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With that, Nero hung up, and Maksim was immediately asking, “What do we owe him?”
I looked at my best friend, then couldn’t help but smirk. “It’s a favor,” I informed him. “On behalf of Mrs. Sartori.”
“It’s starting to look like Mrs. Sartori is becoming more powerful than her husband,” Maksim remarked with a grin. “Just ask the Schulzes.”
“I would if they weren’t all dead,” I drawled out.
“All the same, maybe we should put the word out to stay on Mrs. Sartori’s good side,” he joked.
Granted, that wasn’t such a bad idea.
Chapter 32
Samara~
The thing about being tortured when you weren’t used to physical harm, any little thing could be considered torture. With my ankle already sporting a fairly new wound, when Louie had removed the bandage, then had begun rubbing the raw flesh with his bare hands, I had screamed.
Loudly.
Still, despite the pain, the worst part had been listening to Louie laugh at me. Nothing left its mark like humiliation, and it was clear that he wasn’t going to just torture me; his enjoyment was going to come from also embarrassing me. Since he couldn’t go after Maksim or Avgust directly, he was going to live out his torture fantasies vicariously through me.
Louie was also versed in the art of torment, knowing what worked best for women versus men. Though I was still tied to a chair, my shirt was hanging in shreds all around me, and my skirt had been pushed up my legs, not quite showing off my underwear, but around my thighs in a way that felt vulgar enough. I also knew that it wasn’t going to be long before he violated me completely, but I was kind of hoping for it. As long as I was tied to this chair, then I had no chance of escaping. If he decided to rape me, then he'd have to untie me to put me into a different position, and that’s when I planned to strike.
I didn’t say anything as I watched Louie rifle through a bag that I hadn’t noticed before. When he pulled out a paring knife, my heart started to beat faster. He was either going to cut my binds or he was going to slice me up, and it was anybody’s guess right now.
I eyed the knife as he made his way over to me, and I screamed bloody murder when he jabbed it into my thigh, then started carving something into my skin. His cold laughter mingled with my screams, and when he was done, I looked down to see a crude letter N on the edge of my thigh.
“What is that?” I cried out. “Why…why are you doing this?”
Louie grinned at his handiwork, then winked at me like a lunatic. “Well, I guess it won’t hurt to tell you. I mean, you’ll be dead by the time I dump you on Kotov’s doorstep, so what does it really matter?”
My leg felt like it was on fire, and I had to steady my breathing to keep myself from hyperventilating. I knew that he didn’t plan on stopping at just one letter, so I needed to do my best not to pass out from the pain. I also hoped that he didn’t accidentally cut an artery, pushing me to bleed to death before I could try to save myself.
“See, back when I was a child, I was best friends with a boy named Edik Ovchinnikov,” he said as he began his story. “We did everything together, and his mother, Arina, treated me like one of her own. When we were around seven, Arina got pregnant, and she ended up welcoming another son, Nikel Ovchinnikov Barychev.”
Oh, my God.
“Everything was well until we were all down by the creek one day, and Nikel fell in,” he went on. “Edik quickly jumped in to save him, but he had underestimated the strength of the current. The water threw Edik up against a rather vicious looking boulder, and he ended up drowning. Nikel had been a mess, and I’d been a coward.”
Despite everything, I couldn’t help but feel for the situation. “What?”
“I hadn’t jumped in to help or anything,” he went on. “I’d been paralyzed with shock and fear, and Edik had died because I had panicked.”
“But you were just young boys-”
“We weren’t young boys,” he snapped. “Edik and I were twenty-seven at the time, and Nikel had been twenty.”
Deciding to steer clear of an obviously painful time in his life, I said, “I still don’t understand what that has to do with me.”
“After Edik’s passing, Arina had reached out to Demitri Barychev, but instead of coming to her aid and helping her and Nikel deal with the tragedy, he had remained in the US, ignoring her calls,” he explained. “Arina hadn’t been able to recover from the heartbreak, and Nikel didn’t know how to help her.” Louie started trailing the edge of the knife down my bleeding skin like a sadist. “For years, Nikel vowed to make Demitri Barychev pay, and when Arina finally passed a few years ago, Nikel was finally able to put his plan into order. He and I came to the US to find Demitri, but do you know what we found instead? Demitri Barychev had died many years ago, which explained why he hadn’t returned any of Arina’s phone calls or why he hadn’t ever reached out to Nikel.”
“What does that have to do with me?” I repeated, very much on the verge of losing it.
“Watch your tone,” he warned, but then still continued his story. “Once we learned that Demitri was dead, we also learned that he had two other sons, and do you want to know what? Instead of struggling to support an emotionally distraught mother, those brothers had become bratva royalty, living the high life, making millions and having not a worry in the world.”
“That…that doesn’t make any sense,” I sputtered. “How are Maksim and Akim responsible for what their father did or didn’t do? Plus, Demitri and Varya Barychev were drug addicts that died from overdoses. Maksim was only fifteen, so….so he struggled as well.” I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. “While Nikel was trying to take care of his mother, Maksim had been trying to take care of his brother. They weren’t living the high life; it wasn’t like that.”
Louie’s eyes narrowed, and I knew that I’d just fucked up. “Thought you didn’t know anything about Kotov or Barychev? Thought you were just one whore of many?”
