Page 37 of The Bratva’s Monster

Before I can answer, I see movement behind him in the doorway that leads back into the hall. I stiffen, ready to warn him, but all I can get out is his name. “Rikki⁠—”

Something that I have to assume is a chair smashes across his back. It splinters and breaks as Rikki flinches under it but still stands. I can’t quite see anything of the third man but the line of his shadow as Rikki turns to him.

Rikki grabs him by the collar and tosses him across the room almost effortlessly. He flies into a wall, his head banging against the drywall, denting it and shaking the room. Rikki’s on him, one hand on his chest to hold him up to the wall, the other pummeling his face.

I’m watching in a kind of horror that would rival a train wreck. Every time his fist collides, the sound it makes changes. A slap, a wet slap, several crunching slaps until there’s nothing but terrible squelching. His face is just a mass of blood and flesh as his body goes limp and Rikki keeps punching.

“S-Stop!” I cry out to him. “Rikki! Stop it… please!”

He pulls his fist back and it freezes. He stares at the mess that was once a man for an agonizingly long time, then he lets him go. He slides down the wall, leaving a streak of blood behind him.

The whimpering man is now full on weeping in the corner of the room. Rikki doesn’t speak. He just turns around and walks toward the poor whimpering bastard and yanks him up by his hair, then drags him back through the door leading to the back hallway…

Everything in me wants to turn around and walk away, but I can’t. How can I?

I get up and I follow them.

15

RIKKI

They broke into her house because they were looking for something from Gedeon. That’s how she put it. That’s what she’d said. Later, I might wonder why she told me this instead of just letting me believe they were simple thieves, but none of that matters right now.

All that matters is finding out who these fuckers are. This one. This whimpering mess of a man was either too frightened to answer my question (Are you Bratva?) or he just didn’t understand me. Whichever it is, I’m about to find out.

I drag him into the kitchen. Liz and Gedeon’s kitchen has always been very domesticated—white marble countertops, pastel painted cabinets, a wooden knife block sitting right between the sink and a blender and toaster. It’s as clean as any other kitchen I’ve ever been in, but it has the slightest hint of a marriage or a family. Potholders, special sponges used to clean pots and pans, tea towels with decorations of fruit baskets on them…

He’s already crying. The hair under the ski mask is damp with sweat and I imagine when I yank it off, his entire face is going to look like he dumped it in a bucket of water. At first glance, this might look like it’ll be an easy interrogation, but I’ve done this enough times to know that whatever they look like when I first drag them in is no indication for how the night will go.

I shove him into one of the chairs and immediately pick up her floral fruit scent as she enters the room behind us. I glance over my shoulder to see her standing in the doorway. Her aqua blue eyes are as wide as saucers as she watches me grab one of the tea towels on the table and rip it.

Somewhere deep down where the decent part of me lives is urging the rest of me to tell her to leave. Turn around, go back to bed, Liz. Put a pillow over your head to block out the noise so you can sleep.

I’m in beast mode right now, however. It’s a state of mind that’s taken me years to control enough to use without it getting away from me. Alex used to say it was like learning to control a blazing fire and I guess he’s right. The monster inside me likes to be fed. Loves it. But I have to keep it chained or else it will not stop until everything is in ruins.

I yank the ski mask off him and just as I predicted, his head is soaked from the top down to his chin. He’s got a headful of dark hair that’s sticking to the sides of his face from the sweat. Bloodshot eyes roll up to me and dart around the room desperately.

I take the tea towel rags and use them to tie his hands to the arms of the chair and then his feet to the legs.

“Please. Please don’t hurt me.” His crying and begging are mixing together between his gasps. I walk over to the stove and turn the knob to turn it on. A few clicks from the range and a nice blue fire roars to life.

“This is going to be very simple,” I say as I grab three knives from the block and set the smallest one over the flame, watching as the metal starts to darken. “I’m not the kind of man who likes a lot of talk or might allow a person to give themselves rope to hang themselves.” I turn the knife back and forth, watching as the metal starts to glow. “See, I like to be the one doing the hanging, if it calls for it.”

“W-What do you want? If it’s money, I can get you however much you want. I can⁠—”

“Don’t want your money. What’s your name?”

“G-George.”

“George. Interesting name.” The blade is almost glowing hot, filling the small area with the tinny smell of metal and a low red glow that lights up the wall and part of Liz’s face as she stands by and watches silently.

“Well, George,” I go on. “Let me lay out the rules of how this is going to go. I’m going to hurt you. And I’m going to do it for as long as I feel like doing it.”

I let that hang in the air as I listen to his breaths start to slow. “You’re… you’re just going to torture me? For no reason?”

I scoff as I hold up the blazing red hot blade. “Oh, I have a reason. I have plenty of reasons. I also have questions that you’re going to answer.”

I walk over to him holding the blade. His bottom lip quivers as he stares at the knife. “If I tell you whatever you want to know, will you let me go?”