Page 20 of Beautiful Forever
Aleksei stops mid-swing and looks over his shoulder when we walk in. “About fucking time,” he says, backing away from the man duct-taped to the chair in the middle of the room, his hands and feet bound with zip ties.
I take in the gruesome scene in front of me and detach myself from it. I’ve got a job to do, but this one is personal.
“Pyotr,” Anatoly garbles, bloody drool dripping from his swollen lips, the viscous, crimson string slowly elongating to the floor like a parasitic snot worm. It’s kind of gross, actually.
Pyotr walks up to him, his usual affable demeanor gone. “Tell me what you told them, and I’ll make sure your suffering ends quickly.”
Anatoly’s head listlessly bobs from side to side. His face looks like it went through a meat grinder, thanks to Aleksei’s brass knuckles. One of his eyes is bulging to the point where it’ll probably pop out of its socket at any time, and he’s missing a few fingers and teeth.
With a dramatic sigh when Anatoly refuses to answer, Pyotr turns around and rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Why do they always choose the hard way?” Slipping his knife from his ankle holster, he sits on Anatoly’s lap and taps the pointed end of the blade against his jugular notch. “I hope the money Androv paid you to betray our family”—he leans in—“to betray me, was worth it.”
The Androvs are a rival family of the Petrovs. Anatoly was one of Drako’s soldiers who switched sides and turned informant for the enemy. He betrayed his brotherhood and the family that took Aleksei and me in and loved us like their own. All for a half million-dollar payout. The right amount of money has a tendency to persuade anyone to cross lines they never thought they would. But there are consequences when you do.
And like I said, this is personal.
“Pyotr…I’m sorry…please…”
“You will get no absolution from me, motherfucker.”
Unable to move or escape his restraints, Anatoly’s screams fill the room as Pyotr slowly and meticulously slices the Petrov bratva crest from his chest. Holding the piece of translucent skin between his fingers, he gets up and wipes his knife clean on his pants legs, then pats Anatoly’s broken face. “Don’t pass out. You’ll miss all the fun.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Aleksei comments when he sees the pool of urine spreading in a circle on the floor at Anatoly’s feet.
Fear affects people in different ways. Some stare it in the eye, while others cower. And then there are the ones who literally piss themselves.
With a subtle lift of my chin, Maxim comes forward from the shadows in the corner of the room and cuts the duct tape wrapped around Anatoly’s chest, then yanks the chair out from under him. He plummets face-first into the puddle of urine, his sobs for mercy falling on deaf ears.
When he tries to get up, I place my Timberland boot on the nape of his neck and shove him back down into his piss. Thick metal links rattle like windchimes when Aleksei hooks the end of the chain pulley block that’s mounted to the ceiling through the gap in the zip ties around Anatoly’s wrists. With a press of a button, Anatoly grunts in pain as he slowly rises from the floor until his feet no longer touch the gray concrete. Whistling a macabre rendition of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” Aleksei pokes him in the stomach and sends his body swaying back and forth on the chains.
“Aleksander…please…mercy…”
“You know that’s not going to happen,” I coldly reply.
Aleksei and I have earned our reputations in the bratva. We’re the men you do not want to see coming because when you do, you know hell has come for you. There is no easy out, only the brutality of unending torture. It’s a price on my soul I’mwilling to pay for the family that took us in and gave us a home when Aleksei and I lost everything.
Pyotr offers me his knife, and Aleksei grins when I take it. “Aleksander Nicholas Stepanoff, prove your worth,” my brother snickers, reciting the phrase spoken during the Society’s initiation ceremony.
Stupid jackass.
But his words help guide me to that place I need to go as I slowly round Anatoly’s dangling body. I let my mind sink into the darkness where my memories of my mother and Aoife live. Where my revenge waits for me to release it. When I come back around to face him, Anatoly doesn’t exist anymore. All I see is Francesco.
“I’m going to enjoy this very much,” I tell him and relish in his torment when I pluck out his eye.
Ten
Journal Entry
Twenty years old
Tomorrow,I turn twenty-one, a big milestone for most, but for me, it’s just another day closer to securing my place in the Society…so I can destroy it from within.
“Need a break?” X asks me.
“No.” The dimly lit room’s bare walls have nothing for me to focus on, so I concentrate on the sharp, incessant sting of the tattoo needle scoring into my chest. The biting pricks of pain are actually soothing.
X wipes the area he just did, then continues with his work. He’s the only person I’ll let permanently mark me. I have no idea who the other guy is doing Aleksei’s ink, but Pyotr says he’s cool.
I peer down at the symbol that X has been drawing for the last two hours, the black, bloody lines more vibrant compared to the other tattoos that already cover my body. But this tattoo is special. Not because tomorrow is my and Aleksei’s birthday, but because it’s the mark of the Petrov bratva. I’m now one of them.
