by a psychotic killer.

It was my job to end her life tonight.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her. Her eyes bulged. I tried to adjust my grip, but it kept slipping. I was sweating like a pig, cold sweat, rivulets of it streaming down my face and neck like I’d just run a marathon. The sleep was still crusted in the corners of my eyes, but I was wide awake.

Audrey wailed wordlessly against the gag in her mouth. The sound broke my heart. I couldn’t do this. Almost two decades of training for a moment like this and I was failing. I knew my father would be waiting upstairs for me to come back and show him her life’s blood drenching my hands.

I reached forward to loosen the gag. Then I stopped.

If she said so much as a single word to me, I would shatter like glass. I couldn’t let that happen.

I let my hand fall to my side. God, she looked beautiful, even in the flickering fluorescent lights overhead. Even with terror in her eyes. She was so precious to me, so flawless, so utterly unlike anything else in my dark and broken life.

Father knew that, of course. Why else would I be here? “Cut your weaknesses loose,”he’d said to me. What he meant was,“Burn up the last of you that feels.”

Time passed meaninglessly. Seconds, minutes, hours, days—it didn’t matter. I stood there in that cramped little room and stared into the eyes of the only girl I’d ever loved and tried to will myself to do what had to be done.

But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t care that this was the final test, the only way forward. I didn’t care that my destiny was one quick swipe of the knife away.

So, on that hideous, horrible night, I did the one good thing I’d ever done in my miserable life. I bent down in front of her and said in a frantic whisper, “Listen to me very closely: I’m going to get you out of here. When I do, you need to run. Run as far as you can go and never, ever come back. Get out of the state, out of the country. Change your name and cut your hair. I can’t give you any money or any help and I can never talk to you again. Okay?”

She stared at me and said nothing. Her eyes burned with emotions I refused to decipher.

“Nod so I know you understand,” I ordered.

She hesitated for a long moment before she nodded. She was crying. I didn’t realize until much later that there were tears streaming down my face too.

I turned and pushed open the door. The hallway outside was empty and dark. Returning to Audrey, I cut the bonds that secured her to the chair, but I left the zip-tie handcuffs and gag in place. I didn’t want to take the chance of hearing her voice again.

I grabbed her and pulled her in my wake as we raced silently down the hallway. There was a small service entrance that led to a rear driveway. Thirteen years later, I would bring Milaya’s unconscious body down the same route.

We pushed open the door together. The night outside yawned like a chasm. I didn’t cross the threshold. “Run,” I told her once more. “And keep running. Never forget: if you stop, you die.” Then I slammed the door shut before I could change my mind.

That was the last time I ever saw Audrey.

When she was gone, I cut open a careful slit in my thigh and let the blood spill over my hands. Then I went upstairs to tell Father that the job had been completed. I showed him my stained hands as proof.

He looked at them, nodded slowly, then looked into my eyes.

“You’ve done well, son,” he told me.

I never wanted to hear those words from him ever again.

* * *

“Vito!” A voice cuts through the haze, slicing my dream open and revealing it as nothing more than ash on the wind.

I open my eyes blearily and take in my surroundings. I’m propped up against a wall in the hallway. There is a window at the end of the hall. I can see the first rays of dawn piercing through the indigo night sky. My head aches something fierce, and when I reach up to touch the source of the pain, my fingers come away tacky with blood.

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