Page 40 of Deadly Knight (The Bratva’s Elite #2)
One Week Later
“Hello?” I answer the call.
“Your father is on your plane, drugged and tied up with more rope than you can imagine. I’ve done what you asked. Now leave my country, and I will contact you to fulfill our deal at some point in the future.”
Nico Corsetti hangs up.
In the week since meeting with the Corsetti brothers, there have been no updates. I never stopped working, though, meeting with a few of the gangs Lev was able to dig up. Figured at this point, Corsetti wouldn’t care, and if he did, oh well.
The passing days gave me a lot of time to plot how I’ll be dealing with Ivan since death doesn’t feel like enough. No matter how long I drag out his suffering, it’ll eventually be over. There will be a reprieve at the end he’ll cling to before letting go. It’ll be the light he waits for. A mercy .
It’s too humane. Not good enough for the pain he’s caused to Katya, to me, to Vanessa, and everyone else his evilness has ever touched.
He’ll definitely die…but only after I cause him even a fucking fraction of what he did to Katya. Only when I’m tired of him breathing will his life cease to exist. He can stop being a stain on this planet and in the lives of those he’s damaged.
It won’t be quick. It won’t be merciful, and by then, he’ll be begging for it to end.
Until then: prison. Russian prisons are known for being some of the cruellest in the world, but the cells the Bratva has set aside for our needs are worse.
A six-feet-by-six-feet stone box with no window for any indication of time passing.
Without sunlight or even moonlight, one’s senses start getting fucked up.
After endless days of solitary confinement, comprehension of time slips away.
Food is a single, daily occurrence and is nothing beyond two slices of bread and a glass of water delivered through a small opening in the wall at a different time each day so prisoners can’t use mealtime as a clock.
When they’re barely functioning on minimal nutrients and deprived of outdoors and communication, music gets blasted into the cells.
The most annoying, cheery songs, so loud no one can sleep through them.
If some lucky soul does manage to tune it out and doze off, then the song gets switched for an entirely new beat to start the process all over.
Sleep deprivation adds to the strain, leading to a breakdown.
Most don’t even make it a month before they’re insane, begging for death.
For my father, I won’t allow him to go mad. The ones who get driven to insanity are the ones saved. For Ivan Volkov, there will be no escaping. His captivity will be slightly different to ensure he’s always on edge. Always aware of his fragile state, but never quite broken.
He should expect nothing less than utter cruelty and depravity from me. After all, I’ve become the soldier he always dreamed I would be. His acts against Katya did precisely what they were meant to: made me into a ruthless killer. A weapon he once sought to wield that’ll now be turned against him.
I drive to the airport, ready to end this once and for fucking all.
Me
I have him.
Vanessa
Good. Where was he hiding?
Me
Corsetti found him.
Vanessa
What’d you give for his help?
Me
Me. A job of his choosing at a time of his choosing.
Vanessa
Vague. Coming home?
Me
About to take off, but I’m heading to the prison. That’s where he’ll be spending the next little while.
Vanessa
A little while being how long?
Me
Until he can no longer hold on.
Vanessa
I approve.
Me
How is she?
Vanessa
Pissed.
Me
Still in my room?
Vanessa
No. I let her out because it’s cruel to keep her in there.
Me
She’s going to try to run! She’s smart. She’ll wait until you guys aren’t paying attention and then bolt.
Vanessa
She’s been free since the afternoon you left and hasn’t yet. She knows if she does, we’ll catch her before she gets far.
I like her. I’m sad I never got the chance to meet her back when you two were dating.
What’s your plan with her when you’re finished?
Me
I don’t know.
Vanessa
You’ll let her go home.
Me
I don’t know.
I can’t.
Yes.
Vanessa
That was decisive.
Me
We’re about to take off. See you soon.
My phone gets tossed to the couch beside me as the plane starts with a rumbling sound, the jets whirring to life. Below, my father is in the luggage compartments so if he wakes before arrival, I won’t have to deal with him.
Anticipation thrums through me. The sooner I get my father locked away and dealt with, the sooner I get to see Katya.
The sooner I get to keep her.
Whatever Corsetti’s men drugged him with keeps him knocked out for the entire overseas trip to the Russian mountains, where, buried within the snow, a guarded metal door waits.
As soon as I step into the camera’s view, it opens with a beep, and the two soldiers who met me at the landing pad we have up north for such occasions drag my father in behind me. He’s groaning as the drugs wear off.
They take the first hallway in the direction of the Bratva’s wing while I head in the opposite direction to seek out the warden and pass on my instructions for their newest captive.
Once finished with the warden, I’m informed my father’s awake, so I head to one of the holding rooms—a temporary place so we can talk. He’s upright in a metal chair, a soldier on either side of him. His gaze is unfocused as he blinks a few times, settling on me crossing the small space towards him.
I dismiss the men with a wave of my hand.
Once we’re alone, he coughs his greeting. “Syn.”
“Ivan.”
He licks chapped lips as he takes in the stone room, recognition settling in. “So it ends here then? Prison.”
“For now.”
“Failure. I should be dead.”
That’s something he’d do to captives because he’s unimaginative.
“Death is too quick for your actions. Alive, you get to live with the pain of your actions every single fucking day until I decide to grant you mercy.” Exactly how Katya now has a lifetime of trauma to live with.
“How’s it feel to be restricted to another’s control?
You certainly spent a lifetime forcing your power onto others, so it’s only fair you feel it as well. ”
He smirks, putting up his usual facade through the fear tinging his eyes. “Well, well, at least you’ve learned something. I appreciate this decision after hearing your reasoning. Though, if you weren’t so weak, this could have been over last week. Instead, you chose your whore.”
“I won either way.” I refuse to give him the pleasure of commenting on his insult.
“That you did.”
His gaze flicks to the door behind me, and I almost want him to try . Try to escape just so I can prove to him every reason why he’ll fail.
Instead, he crosses his arms and kicks one ankle over his knee. “Nice job in contracting the Corsettis to help you. It’s something true leaders do—use every resource possible.”
My jaw ticks, hating how he always seems to be one step ahead, right down to knowing about my deal with Nico.
“In a way,” he continues with a heavy sigh, “I’m pleased I’ve been caught.
I’m tired, syn . Dimitri.” Something flickers in his eyes and, for the briefest moment, I catch a hint of the father I once cared for.
When I was a child and didn’t know any better.
“Look around. My brother is gone. Vanessa tore apart the Pakhan’s inner circle and replaced them all with children .
” He shakes his head, a sneer lifting his nose.
“You…you, I expected this from. But the Petrov kids? Lev is good, but he’s too focused on his technology, and Anastasia”—his tone sharpens with disgust—“she’s a woman.
Her and Vanessa have no place in this world.
They should both be wed off, made wives for connections to organizations around the world. ”
I almost sigh at his continuous, repetitive raving. He’s the fucking definition of gender inequality.
“No matter what I do, Vanessa will not hand over the Bratva. Even if she did, it’s not like you’d step up. You realize you’re allowing a bitch to steal your birthright.”
“ Her birthright,” I snap. “ She’s Ursin’s heir.”
“A female will never be heir. It’s not how the Bratva works.”
“It is now.”
Shaking his head, he mutters, “Ursin should never have been leader either, but he was the firstborn, so it went to him. He was too soft, too much like our mama, never fit enough to run the organization. My papa wanted it to skip him and go to me, but his Elite got concerned about breaking tradition. Had Papa gotten his way, you , Dimitri would be the true heir.”
This pointless history lesson is simply a dead man’s final plea and changes nothing.
“Good thing I never wanted leadership.”
“Yes”—he rolls his eyes—“I’m well aware. Once you met that girl, all your focus disappeared.”
“ That girl is one of the reasons we’re here, Ivan, and until you fully understand that, you can rot in fucking hell.”
I turn to leave the room, finding the nearest stationed guard. “Keep him in there for an hour, then move him to his cell. No food or water for forty-eight hours. I’ll be around.”