Violet yanked her arm out of her father’s grasp, turning in the seat to stare out the rearview window. It killed her—killed her—to watch the police shove a handcuffed Kaz into the back of a police car. It wasn’t long before her view was obstructed by moving cars, and then their vehicle was taking a corner, leaving the scene behind.
She felt the hot tears crawl down her cheeks, her breaths coming out hard and fast with each one.
The man who had attacked Kaz—she hadn’t seen him rush in from the side until it was too late. She should have warned Kaz somehow.
“Turn around,” Alberto said, calm and seemingly happy.
Violet didn’t listen.
Carmine was too busy holding his broken jaw, cursing in a mumbled way every so often, to care about his sister or his father.
The next box I hold will belong to his heart.
That’s what her father had said.
It was the only reason she came out of the house, even knowing she shouldn’t.
That fear—the terror—sent her running.
But it wasn’t quite enough to make her go when her father demanded she should. She didn’t belong with her father, she wanted Kaz.
“Violet, turn around and sit,” Alberto said.
She still didn’t give him what he wanted.
Without warning, her father grabbed her arm and twisted, making pain shoot through her shoulder as he forced her to sit in the seat properly.
Alberto didn’t let her go, his fingernails digging into her skin.
Violet hissed. “Let me go.”
“There, that’s better,” Alberto said like she hadn’t uttered a thing.
“Daddy—”
For the first time since she had come out of the house, she saw a real anger flash in her father’s eyes and settle deep into the scowling lines of his face. “Do not call me that like you want to find some sympathetic part in me. You are twenty-one, not a child. You know how to follow my rules. And I will no longer keep treating you with the kid gloves I have in the past, Violet. You …”
Violet blinked, feeling another swell of tears fall from the corners of her eyes. “What?”
“You couldn’t have hurt me more—betrayed me more—than how you did with that Russian.”
“Kaz.”
Alberto didn’t give a thing away when he asked, “What?”
“He is not the Russian, his name is Kazimir.”
“You are being foolish,” Alberto spat. “A foolish, stupid girl who spread her legs for a pretty man and nothing more.”
He could have slapped her and it would have felt better.
Violet refused to show how his words cut her. “Then why not leave me to be with him, huh? If I shamed you so much, why not let me go and be the whore you clearly think I am?”
Stay, she had wanted to say. Stay with Kaz.
A man who loved her.
Who would protect her at all cost.
Who never treated her like her father did.
“Because you are not his,” her father said sharply, his fingers digging in harder on her arm. “You are mine.”
“I’m not,” Violet whispered. “Not after this.”
Alberto’s gaze narrowed, but he finally let her go. “Fix your face.”
She didn’t make a move to do what he said, letting her tears stain her cheeks even more.
Her father waved a hand at the driver. “Chris, take us around to the Kitchen.”
The driver glanced at Alberto in the rearview mirror. “Boss?”
“The Kitchen—to the Black Hall,” Alberto demanded.
Violet didn’t know what her father was talking about, but it couldn’t be good considering even Carmine had lifted his head and was staring at Alberto like the man had grown a second head.
“What?” her brother mumbled.
“Make it fast,” Alberto said, never taking his gaze off Violet.
What was going on?
Violet watched streets fly by and eventually become more familiar, until they were in the bowels of Hell’s Kitchen and coming to a stop at what looked like a rundown, decrepit building that might, at one time, have been an apartment building.
“Stay in the car, I do not need you for this,” Alberto told the driver, and then Carmine. He grabbed Violet’s arm, pulling her with him as he exited the back of the car. “Keep quiet, and keep up, darling.”
She didn’t like how he’d used that endearment with just a hint of sarcasm and condescension, but chose to do as he said.
At that point, it wasn’t like Violet had much of a damn choice.
It wasn’t long after they entered the shamble of a building before Violet figured out why her father had called it Black Hall. Darkness enveloped the entire place but when a small, flickering light bulb was turned on, black halls stared back at her from every direction.
Alberto pulled her along, opening a door to another set of halls, and a staircase. Again, the place was black all over, even with the bit of light.
Violet couldn’t understand why they would paint the place black like it was, and it almost felt like the walls were fucking closing in on her because it seemed so small. Her heart rate picked up, thundering. Anxiety simmered through her bloodstream.
“What—”
“Shut up,” Alberto said.
Violet snapped her mouth shut, letting her father continue to drag her along like she was a doll and nothing more. The more she breathed in the air of the building, the sicker she felt. It stunk with a musky, earthy tone, but also with something she couldn’t describe. Something that smelled like rotting meat and garbage.
Finally, her father pushed open a door at the end of yet another long, small black hallway. His hand found her shoulders, and he shoved, pushing her inside first.
Violet spun on her heel to face her father, and he slammed the door shut, and flicked on another tiny light bulb that barely did the job of lighting the small space.
All over again, the walls seemed to close in on Violet.
“You never liked the dark when you were a child,” Alberto said, taking one step away from the door.
Violet forced her panic down, keeping her gaze on her father and not the black walls surrounding her. “I’m not a child now.”
“Clearly. But I’m not quite sure what to think of you now, either. A lady doesn’t seem to fit what with your recent behavior. No lady would go on acting as you did with that Russian.”
She beat down the urge to correct Alberto again.
“Why am I here?” Violet chanced a look at the dark walls, wishing the room was bigger. She didn’t like small spaces, either. “And what is this place?”
Alberto smiled, but it came off cold.
She had no doubt he meant for it to.
“This, Violet, is the Black Hall. And I wanted to show you it.”
That answered nothing.
“Why? To frighten me with it because it’s small and dark?”
Alberto chuckled, waving a finger at her. “Smart, but it’s actually much bigger than you think. And there are chains on every exit door. The walls are so thick that no one can be heard screaming when they’re brought here, and even better, no one would say a thing if they were heard. But no, that isn’t why I brought you here.”
Violet clenched her fists at her sides, confused and wary. “I don’t understand.”
“All it takes is a room like this, and a few days to ruin a man’s mind.”
“So?”
“I want you to take a good look around you right now, imagine it being cold, dark, and small. Then consider the only light you get is when someone comes in here to beat you at least once a day, but sometimes twice if they’re in the neighborhood.”
Violet backed up a foot, wanting to be further away from her father. She didn’t know this man at all—he was not who she knew.
“Careful,” Alberto said when Violet’s back almost hit the wall. “Don’t touch, it’s probably still wet.”
She didn’t look over her shoulder, but did ask, “With what?”
“Take a guess.”
“No.”
Alberto shrugged. “Your mind will do it for you. And believe me, that is more than enough.”
It already had, but Violet refused to even go there. This was just another one of her father’s games—a head game to mess with her mind, and trick her into compliance.
She didn’t want it to work but she wanted out of this fucking building.
“I want to go home,” Violet said.
“Soon,” Alberto promised. He waved a hand high, gesturing at the room, but maybe he meant the building. “I wanted you to see, Violet.”
“See what?”
“What I will do to Kazimir Markovic before I kill him, should he ever put his hands on you again.”
With guards on either side of him, hands on their guns as though they had to worry what Kaz’s next move would be, he was walked down the hallway, bypassing a number of cells, where inmates were shouting, or otherwise asleep. Though smaller and far younger than a number of the men that made up the block he was housed in, no one bothered him.
While his name felt like a burden sometimes, this was not one of them.
As they continued on, they didn’t stop at the first door to the left where the large room was where the inmates were allowed visitation, but kept going, finally stopping at another door where Kaz’s guard to the left had to look up at the camera in the corner of the wall before a buzz could be heard, and they were allowed inside.
Through there, and the corridor adjacent to it, Kaz’s shackles were finally unlocked, giving him the chance to rotate his wrists, after having the metal rubbing against them for so long. His guards stepped to the side, but one said, “You got ten minutes,” before he gave the door opposite him a push, and gestured for Kaz to walk outside.
Breathing in the fresh air, Kaz dug into the pocket of his uniform for his cigarettes, plucking one from the pack then bringing it up to his lips.
“Those things are going to kill you, Kazimir.”
He turned slightly, just enough that he could see Vasily waiting for him, standing out of view of the cameras that lined the roof—or maybe he had someone to shift the angle for the time being.
“Maybe so,” Kaz said with a shrug. “But it could be worse.”
Vasily’s brows lifted as he said, “Oh? How so?”
“You could be standing at my back.”
Kaz almost grinned as Vasily’s humor fled. He’d had enough time in the thirty days he had already been locked inside to think on just how he had ended up here. The right people could have been easily bought off in a matter of days for a weapon’s charge.
And yet, nothing.
Kaz had no choice but to take the deal they offered, knowing that because he already had a felony on his record, he could have been facing a number of years behind bars, as opposed to just the six months he ended up with.
But six months in a cell was still fucking torture for him.
“You came here for a reason, Vasily,” Kaz said, taking a drag from his cigarette. “What do you want?”
“I’m offering you a chance for you to move on once you’re out—to focus on what’s important. If you want it, your position will still be yours, and there will be no bad blood between us and the Galluccis. Alberto is willing to let you be free.”
Laughing without humor, he shook his head. “And what makes you think I give a fuck what Alberto Gallucci is willing to give me?”
“Kazimir—”
“Understand something. The second you arranged this,” Kaz said gesturing to the number stitched on his uniform, “was the very second you were dead to me. Did you think you were punishing me? Sticking me in here for a few months? Was this supposed to be my lesson?”
“Your actions have consequences, Kazimir—whether you like it or not,” Vasily retorted, that familiar fire entering his words. “You are not above my rules, boy, or have you forgotten your place? This was nothing new. Playing the victim will get you nowhere.”
“Is that what you think this is?” Kaz asked. “Me playing the victim?”
“No, I think you’re acting like a child that got his favorite toy taken away.”
It took great focus to keep his emotions in check, but Kaz had had a full month to prepare for this face-to-face, and he wasn’t ready to tip his hand just yet.
“I honestly believe that’s what you think, too. Violet was never a toy. She wasn’t a fucking possession that I fucked around with when I was in the mood. She meant something to me.”
“Meant?” Vasily questioned. “Does she not mean anything to you now?”
“Why did you come here, Vasily?”
“Is it such a foreign concept that a father would want to check on his son?”
Kaz smirked. “Only when that father was the one that did it to him.” Taking one last drag from his cigarette, he flicked the butt across the yard, watching it skip along the pebbles before settling. “You’re a fan of your warnings, no?” Kaz asked as he looked back to his father. “Here’s one for you. When you looked into the abyss, it didn’t stare back—it winked.”
Vasily shook his head. “What does that mean?”
Kaz tapped his throat on either side with two fingers, smiling even as Vasily glared. “Watch your back.”
Leaving him standing there, Kaz headed back into the building, holding his arms out so the cuffs could be put back on him, and he could be taken back to his cell. He didn’t doubt that he had gotten his point across.
Besides the meeting with his father, the rest of his night was rather uneventful, much of it spent counting down the minutes, first until dinner was over, then showers, and finally, when it was lights out.
Then there was always that hour in between that felt like it took the longest, that the money he’d been shelling out ultimately meant nothing. But just as the thought crossed his mind, he heard footsteps, then saw an arm appear in front of the bars, slipping the device through them.
Kaz had the small cell phone in his hand, dialing the only number added as a contact inside before the guard could even walk off.
His heart beating fast, his mind in shambles, he waited, listening to each ring like it would be the last, and then finally, after the fourth ring, the call connected.
The voice was soft, tentative, almost afraid, but the sound of it was enough to make him feel like he could breathe again. “Kaz?”
Smiling, he rested his head against the cinderblock wall, closing his eyes as he said, “It’s good to hear your voice, krasivaya.”