Page 11 of Hateful Vows

Irina and I descend the stairs to the basement.

The scent of bleach, blood and urine mixes until it tickles the back of my throat and I almost retch.

I can’t stand that smell. No matter how many times I’ve been down there—six hundred and fifty-one times—I can’t get used to the smell. My eye twitches but I clench my jaw.

“When we’re done, we’re torching the place down,” Irina mutters.

“Stay here,” I mouth.

As agreed, Irina hides in the shadows of a dark alcove before I proceed into the corridor and push the door of the torture chamber open.

She’s the element of surprise no one will expect.

Even though my skin’s covered with a cold sheen of sweat under my impeccable suit, I have to trust her to stand on her own.

Any distraction will get us killed and I’m not dying today.

Not here. Not at his hands.

The room reveals my father, as expected. The grey walls and artificial light make it look even more sinister. I know all aspects of this cage so intimately I’m surprised I don’t shudder. In the corner of the room, five monitors display the house cameras' feed. Everything’s falling into place.

Until I look to my left. Denis and Gregor Makarov, two men the same age as my father, respectively his second-in-command and enforcer, stand near a tiny girl attached to the metal table in the middle of the room. Their pants are down.

Fuck.

“Ah, you’re here. Perfect. We can start again,” my father says, barely glancing up.

In his hands, the blade of a knife gleams as he lowers it towards the girl’s face. She whimpers and the sound hits me in the chest stronger than a bullet.

I jump into action, launching at my father’s arm. The knife clatters to the ground.

That’s not the plan, but fuck the plan. I’m not letting another girl get raped and die in this god-forsaken house.

“Stand down, useless dog,” my father spits at me.

His fist hits my jaw. I pull my own back but thick hands grab at me from behind. A kick at the back of my knees has me dropping down in front of him. “How many times do I have to beat the attitude out of you, boy?”

Spittle hits my face at the same time as he rains down hit after hit to my jaw and nose. A crack echoes in my ears and blood pours on my face and into my mouth. I struggle against Denis and Gregor, to no avail.

“What’s that?” Denis asks.

I look up at the monitors as my dad turns to do the same. Cold fear spreads through me. The cameras sizzle, then show the carnage of my father’s household staff’s murder. Their blood spreads on the ground, Dan’s face covered as he moves through every room.

My father clicks a few buttons on his computer. “The generator is on!” he yells before picking up a walkie-talkie.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Irina’s icy voice comes from the door of the torture chamber.

The distraction it provides is a godsend. Upon seeing Irina, Denis and Gregor draw their guns and aim. But she’s faster. And so am I.

The pain on my face barely registers with the adrenaline coursing through me. I throw myself at Gregor, his weight and build his only advantage.

Bullets fly, hitting true every time. My father drops the walkie-talkie, his howl my new favourite sound. Denis crumbles to the floor, hit straight between the eyes. Gregor lifts his hand and shoots.

Irina yelps.

“Irina!”

It takes all the strength I have to hold the huge bastard in a chokehold but I hold on, until eventually, he slumps on the floor. I pick up his gun and empty the magazine into his face for good measure.

Then I’m running. I forget my target. Forget that someone is yelling in my earpiece. Forget that my father isn’t dead yet. That I can’t claim victory. What good is it for if she’s dead anyway?

I drop to my knees when I reach her, searching for the wound.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she says, holding onto her upper right arm, but I can’t hear.

My hands and eyes roam across her body, her white clothes bloody and messy. Fucking hell! Is it her blood? I don't know. I can’t see.

Her eyes widen as she looks behind me and she raises her uninjured arm and throws a shuriken hidden inside her jacket. My father’s cries of pain echo behind me like in a fishbowl.

Irina’s hand lands on my cheek, softer than she’s ever been.

“Finish this, Lyosha . Kill him.”

I’m breathing hard, blinking fast to recover.

I kiss her palm, barely aware that I’m doing it, barely aware of her sharp intake of breath. The girl sobs on the metal table and suddenly, everything comes back in focus.

“Take care of the girl,” I tell Irina before I stand and address Mikhail in the earpiece.

“We have an underaged girl down with us and Irina’s been shot.

Send help immediately. Security’s back up, which means my father’s head of security will alert everyone.

Put me on livestream on everyone’s phone, now. ”

“On it.”

My father’s down on his knees, reaching for Denis’s gun but I kick it away.

“What are you doing? You fucking waste of space!”

I take sick satisfaction in the slow steps I take towards him while he cowers at my feet and back hand him while he’s down.

A slight his ego can’t take. His adrenaline helps him get up and he launches himself at me.

With a roll of my shoulder, I avoid him and turn to take hold of his injured hand, wrapping it behind his back and crunching it against his spine.

Russian curses ring in my ears but the sound doesn't reach me. I’m somewhere else. Somewhere he can’t touch me, can’t have me.

“I’m gonna take everything you’ve ever created,” I whisper in his ear. “And destroy it bit by bit. I’ve aligned myself with the Italians.”

“You motherfucker! How dare you?”

I break his wrist, then his elbow before I dislocate his shoulder and bask in the piercing screams of the man who sired me.

Irina watches, the young girl against her chest. Blood is streaking down her sickly thin legs and flowing from underneath the thin shift that covers her body. It makes me sick.

It could have been Irina. It could have been her in a cell down a basement thousands of miles from me because that motherfucker sold her to his king.

I’m the king now. And no one threatens what’s mine.

Rage like I’ve never known consumes my whole system. Even when I killed my friends, I didn’t feel this level of murderous energy flowing through my veins and taking over everything I am.

I raise my weapon and shoot my father at the back of his left knee. He comes crashing down. I shoot the other one for good measure. Time distorts, lengthening and shortening until I have no clue what time it is.

My knuckles hurt as I clench around the gun in my hand. I drop it to the floor and pick up my father’s body to link heavy chains to his arms and feet, raising him so he’s suspended but still has to bear some of his weight on his fucked up legs.

I choose a knife from the wall display.

I glance at Irina. Her jaw is set. Her eyes are so intense.

She’s covered in blood, both hers and not.

And she’s alive. Magnificent and vengeful.

Anyone who would know her wouldn’t notice the barely there nod she gives me.

The approval on her grave angular face. She’ll follow me.

She might hate me, but she’ll follow me.

“Left ankle,” I say conversationally, then throw the knife with all my might until it embeds itself into my father’s ankle. I repeat the process with five more daggers and blades.

Finally, Ivan Dobrev whimpers in fear. I bare my teeth at him.

“Look at her,” I tell my father, holding his head up so he can’t miss the smile playing on Irina’s face.

It’s the first time I’m seeing it in years.

“She’s gonna be a mafia queen. And since I will never father a child, her children will be Bratva royalty.

They’ll take over after me once I’m done erasing everything you’ve ever done, everything you’ve ever been. ”

He spits in her direction weakly and I laugh. It’s an unhinged sound. One that fills me with joy. Actual fucking delight.

“Everything you’ve ever dreamt of, everything you built, I’ll unmake.

Starting with your agreements with Petrov.

As of today, the London Bratva declares its independence.

” I raise my eyes to the camera in the corner, blinking red.

I’m live. My father’s men will be seeing this.

“If you’re not with me. You’re against me. And this is what happens to traitors.”

My father trembles and I step in front of him, hiding his view of Irina. He trained me to kill with my bare hands, so I wrap them around his throat. I’m only doing what I was made for.

Ivan struggles against my hold but I squeeze harder. His hate-filled eyes mean nothing to me.

“I gave you… everything,” he rasps.

“All you gave me was pain ,” I shout into his face, losing control.

“I… made… you strong,” he replies. How far does his delusion go?

“Strong? The only strength I have is her ! You made me a tool. But no more. You will be forgotten, like you never existed. No one will know your name. You will not only die today. You’re going to be erased.”

Calm washes over me as I declare his death sentence. I let my hands go and he takes a laboured, deep breath. Hope flashes behind his dark, tired irises. I peek at the cameras and notice Boris, Ilia and their men spreading into the house and dousing it in petrol. It’s over.

“You’re never… gonna win… against Petrov,” he says, his last effort to make me cower in fear. But that will never happen again.

“I guess you’ll never know.”

Then, I snap his neck.