Stephanie
“Wake the fuck up, bitch.”
Pain stabs into me and my teeth vibrate with the full force of a backhanded whallop.
They’re trying to wake me up by knocking me unconscious. These are probably not the smartest gangsters out there.
I force my eyes open because I know that if I keep them closed, they’ll just hit me again and maybe knock me out, which mean’s they’ll probably hit me again after that just to wake me up. That’s a cycle I want to keep out of.
I look around.
I’m tied to a chair in a dingy back bedroom with cracked paint on the walls, a bare light bulb in the ceiling that looks like it’s on it’s last gasp, and a bed I wouldn’t want to touch under any circumstances.
The doorway’s ajar, Vladimir and another Russian leer over me like two hyenas ready to feast, and through the half-open door I can see a living room with a dirty couch and a busted TV set that’s currently playing what looks like a Russian version of one of the old Lethal Weapon movies. Spread throughout that living room are the boxes Vladimir stashed at my store. He doesn’t trust them there anymore.
It sinks in, then. I’m broken and I’m in hell and things are only going to get worse.
“I knew you were guilty, you bitch,” Vladimir growls and hits me again. “Why else would a whore like you try and run away?”
My lip splits in two places and the warm, coppery taste of blood fills my mouth. My whole body pounds with pain and, as my brain begins to wake up from what I’m sure is a concussion, I start to become aware of just how beat-up my body is. That car-crash wrecked me.
There’s pain in my chest that feels like my heart is broken twice over — once from some shattered ribs, and once from leaving Luca the way I did.
The man I loved and trusted turned out to be a violent, unrepentant killer. And now, I’m going to either die knowing my last words to him were calling him a toxic piece of work, or I’m going to be sold off and spend the rest of my life wishing I was dead.
“Tell me where you put Yuri’s body,” he says, bringing hi face level with mine. “Tell me where it is and this will go a little easier for you.”
For some reason, I don’t believe him.
When I don’t talk, he seizes my bruised and battered face and squeezes. My jaw pops and I scream.
“Tell me,” he says.
“I don’t know,” I answer, my voice a pathetic whimper.
“Do you really expect me to believe that? How fucking stupid are you? The last place he went was to pick up the cargo at your worthless fucking shop.”
He shakes me and I stare back at him. “I. Don’t. Know.”
There’s a part of me that has a pretty good idea what happened to Yuri. Luca happened.
But even now, I can’t rat him out.
I can’t even say his name. Just thinking about him makes me remember the way he treated me; the way he did everything he could to help me with my store; the way he planned and orchestrated an entire day just to give me a vacation from the mess that is my life; the way he looked at me like I was the only woman in the world when he told me he loved me.
I know that, even though so much else about his life might be a lie, he meant it when he said he loved me.
That’s what makes this so hard.
If I tell Vladimir about Luca, that’s just going to lead to more killing, more violence, and whether he wins or loses, whatever good is in Luca will have died.
“You’re lying,” Vladimir spits.
He lets go of my face just long enough for me to shut my mouth before he hits me again. My vision goes dark for a second and returns in fits and starts. Wet, thick blood drips from my forehead and into my left eye, forcing me to keep it shut.
“It amazes me how fucking stupid you are. Dumb cunt. You must want me to fuck you. But don’t worry — I’m going to wet my dick with your blood before I fuck you up the ass. Then, when I’m done with you, we’re going to stuff you in some shipping container and send you off to some fucking whorehouse in Thailand to suck off locals for twenty bucks a pop.”
I just stare at him, one eye open one eye shut. I can already feel myself going numb, my body shutting down for what I know is going to happen.
I’m done. My dad thinks I’m gone, and I made it clear to Luca that I want no part of him.
I’m on my own and I’m already wishing I was dead. I just want this done with.
Chatter erupts from the living room and one of the thugs barges in with a frantic look on his face.
“Boss,” he starts, the word slowly fading off as it’s obvious this guy doesn’t want to have anything to do with Vladimir right now.
Vladimir whips around to face him. “Can’t you see I’m fucking busy?”
The thug hesitates a second, and then lets loose with a flurry of mumbled Russian. It all sounds like babble to me, except he says one word ‘Volgograd’ over and over again.
Vladimir snarls and punches the thug in the stomach, before turning around and smacking me again across the face. Hot blood seeps from a fresh laceration across my forehead.
“Bitch, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
My ears are ringing with how hard he’s hit me and I am so fucking confused. All I can do is blink at him as I try to focus and pull my scattered thoughts together.
“I’m sitting in a chair, that’s what I’m doing.”
I’m not scared of him anymore. I’m just resigned.
He hits me again, so hard that it sends me and the chair I’m tied to crashing to the floor.
Fingers knot roughly in my hair and pick my head up off the ground. His hot, wet breath is right against my ear.
“I don’t know what the fuck you started, but it’s not going to work. And when I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me to ship you to that whorehouse, you stupid, fucking bitch.”
There’s a knock at the front door and every head in the house whips to face it.
One blink, and then it caves in and uniformed cops burst through, guns up. They’re in full body armor, carrying automatic weapons, like a SWAT team about to go to war.
“Drop your fucking weapons and get on the ground with your hands behind your head.”
The air goes electric with tension and every hair and goosebump on my body rises.
Nobody moves. No one drops their guns, no one gets to the floor. Vladimir growls and every Russian reaches for their gun.
The two cops share a quick look, one of them even smirks like they knew this was going to happen, and before the Russians can start firing, the cops let loose.
Bullets cut through the air as the front room explodes in a firefight. Furniture is thrown over, tables crash to the floor, and men duck behind cover to blast bullets at one another.
It’s deafening.
One explosion after another, shouting, blood spraying, and chunks of plaster, wood, flesh, and blood splatter me.
This is a war zone.
I am going to die.
I don’t have the strength to scream right now — just breathing hurts — so I curl up and try and make myself as small as possible to escape whatever bullets come my way.
Somebody screams in Russian. It’s a wet kind of scream, a pained, thick-liquid gurgle as blood floods their windpipe and their last gasp of life flees their body.
Vladimir is screaming and raving and shooting like some demon on the warpath. “You are dead, do you hear me? Dead. I will find your families, and I will kill your wives, your children, and I will do things to their dead bodies that will make you fucking weep.”
There’s another crash off to the side. Splintering wood that erupts in a snapping crack. More shouting.
Someone’s kicked in the back door.
This is it.
I shut my eyes.
The room is rank with the sharp scent of gunpowder and the overwhelming acrid tang of spilled blood. The rapid thud-thud-thud of flesh and bone crashing together joins the relentless crack of bullets.
“Bella, can you hear me? Call out to me — tell me where you’re at.”
I open my eyes.
I start to open my mouth and the second my lips part, Vladimir lashes out, kicking me square in the face. My head whips back and cracks into the chair that I’m tied to. Everything goes black and my whole body goes vibratingly-numb with the pain and shock.
“Stay quiet, you little fucking whore.”
There’s another guttural scream and then the door to the bedroom slams open and shut.
“Vladimir, good to finally meet you.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Vladimir’s startled and slithering Russian voice makes me jolt back to alertness.
Luca has this cocky grin on his face, like he knows that no matter what’s going on around him, no matter what bullets are flying, no one can touch him. He’s above it all.
“Luca Fucking Moretti,” he shrugs and then he winks at me. It’s like he’s not in a fight right now, like we’re not in some back bedroom in a stash house. I wonder how the hell he can be so confident when he doesn’t even have a gun. “But all that matters is I’m the guy who’s here for the girl. And the fact that I’m going to cave your face in is just a nice side benefit.”
Vladimir moves to raise his gun, but before it’s even halfway up, Luca’s closed the distance on him.
It’s like the entire world is moving in slow motion, except for him.
He rips Vladimir to pieces.
His fists and knees and elbows all tear into Vladimir and it is terrifying and beautiful watching him work. It’s graceful and violent and fearsome and I can’t take my eyes off him while he breaks Vladimir apart.
In the span of a breath, he’s hit him six times over and sent him staggering backwards into a dresser, the Russian’s chest heaving in pain. There’s a thick, inch-wide gash on his forehead that is just dripping blood.
Luca closes and hits him again and the man’s head practically spins the entire way around from the force of his punch.
Something small and wet and hard smacks me on the cheek. A tooth.
“You’re dead,” Vladimir screams and he tries to fire again but Luca grabs him by the wrist, wrenching the gun into the air and sending shot after shot into the ceiling — crack crack crack.
Vladimir’s ready this time, and he nails Luca with a thundering punch to his ribs. There’s a pair of loud snaps the second he makes impact and I wince, knowing he just broke at least a couple of Luca’s ribs.
Vladimir follows through again, cracking his fist into Luca’s solar plexus. A thick stream of blood spurts out from between Luca’s still-smiling lips and he staggers backward.
But he doesn’t stop. He keeps coming forward.
Luca twists, wrenching Vladimir’s arm and pulling him closer, so the two right in each other’s faces.
“You think I’m going to cave? That I’ll stop? Fuck, man, I love that woman more than my own life. I am going to beat the ever-living shit out of you,” with every word, he hits Vladimir with everything he has. Fists. Elbows. Knees.
He ends it with a blistering headbutt, and the wet crunch of Vladimir’s nose splitting into a dozen pieces cuts through the cacophony of the bloody battle erupting through the house.
Vladimir staggers backwards, bloody, broken.
Luca steps forward.
“You’d better be thankful for her, too. If it wasn’t for her thinking I could be a better man, you’d be dead right now. I have to settle for just kicking your ass.”
Even saying that, Luca’s idea of mercy isn’t kind.
He grabs the Russian behind the head and pulls it down, while he brings his knee up in a bruising strike.
There’s a deep, bone-rattling crunch and Vladimir’s body goes stiff and he collapses to the floor in a bloody heap.
He might be dead. If he is, I don’t care that much.
“Doesn’t mean I’m still not going to beat your fucking ass, you piece of shit,” Luca says, before he spits on the prone body.
He turns and the second he sees me, his expression softens. It’s like I’m looking at an entirely different man than the one that just nearly killed someone with their bare hands.
He kneels down beside me and brushes my matted, blood-caked hair out of my face. There’s so much heat and concern in his eyes that it’s hard to believe that just a second ago he was beating a man to within an inch of his life.
“It’s ok, bella, I’m here now.”
Gingerly, he lifts me and the chair I’m tied to back up and then cuts me free. I wince as circulation returns to my once-tied wrists and ankles. Everything hurts.
He gives me a second to get my bearings before helping me to my feet. It is strange and endearing and delightful to have this bloody, powerful man dote on me like I’m a patient in the NICU.
I blink and get my head straight and then I finally manage to get out some of the questions that have been rattling around inside my bruised head.
“What— how did you find me? What is going on out there? Who are those cops?”
I’m babbling.
My mind is going a million miles a minute, but my body is way, way too beat up to do anything close to that.
He laughs and kisses me gently.
“One of Vladimir’s guys and I had a chat. He took a little convincing, but he gave me directions,” Luca’s so matter-of-fact about it, that it’s almost chilling.
He starts looking me over, checking out my injuries with the kind of care and attention that tells me he’s done this more than once.
“Is he dead?”
He nods and again his voice is so even, it’s like he’s talking about the weather. “He is. Most of them are. After I heard the things they talked about doing to you, there wasn’t any way I was going to let them live. I love you and I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”
I know I should feel something — regret or fear — but I don’t. After what those bastards threatened me with, I don’t know if they deserve any mercy. All I feel right now is relief and comfort. The man I loved and chased away came back for me and risked his own life doing it.
I look over at Vladimir, who’s still in a heap on the floor. He looks so pathetic and small right now. Looking at him, it’s hard to believe I was ever afraid of that lump of human excrement. “So why’d you let him live?”
There’s more than a small part of me that wants Vladimir to die. It’s against everything I believe as a nurse — I’m supposed to want to help and heal people — but after all he’s done to me, I can’t see Vladimir as human. He’s scum.
Luca sighs and he’s quiet a moment and it’s then I realize that the rapid gunfire going off in the rest of the house has gone silent.
“Believe me, bella, there’s nothing that would make me happier than killing that son of a bitch. To be honest, there’s always going to be a part of me that’s a killer — that’s part of who I am, that’s how I was raised, and it’s what I’m the best at — but I can be more than that,” he crooks his head to the side and rolls his eyes. “Even though it seems like utter bullshit doing things on the straight and narrow, I’ll try because I want to be the kind of man you deserve.”
I hear him and the honesty that is just shaking in his voice and I look at him, then. Really look at him.
He’s covered in sweat and bruises and blood and there’s a nasty-looking hematoma that’s forming over his right eye, but beneath all that I see him for who he is. He’s a killer, yes, and that’s always going to be a part of who he is. But we all make mistakes, we all do things we’re not proud of, and what matters to me is that he cares about me and he cares to try to be better.
Just then, the door opens and the two cops from earlier enter. They both look like a total mess — sweaty and bloody and panting. the younger of the two is barking away into his radio.
“Scene is secure. We have two in custody and five dead…” he pauses for a second to look at Vladimir and then at Luca, who shakes his head ‘no’. “Correction. We have three in custody and four dead. Hostage is also alive, though injured. We are requesting an ambulance to this location ASAP.”
“Confirmed, Officer Fletcher. Volgograd is also secure. Just like your CI said, it’s a blood bath, here. The coroner’s office is going to be busy as hell making sense of this mess. We’ll have an ambulance to your location in a few minutes.”
I look from the officers back to Luca, confused. “CI? You’re an informant?”
Luca grins and shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.
I turn and glare at the two officers, and the older one speaks up.
“Luca here called us a few hours ago and made us an offer. A career-making bust in exchange for a little help and some… discretion… in helping clean up your situation,” he says.
I just stare, dumbfounded. He can’t be saying what it sounds like he’s saying.
“My friends Officers Fletcher and Dillingham now have their names all over this bust, and they’ll be steering the investigation. And making sure you and your dad are kept out of it,” Luca says. “It’s the least I can do. You don’t deserve to have that mess hanging over your head.”
“But what about you? What about those mafia guys you called in? They’ll know you turned them in.”
Luca shrugs and it astounds me how he can be so nonchalant about all this. Like dozens of people aren’t dead and he hasn’t just fucked with two different criminal organizations. I look back at the officers and there must be a million questions painted on my face, because I see both of them start to set their jaws in frustration.
I start to say something, but the older one gives me a look that chills me to the bone and makes my mouth shut so quick I hear a clack.
“Prison’s a very unsafe place, ma’am. People die there all the time. I suggest you stop worrying about the health and safety of those Mafia pieces of shit.”
Officer Dillingham claps Luca on the shoulder. “Besides, it’s not like informants get full immunity. Your friend Luca here has a fair bit to answer for. All he’s done is just bought a little favor and the possibility that the justice system might not totally fuck him up the ass.”
Officer Fletcher’s radio crackles to life again.
“Officers, your ambulance is 30 seconds away. We have two other cars en route to your location to help with suspect transportation. Good work today, boys. We’ve just made Arroyo Falls a much safer place.”
I decide not to press the point. And even if I wanted to, I know they’d just ignore me. This whole thing is one corrupt mess, but I’m already starting to not give a damn. I’m free, I might get my old life back, Vladimir is done, and whatever is going on between Luca and me, we’ll figure out. Besides, it seems like he might actually be owning up to his past.
The two officers have already started to haul Vladimir to his feet and cuff him. He’s wobbly and his face is just one swollen mess of hematomas and lacerations.
The younger officer pulls a second set of cuffs out and motions to Luca to put his wrists out.
“Gotta keep up appearances, man. Technically, CI’s like you aren’t supposed to join in on the fun. Even ones that pay for the VIP treatment.”
Luca nods holds out his hands and lets the officer cuff him. The other one has Vladimir on his feet, and the Russian has started to come to his senses. He’s swaying and staring right at me.
He licks his lips. “I should’ve raped you when I had the chance, you pathetic bitch. I guess I’ll just have to fuck you some other time, huh?”
I knot my fist into a ball and ram it into his face. My knuckles connect with his jaw and I feel the bone-on-bone contact reverberate up my arm. His broken head snaps backwards and it takes both officers to catch him and keep him on his feet.
Then, I hit him again. He shakes each time I punch him and, even though it hurts like hell, it feels so good.
Luca whistles appreciatively. “Not bad.”
Both cops give me a nod of respect.
Blaring sirens start growing closer and it sounds like at least three different emergency vehicles are on their way. The cops start moving Vladimir towards the door and Luca extends his arm in my direction.
I loop my arm in his and lean on him as we head towards the front yard to wait for the ambulance.
Despite everything that’s gone on between us, it feels right being next to him, and the weight on my shoulders, from having my life upended all this time is so much lighter having him around.
The paramedics arrive and they load me up into the back of the ambulance. I try to tell them I’m a nurse, that I can take care of myself, but they’re having none of it.
They start working on me and, just before they shut the doors, Luca hops in back.
“Listen, friend, I’m riding with that beautiful woman there, and if you have a problem with that, hey, that’s fine, I’ll just have to beat you senseless. Got it?”
He stares at the paramedic, who is so unnerved by the whole thing that he has trouble even applying gauze to one of the gashes on my forehead.
“At least let him do his job,” I chide Luca.
Sitting and trying to look patient, Luca waits while the paramedic bandages my wounds and finishes checking over my injuries.
The second that it looks like he’s done, he snaps his fingers and points towards the front cabin. “Go sit up there, shut that little fucking cabin door behind you, and keep your eyes on the road. We’ll call you if we need anything. Got it?”
He doesn’t even wait for the paramedic to nod before he focuses all his attention on me. He knows that no one can say no to him. Luca Moretti is a force of nature, and you either get out of his way, or you get battered into bits.
“We need to talk.”