Page 163 of Ruthless Sin
The words come out first. They have been the only thing in my head since the morning he told me.
“Idi za nim.” Go after him. “Go get him.”
A man’s blood on my hand. Another man’s absence at the curb.
I am not staying behind.
I look at Dante. I do not blink.
He looks at me a long beat. He nods. Once.
I walk into the compound with Sofia’s blood drying on my right hand. I don’t cry. I keep moving.
The man who left at dawn to drive me here did not come back.
I am going to bring him back.
28
NICO
A boot to the ribs. Air leaves me. I go down hard, concrete under my shoulder, hands at my collar dragging me up before I’ve found my breath, and then the chair catches me and the plastic bites into my wrists and it’s done. Doubled. Tight. They have done this before.
I have done this before too.
Two of them move out of my line of sight to the door. Boots. Russian. Velikov accent. They speak over me as if I am not in the room.
“Etot v poryadke.” This one is fine.
“Ona v sosedney.” Hers is next door.
They leave the door ajar behind them.
The bulb above me is yellow. Single. The wall behind me is concrete.
My wrists are zip-tied to the chair.
Plaster. Plaster. Plaster.
I have pressed my palm flat against the plaster wall of my bedroom every night for three years. The wall is always plaster. That is the point.
I press my palm flat behind me.
The wall is concrete.
The wall has been concrete the whole time. My shoulders lock before my brain catches up. My breath stops moving right. The plastic at my wrists is the cable they used in Moscow, the cable that cut into my wrists for hours while I?—
The door in the hallway opens.
Boots come back. Then lighter steps. Then a third sound. A drag.
I look. The hallway is visible through the gap in my door. A woman is being walked past. Hands bound in front. Belly forward. The man at her elbow has one hand at the small of her back. The hair piled at the crown of her head is the three faded reds I have seen at Casa Lucia every Tuesday when Mila brings her in.
Oksana.
Her head is down. She does not see me. They walk her into the room next to mine. That door closes. The first man at my door pulls it shut.
I am alone in the room.
