CHAPTER NINE
Talli awoke groaning as pain racked her body. It hurt to even breathe and she couldn’t move her hands. She tried to open her eyes but they were swollen shut and she could feel something warm and wet along the side of her face. She tried again to open her eyes and found herself laying on a thin mattress in a semi- dark dank room.
The room was in the shadows and it smelled of old sweat and stale beer. The only light came from an overhead bulb in the ceiling that wasn’t very strong but it was still a light and better than being alone in the dark. She could hear muffled noises from the rooms outside the one she was in so she knew there were people around her.
“So you are finally awake,” a soft voice said from beside her.
She turned her head and saw through a slit of light the face of the man she hated more than anything. The man she knew as Russell Jerome. “What the hell do you want?” she whispered. Her throat hurt so much she could hardly speak.
“I want what is rightfully mine.” He growled.
“And just what would that be?”
“Something my cousin Rizvan Dreususs gave over to your father eleven years ago. It took me a very long time to track him down and even then, I was too late to get the items. You see, he’d already given them to your father for safekeeping. When I confronted your father, he refused to give them back and he told me to leave his sight. He threatened me if I didn’t leave him alone. He told me I had no right to the items but he was wrong. I had every right to claim the items he had hidden from the world. Rizvan turned his back on everything that should have mattered to him but I never did.”
Talli caught her breath as she realized this man had murdered her father. “You killed him didn’t you? You killed my father.”
Russell glared at her and his lip curled in anger. “Yes, I took his life. He refused to give me what I wanted. He had the nerve to tell me the items Rizvan had given him were in safe keeping until he wanted them back. He told me Rizvan and Rizvan alone would get them back. I felt a rage like I have never felt before. For a moment, I left my body and when I came back your father was dead.”
“You stabbed him over thirty times,” Talli whispered. Her throat was dry and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Russell nodded. “When I saw all the blood I knew I lost it. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. The bloodlust inside me was too much.”
“Did you kill my mother as well?”
Russell smiled.
Gazing into his eyes, Talli could see nothing in them. She remembered the old saying about the eyes being the windows on the soul and she knew this man had no soul. He was evil all the way though. She shuddered with that knowledge as her fate was in his hands. Then she remembered the vow Barshan had given her. She knew Barshan wouldn’t give up on her until she was safe again in his arms. She had to hang on to that hope. The hope that he would find her and save her.
“Your mother was a pathetic excuse for a woman. It was so easy to convince her that I cared about her. I could barely allow myself to touch her.”
“If you hated her so much, why did you marry her?”
“Because I thought she could lead me to the hidden vault!” he screamed at her. “I thought the way she spoke of Christophe that she shared everything with him. It wasn’t until after we were married, she told me she didn’t know where the vault was or how to get into it. I thought maybe after she died I would have the time I needed to find it. I even thought it was in the shop but I didn’t get the chance to look for it. You threw me out on my ass. Then I found out about your father’s will. I knew then my time and opportunity for finding the vault were limited and that I had to hurry or all would be lost.’
“How did she die?” Talli’s heart hurt but she had to know.
Russell sneered. “I gave her antifreeze in her tea. A little drop or two every day and then I gave her a little bit more. I couldn’t allow her to have an autopsy as then my secret would be revealed, so I burned her.”
“You murdered them both and for what? What was so damn important that you would kill for? What was my father holding for Rizvan Dreususs?”
“You know something, I’m not even sure what it is but it’s the proof he will use to establish himself as the next Tzar of Russia. Old family secrets have told me that much. Rizvan is the only known heir to the throne of the Tzar of old Russia. He is one of the last members of Nicholas’s own family and he doesn’t want it.”
“I thought you were his cousin or something.”
Russell scoffed. “I am the poor cousin on his mother’s side. A cousin several times removed from the royal bloodline, but still able to call myself family.”
“Then you have no real tie to the royal line.”
“I still have a claim to the throne,” he insisted. “But I need the items in your father’s safe to even bring up the matter to the government now in place.” He got to his feet and paced back and forth in front of her. “Is there a hidden safe? Or was that just another lie told by your father?”
“There is a safe,” she admitted.
“Where is this safe?”
“It’s at my parent’s house.”
“I couldn’t find it and I looked extensively.”
“I saw what you did.” She growled. “You destroyed the house built with love looking for something that doesn’t belong to you. Whatever is hidden there will never belong to you.”
“I’ll let you live if you tell me where it is. Tell me where the safe is.”
Talli shook her head. “I’ll never tell you that.”
Russell’s nose flared in anger and he pulled a switchblade from his pocket. Moving closer to where she was laying, he held it to her throat. “Then you will die like your father did.”
“If you kill me, you’ll never find the safe. You will never get into it to steal what doesn’t belong to you.”
“What does that mean?” he demanded.
“My father had a special safe commissioned when I was but a child. It was hidden from the world in plain sight. He had it rigged so that only he or I could gain entrance. He protected my mother by not showing her where it was. He reasoned that way she could not be forced to open it for an enemy.”
“So I need you alive for a bit longer then.” Russell nodded. Leaning down to get right in her face, he warned her, “If you lead me on a false trail I will kill you. If you jack me around thinking someone will rescue you before we see this done I will kill you. If it comes down to a choice of you or me, I won’t even hesitate to take your life to save my own.”
Talli stared into his eyes and read the truth in them. She saw her own death in the cold darkness of his soul. She knew no matter what, this man would murder her just like he’d killed her parents.
“Do we understand each other?” he asked after a moment.
Talli nodded but there was something she had to know before her death. “What made you seek out my father in the first place? Why come to a jewelry maker? Why not seek out your cousin if it was the throne you were after?”
“When I was a young child, my mother told me of our history. I grew up on tales of being a shirttail relation to the last of the Russian royals, of my mother playing with Princes and Princesses. Being there but not quite belonging. As a younger man, I visited the royal displays of fine jewelry and the bling they lived with every day and I thought to myself I deserved that. Russia isn’t the powerhouse it was back then but if I had drive and ambition enough, I could make it once again a place of power it used to be. I began researching my family tree and I spent years locating whatever relatives I had left and found Rizvan Dreususs was really my only rival to the throne. It took me years to find him and when I did, he told me not to be a fool. He listened to my dreams of restoring our family to the throne and he shook his head at me. He had his people throw me out into the streets of Paris and told me to wake up and smell what I was shoveling. He told me there would never be another Tzar of our homeland. That dream had died when they shot Nicolas and his entire family. He hinted to me that any proof of a royal bloodline was hidden from the world and would remain hidden. I didn’t know at first what he was talking about, but then I realized something. I realized he had an item from our family history, something so priceless there could never be any value put on it. Then I saw a piece of jewelry your father had commissioned for a delegate of some Middle Eastern country. It was a band made of pure gold in the shape of a tri-peek design that would hold the ties of a scarf together. I studied the design in great detail.”
Talli remembered this piece he spoke of. Oh, yes she remembered it well.
“I’d seen the piece before but I couldn’t remember where. Somehow, the piece stuck in my head and on a visit to Moscow I visited the royal museum again, and when I was looking at the crown Nicolas wore the day they shot him, I saw the design, the very same design the band had been created from. I tracked down your father and asked him about the design. He tried to deny it but I know what I saw. He was lying to me and he knew I could see his lies for what they were. He ordered me to leave his place of business and to leave him alone. I came back the last time and that’s when I lost it. He tried to tell me he’d never been to Russia that he’d never seen the crown and he certainly didn’t replicate it in any way shape or form. When I was finished with him he would never tell anyone a lie again. So I tracked down the gold band and I bought it for myself.”
“But my father told you the truth about that band.” Talli laid there and tears ran down her face, soaking the thin mattress she was on.
Russell snapped his head around and stared at her. “What are you talking about? Of course, your father designed the piece. The man I stole it from admitted that much before I took it. He told me it was a Christophe original when I first saw it. I tried to buy it from him but he told me it had been a gift for his mother and after she died, he could never sell the piece. It would serve as a reminder of his mother.”
She shook her head. Pain exploded in her head. “No, my father didn’t lie to you. I designed that piece. It was my first attempt of designing my own line of fine jewelry.”
“Stop lying to me!” Russell shouted. “Your father admitted to me the design was his.”
“Of course he claimed it, you fool. I was proud to put my father’s label on my work. When I designed that piece, I had in mind being a princess. I put all my hopes and secret dreams into it. I drew what I thought a crown should be, just a smaller design. The client wanted something for his mother, a real Princess of her people. After I finished it, he told me it would be a treasured piece of his family, something that could be handed down from generation to generation.”
“Then you must have seen the old crown,” Russell mused. “Is that where you got the design? Did you actually see the old crown of Russia?”
Talli searched his face and saw the madness in his eyes. She shook her head but didn’t say anything.
“There was one you know.” He went on almost as if he was talking to himself. “The old crown had been on the head of the Tzars of our homeland for generations since the beginning of time. It’s hundreds of years old and priceless. When I saw the crown Nicolas wore, I thought of the riches and the glory he lived with every day. I could see myself living like a king, having my every wish catered too.” He sat down next to her and asked her again. “So where did you see the old crown? Where did you get the design for the band you created?”
Shaking her head she told him, “I never saw any crown. I told you I drew the design imagining myself being a Princess. I put everything I thought being a Princess meant into that design.”
Leaning close to her he snarled, “Stop lying to me bitch. The design is the same as the crown Nicolas wore. It was claimed his crown matched the splendor of the old crown. You must have seen it at some point in time.”
Talli shook her head again. “But I didn’t. I’ve never been to Russia or seen any pictures of the crown, the old one or the crown Nicolas wore. I can’t help you.”
Russell got up and began pacing again. “Oh, have no doubt you’ll help me. You’ll help me by getting into that vault and giving me its contents.”
“And if the vault is empty, what then?” Talli asked. “I’m dead either way, so why should I do as you demand?”
“Because if you don’t I’ll track down the man I found you with and kill him right in front of you. He’s nothing more than a loan shark anyway. No one will even miss his kind, in fact there will probably be some people who are happy that they no longer have to pay him his blood money.”
Talli stared at the madman in front of her. “Do you really think that? That he is only a loan shark?”
Russell sneered. “Of course as that is all he is. I went to him to get money, nothing more. The fact that he demanded a bigger amount than I borrowed made him a loan shark. I didn’t even break a sweat giving him a fake document in return. I knew he’d never be able to collect on the debt. I got what I needed and he was left holding the bag.”
Talli shook her head. “You are a fool. Barshan is Bratva. He will hunt you down and get his money back as you beg him for your life.” Then she narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “You made another deal with Ivan Barcoff didn’t you? He’s Ukrainian mob. You fucked up big time.”
Russell paled but didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he whispered, “You are lying to me to save your own life. You have to be. I would have known if they were what you say they are.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You have to be. I’m better at judging people than that.” He insisted. “I would have known if they were what you said.”
“Both of them are looking for you and they are pissed.” She taunted him. “There won’t be a rock you can hide under in this city or any city soon. They will find you and they will take great pleasure in making you pay for cheating them.”
Shaking his head he told her, “I’m safe enough. I have men to protect me. They’d have to destroy a lot of men in order to find me.”
“Are these the same ones that firebombed my father’s shop last night?” she had to ask.
He snapped his head around to face her. “That was just a warning. I needed the chance to separate the two of you and I took it. The fire got you to come out of hiding for me. Now I have you and he has no idea where you are. I have gained the time I need to find the vault and get the contents my cousin handed over to your father all those years ago.”
“Barshan will come for me,” she assured him. “He will track you down and he will kill you.”
“Why would a man like that come after you? Did you sleep with him?” Russell scoffed. “Even if you did, he can always find another slut to fill his bed. There is always another slut just around the corner. He is surrounded by better looking women than you are every day. His office is in a strip club for heaven’s sake. He probably won’t even remember your pussy by the time the sun sets, if you’re anything like your mother.”
Talli caught her breath. “You really are a bastard aren’t you?” she whispered.
He grabbed her by the back of her head and twisted her hair in his fist. Pulling it tight, he snarled in her ear, “Yes, I really am a bastard but you must remember one fact. I hold you prisoner and as long as I do, I am safe from him. I am safe from them both.” He shoved her away from him and moved over to the door.
Before he left, he turned back to her. “Remember your place bitch. I will break you and when I do, I will destroy your world to get what I want. Your life is of no importance to anyone.” Then he walked through the door and shut off the light as he closed the door behind him.
The total absence of light told Talli she’d slept most of the day. No not slept, being passed out from the accident. In the silence Russell left her in, she accessed the damage the car accident had done to her. She felt a raw spot on the side of her face where she’d hit the pavement after spilling out into the street. A sore spot on her temple had dried blood running down the side of her face.
She still couldn’t move her arms and as she tried to struggle, she found out why. Her arms were secured together by a tight rope, biting into her skin that was tied to the side of the bed. The bed itself was little more than a frame holding a thin mattress that smelled of mold and old body sweat. She cringed at the thought of what else the bed might hold.
Her right hip hurt and when she tried to move she could feel the pain of raw flesh from her hip to below her knee. Licking her dry lips, she could feel swelling on her left side. She could barely see out her left eye, so she knew the swelling went all the way up to her eyes. She could see better out of her right eye but it was swollen too. Her whole body hurt and she realized she was cooling down. She didn’t think it was due to the temperature of the room but rather due to the fact, she might be going into shock.
She couldn’t let that happen. Switching her thoughts to what she’d learned today, she felt a great hole in her soul. She knew the man who called himself Russell Jerome was completely nuts. The sickness that held him was well beyond insane. He truly believed he could take his place as the next monarch of Russia.
She lost herself for a moment in tears as she thought about the lives he’d taken to get what he thought he could gain from his actions. He’d taken the two people who meant the whole world away from her and he had no remorse about the deed.
He’d stabbed her father over thirty times in his rage and hadn’t thought anything about it. He’d been able to walk away without calling anyone for help. Her father was left to die alone and in pain. Russell never thought about the loved ones Christophe left behind without any answers as to why he’d been murdered.
Then eleven years later, he’d done the same thing to her mother. Maybe not stabbed her to death but he killed her all the same. And again, thought nothing about his victims instead he thought only of himself. There was no remorse in his soul for either murder, nor would there be when he killed her. The only person he truly cared about was himself. He was so focused on himself the rest of the world didn’t exist at least not in his mind.
Talli shivered in the cool darkness. Grief threatened to overwhelm her but she knew if she gave into it, she would be lost so instead, she thought about Barshan. Closing her eyes, she felt the safe feeling surrounding her again. It was the same feeling she got when he wrapped his arms around her. The same feeling she was beginning to learn she couldn’t survive without.
For a brief moment, she felt connected to him and it left her shaken. Closing her eyes again, she lost the feeling but she knew deep down in her heart…he would come for her.
Barshan paced the length of Yuri’s penthouse suite. Back and forth, over and over again.
Yuri looked up from the paperwork he was searching while Sergi, Nikoli, Demi and Travern observed Barshan’s odyssey. Ivan and Sazon were sitting on the sofa drinking coffee while on their phones monitoring their men in the streets trying to track down the gang of men helping Russell Jerome.
Neither Sazon or Barshan had accepted civilian medical attention so both were fighting their injuries as they tried to find Russell and Talli.
Sazon looked up and smiled. Closing his phone, he glanced over at his friend and brother and said, “We found them. We found the bastards working with Jerome.”
Barshan stopped pacing and smiled slowly but there was no joy in his smile. Instead, rage and satisfaction ruled his smile. “Who are they and where are they?” he demanded.
“They call themselves the Watchers. They lend a hand to anyone who will pay them. Lately, they’ve been working the streets looking for a way to drum up some business, then word is they found someone to pay the bills. My contact says an older guy matching the description of Russell Jerome wanted them to watch the shop and report to him where Talli went and who she hung out with. According to word on the street, they’ve been following her for a few weeks now and complaining about being bored until the last few days. One of our men tracked them back to their house. He called for backup and they went in.” He paused then added, “The house was empty except for a few players. They got more information about a second house where your girl might be. The only problem is one of the guys ran out the back and got away. We know he’ll warn the others. Do we move and face a possible hostage situation or do we wait?”
Travern cleared his throat. “It’s been a few hours since I called Felix. He was leaving Kiev then with a stopover in London to pick up Rizvan. They should be on their way here by this time.”
Demi and Yuri nodded. “It was a good thing you called. It saved us all some time. And right now, we need all the time we can get.”
“We still need to know what this man Russell Jerome is after and the part Christophe Janick and his family played.” Sergi commented.
“We know it has something to do with a secret meeting between Rizvan and Christophe eleven years ago,” Yuri stated. “But what is anyone’s guess. We did find out that Leon Pavel is a shirttail relation of Rizvan and that Rizvan never liked him. He’s related on his mother’s side so the man has no royal ties but Rizvan thinks he’s over ambitious and he’s hungry for something he’ll never have.”
Demi frowned and asked, “Did Rizvan give you any idea what Leon was after?”
Yuri shook his head. “Not really but we can ask him in a few hours.”
Barshan suddenly stopped and clutched his chest. He wasn’t in pain but instead for the span of three heartbeats he felt a connection to Talli. He felt her presence swell in his heart and for that small span of time, he felt whole again. When the feeling was gone, he knew he had to find her. He knew if he let her go, he would never be whole again. He looked over to his brother Sazon and when he met his eyes, Sazon recognized the emotion in Barshan’s expression.
Sazon nodded and dialed a number on his phone. Speaking softly into the phone he hung up again after a few minutes. Looking over at Yuri he said, “I have some men watching the second house. They’ve seen about twenty men in and around the area. No sign of Talli or Jerome. I told them to stay out of sight and to report back to me if there is any activity in the next few hours.”
Yuri nodded and swung his head over to where Barshan was standing. “We’ll get her back. I promise we will get her back.”
Barshan stood very still, then he nodded his hands curling into fists.