Page 63 of Deadly Knight (The Bratva’s Elite #2)

At one point in my training, my father kept me awake for four days straight and deprived me of food, giving me the bare minimum of water.

He called it psychological warfare, and in order to do the same to enemies, I had to understand how it felt to be deprived of basic necessities and senses. To survive, one must endure.

Turns out, he was preparing me for the day his own asshole comrades did the same to me.

Gentle hands stroke my body, while rougher ones are rubbing at my face and arms, the cuts on my body stinging in response.

Given the temperature over my skin, my shirt’s been removed.

Maybe my pants too. Beneath me is much softer than stone and the hard chair that’s been home for the past two weeks.

Four hands suddenly become two and gentle fingers push hair off my forehead. Everything hurts, but I’ll be damned if I don’t see her before she leaves again.

Because I get it now. I do. Why she had to leave.

One eye is too heavy, too swollen to even attempt opening, but my other latches onto the physical manifestation of my soul crouching beside me. With my attention, she breaks into a huge smile that’s healing on its own before bursting into tears.

I lift my arms, half surprised to have that much energy. My throat is bone dry, which I realize when attempting to speak, but I have to tell her.

She leans over, kissing the edge of my swollen jaw. “Shh, it’s okay. Here, the doctor recommended you drink and rest. That’s your entire job.”

Doctor?

A glass is placed at my lips and the water is both cool and restorative, but it’s too much and I only manage a small sip before she replaces the cup on the bedside table.

Past Katya’s face is a familiar white ceiling that I eventually connect to being in my apartment..

“Home,” I grate, the singular word unattached to a meaningful statement.

What do I mean?

My eyes grow heavy all over. Although, they were never really light to begin with.

In my last dredge of strength, I reach for Katya, tugging her down beside me. She stiffens and shoves a hand into the bed, as though to separate us.

“Stay,” I rasp, eyes already shutting. “Helps.”

“I shouldn’t. It might hurt you.”

“Helps.”

After a moment, she settles her head on my chest, right over my heart. The heart she owns. Always has, always will.

For now, it keeps beating for her.

The next time I awaken, the sun is a bitch streaming through the thin curtain I added a few years ago. This place was never home; always temporary. Essentially, a hotel room conveniently located beneath Katya’s.

With a groan, I reach for her, finding her place next to me depressingly cold to the touch.

“Morning, sleepyhead.”

The pillows and wall help me get myself halfway upright, the vision of my cousin clear through one eye, and halfway there with the other, suggesting it’s been long enough since captivity that my body nursed itself somewhat back to health.

Regardless, my body feels like it was run through a shredder—which it essentially was. The assholes pummeled me with my hands tied so I couldn’t fight back.

“What time is it?” God, my throat is dry as a desert, and I search my nightstand for the water Katya fed me earlier. It’s there, full, beside a bottle of pills I immediately reach for, skipping the question of how prescription pills are conveniently here. “Where is she?”

“Out.” Vanessa pushes off the wall and approaches me before unscrewing the pill bottle and dumping three into my hand. “Doc said two-to-three every four hours until things stop hurting.”

I swallow them dry, chasing them with water. At this rate, I’ll be sucking them down for a few more weeks.

“Out where?” I glare because Vanessa knows what keeping information like this does to my sanity.

“Said she had a few errands to run. Left about two hours ago. Ana’s with her. Figured it can’t hurt to send protection just in case.”

“Good. How long have I been asleep?”

“Hm, about thirty hours, give or take. Once we got you here, you passed right the fuck out. Not that I blame you, after what you endured.” Her tongue skates over her teeth.

“Sorry it took so long to realize you’d been taken.

For a while, we all assumed you were ghosting us.

Your way of sending a message.” She flicks my phone sitting on the opposite end of the side table. It doesn’t react to her, probably dead.

“Your first few calls, yeah, that was me ignoring you. Any others, no. Not after day three of being here.” I scrape a hand over my hair, eyes catching on the bruises now an ugly yellow all over my arms. “They got the fuckin’ drop on me.

Still don’t know how. It was unexpected, and they shot me up with something.

Next thing I knew, I woke up in that cage.

They wanted to punish both me and you. Me for what I did to Ivan, and you for being…

well, you. Said this was the only way they’d get what they wanted. ”

“Well, it didn’t work. Ivan wasn’t going free for anything.

Knew we could get you out another way—once I realized what had happened, that is.

After days of being ignored, I got the sense something wasn’t right, so I contacted Katya, wondering if she’d seen you.

She believed you were in Moscow; didn’t know you’d left the Bratva.

” She hikes a brow, her own question woven between the tiny hairs.

“Hadn’t approached her yet. I was giving her time.”

“Maybe it’s good you didn’t. She was really surprised to hear from me.

Lev tracked your phone—by the way, he says you better get well soon because he feels bad he didn’t come, and instead stayed behind for Serafina.

Anyway, when I gave her the address, she said it’s her building.

” She smirks, shaking her head. “You really bought this place? You took stalking to the next level.”

“I needed to be close to her. Hovering outside a building on the ground floor wasn’t useful when she’s a homebody.

” My eyes flick to the ceiling, recalling how many nights I’ve heard her treading around above me, the ache to see her again a physical gut punch.

Because I never did, instead existing below her.

It was a repetitive pain that gutted me from the inside over and over.

Vanessa laughs. “Sounds like something you’d do.

Well, it was actually her idea to check the nearby apartments out, and Lev quickly discovered your name on the lease for this particular one.

She checked it out for us, only to find your door cracked open and the living room a mess.

Then the note stabbed into your couch, explaining what happened, though not where. That would have been mighty useful.”

A note? They must have drugged me before writing it because I don’t have any recollection of one.

“Once we figured out who was behind your kidnapping, we flew from Moscow. Katya…she insisted on helping. Wouldn’t stay behind.”

As angry as I was to have her there, Vanessa’s explanation makes my lips tug at a grin. After this entire time of saying she wants nothing to do with me, she helped save me.

“There was a moment—and I take full responsibility for it—when scouring the upper levels where the cells were; I didn’t check inside them all.

When realizing that’s not where they were keeping you, we turned back, but he must have been hiding.

He grabbed her, but by the time I had a clear shot that wouldn’t hit her, she’d fought back.

Quite wisely too. Sliced his arm to break his hold, and managed to get a good hit before I killed him. ”

If every inch of my body didn’t throb and it wasn’t my cousin sitting here, I might be hard. Again, while I despise hearing she was placed in that situation, Katya did the one thing she claimed she wasn’t suited for. Fought in that perfect way I’ve always known my girl could.

“I’ve never seen anyone look so thrilled. In some ways, I think she faced her past right then.”

My smile falters, the memories of that very past bombarding me at once.

Vanessa reaches for my nightstand’s drawer, sliding it open to reveal the USB stick, tucked safely away until it can be destroyed.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I hate not knowing—that I never realized all this time. Not until you told me some weeks ago after finding Papa’s journal, but seeing it…

” She shivers, her eyes filling with sadness and ghosts.

“What she endured… I’m so sorry for you both.

There are no words, and I’ll never understand everything.

Hell, I think I’ve been traumatized by the ten seconds I witnessed of it.

I shudder to think how many of my father’s people watched that out of some sick entertainment.

” Her eyes shift flintily. “I’d like to hunt the lot of them down and be done with all of this. ”

“I’ll be with you if you do. Lev and Ana too, I imagine. As for what you saw, as strange as it is to say, I think reliving the memories that vividly was important.”

Vanessa rears back, staring at me like I’ve lost it. Which, maybe I have.

“I realized why she ran—why she continues to run. I was a dick for pushing myself onto her. No wonder she fuckin’ hates me.”

“ Hate is a bit of a strong word.” She ticks her head to the side. “Based on that conclusion, what will you do?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know.” I rub my jaw, feeling it tight with irritation and answers unknown. “If I was smart, I’d leave. Retake my place in the Bratva…provided it’s available? But I don’t know if I can leave her for good, like she wants.”

My cousin rolls her eyes. “Your pathetic resignation was never accepted; your place remained yours even when you walked away, no matter how much bullshit you spewed. Did us saving your ass not prove that? If you were truly out, we would have abandoned you. Hell, before you made it out of the country, you would have been marked as a deserter. So before you make any crazy decisions, because apparently one set of injuries has you undoing a decades’ worth of feelings and obsession, talk to her .

You may find she isn’t the same woman who ran from the mansion.

” She slides off the bed and offers me her hand.

“Need help up? Doc said it’d be good for you to move around.

Perhaps the bathroom? Besides, the sooner you’re up and moving, the sooner we can get out of Canada before Corsetti gets more pissed.

He’s already antsy having us here this long.

His enforcer and a small army are sitting outside, stalking the building until we leave. ”

Corsetti. Vaguely, I recall his voice recently.

“Details?”

“The price of your life was another favour from you to him. I don’t know what the fuck he’s going to ask of you one day, but hopefully it won’t jeopardize us.

Either way, you needed serious medical assistance, and dragging you into Emerge wasn’t possible, not with how you looked.

Couldn’t risk paying them off in case word got out.

You wouldn’t have made it back to Russia in your state.

Besides, Corsetti already knew we were here because I phoned him before leaving Moscow.

You may have gone undetected for years, but a group of us showing up, so soon after the recent events with Ivan, wouldn’t have slipped past him.

The last thing we needed was word getting back to him and him initiating an attack while saving you.

It was the best I could do on short notice. ”

“It’s fine. We’ll see what the future brings.”

She nods once, gaze drifting out the window. “He has a decent force on this half of the country. One of my goals for the next little while is to build alliances where needed. With Zeno, we’re tied to the Cosa Nostra. In the future, I’d like to work with the Famiglia .”

Considering her rough history with Erico Rossi, these words surprise me. For so long, Vanessa’s been focused on the here and now; her takeover and growing stability amongst our territory, businesses, deals, and the soldiers. Anything regarding the future hasn’t been important.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m not really,” she muses. “Future plans, perhaps. And then there’s the Corsettis. They’re close with the Famiglia too, through marriage, so if we found a connection to both of them, we’d have strong North American allies.”

“Ana,” I suggest, partly as a joke. Vanessa would never force one of us to marry, especially Anastasia.

“Good one. Maybe if I wanted to be strangled to death by ballet shoe ribbons. Besides, there’s no one left in the Corsetti family who’s the right age for her. No…once again, future planning.” She shakes her head and returns to my bedside, offering her hand again, and this time, I take it.

“Thanks for finding me.”

“Anytime. You think I’d lose my favourite person?”

“Thought that was Zeno?”

“I’ve known you longer.”

She grins because we both know she’s bullshitting by claiming Zeno isn’t her one and only.

Now, to see my one and only.