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I didn’t know if I’d been out for a few hours or a few days, but if I was already chained to a hospital bed, that could only mean one thing: step one of my mission had been accomplished.
I was back in Moscow, healing up so that Alexi could break me himself.
Cracking both eyes open this time, I scanned the room to make sure I was alone. Then, I did a sweep for anything that could be used as a weapon. I wouldn’t get many chances to be alone with my father. During the five years that I’d spent in the Kletka, I’d only seen him once or twice a year. It was too risky for him to leave his iron fortress. It involved armored cars and teams of Kletka-trained bodyguards. When the entire population of your country and most other world leaders hated you, going out in public wasn’t exactly a good idea.
When he came for me, I had to be ready.
The room was stark and empty, other than a TV on the wall, a wardrobe, and a chair, which—judging by the institutional gray wall color and lack of art—were probably all bolted down. This was no regular hospital.
This place was a prison.
Hearing the digital beeps and mechanical slide of a door being unlocked, I closed my eyes and focused on slowing my breathing.
“Prosnut’sya!” a male voice boomed as two heavy feet stomped across the tiled floor toward the bed.
I’d spent enough years in the Kletka to know that if you didn’t wake up right away, you’d get hit, so I immediately opened my eyes and turned to face my unwanted guest.
It was a soldier I’d never met before, high-ranking based on his regalia, but I wasn’t familiar enough with Army stripes to know exactly what his position was. I only knew Navy rankings, and even then, not all of them. Alexi had called me a lieutenant and shoved me onto that ship with only a few weeks’ notice and training. All he’d cared about was making sure I looked the part, knew how to use the artillery, and would have a front-row seat to the destruction of my country.
Well, mission accomplished, motherfucker.
“Phone call,” the man shouted in Russian, handing me a massive satellite phone.
I went to accept it, but my wrist only lifted a few centimeters before the padded leather handcuff did its job.
Instead of uncuffing me, the arsehole with the scowl simply shoved the device against my ear and glared at me as the voice of my nightmares slithered into my head.
“My son.”
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
Why was he on the phone? He was supposed to greet me in person, not over the goddamn phone.
Fuck.
“It is such a relief to know that you’re alive and well. I hear you took a nasty fall off your ship.”
I’d been speaking English again for just over a week, and it was already becoming more difficult for me to understand him. But there was no mistaking the condescension and sarcasm that oozed between every syllable.
“You must have hit your head very hard on the way down because I hear that you also went on a motherfucking killing spree!”
I could practically feel the spit flying through the phone.
“Seventeen crewmen. Seventeen fucking crewmen! And for what? Some fucking Irish pussy?”
My blood went cold.
“That’s right. I know about your little girlfriend. I know her name. I know what she looks like. And more importantly, so does every soldier in Shannon. If she tries to leave, her ass is mine.” He chuckled. “And it’s a very, very nice ass. You won’t mind sharing it with your papa, will you? Ah … I cannot wait to make her scream. I wonder who would be louder, her … or your whore of a mother.”
I jerked at my restraints and growled into the phone—a momentary loss of control before I quickly regained my composure. But it was too late.
Alexi chuckled.
“Here’s what is going to happen, lover boy. If you were anyone else, I would take seventeen body parts—ten fingers, two eyes, two ears, both balls, and your motherfucking cock—as payment for the men you stole from me, but because it is my fucking blood that runs through your veins …”
I swallowed.
