Page 30 of One of Them (Beyond Ties #1)

“There will be when she’s done. And you? You chose wrong.”

“All this talk about friendship. Protection?” Ilya scoffed. “Where is she now?” he yelled, his eyes scanning the room in search of her. “The feared assassin in hiding. Leaving those she claims to care about to clean up her messes.”

“I said, where is she?” Ilya’s voice thundered, a command he expected to be obeyed.

“Let me think on that one.” Enzo spat the little blood that formed in his mouth. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Maybe this will change your mind. Maxim, I want a location by the end of today.” He eyed the Italian but addressed me. “By all means necessary.”

The soundproof door shut behind him, sealing us in the room. The Pakhan rushed out, likely on his way to supervise Malek’s move to the compound.

“Are there cameras in the room?” Enzo mouthed.

I shook my head. “Not to my knowledge.”

He rolled back his shoulders, blowing his hair out of his face.

“Is she safe?” I asked.

He nodded in answer.

I needed more words. Sentences, pictures, more than that, but the stubborn asshole wouldn’t budge. When I reached the machine, I might have waited three more seconds before I turned it off, just for that.

“Is your sister?” he asked, relieved of the pressure.

I mirrored his response.

“You need to get her out,” Lorenzo urged. “Take her somewhere safe before it’s over.”

“Andrei disagrees,” I admitted. “He thinks it will agitate him more. We’re keeping a close eye on her.”

“Listen to me. Have one of your brothers take your sister away and wait. ”

“Wait?”

“Just wait. Okay?”

Though it went against everything I knew, I took a leap of faith. Now I just needed to convince my brothers to think the same.

“Do you have a location for him?” I tilted my head toward the door.

The Italian gave a slight nod. “There’s a safe house in Sicily, on my family’s property near Palermo. Don used it for money laundering, but they relocated the operation. It should be vacant.”

Perfect.

“It’ll buy her time,” he confirmed my thoughts. “But you need to make it believable and oversee it personally.”

I understood.

“Maxim?”

“Hmm?”

“When you look at her, what do you see?”

Lorenzo’s question struck me as odd, causing my movements to pause.

“I ain’t so sure you want me to answer that,” I chuckled. “You might end up punching me.”

“Tell me,” he insisted.

Was this a test? A game to figure out where my loyalties lie?

Strange, given he was the tied-up one. When it took a while to sort my thoughts, he began answering instead. “Ilya sees her as an object. The same orphan he found her as. Someone with nothing to lose to manipulate as he sees fit,” he noted. “A tool to win him battles, while he plans the war.”

Well said, I thought. It seemed to be precisely how things were standing.

Lorenzo continued, “I see her as someone who made it through life alone. She sacrificed all that was left within to find herself. She likes to call herself independent, but in reality, she wants to be a part of something. Seeking what she lacks: stability and acceptance. There is a great lot she isn’t telling us, but once the truth comes out, I hope to stand by her with a handful of others. United. ”

His bluntness surprised me, but my mind was clear, despite how I reacted.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” I voiced.

Slight disappointment clouded his face, his eyebrows lowering. He sat back, restricted in the chair, scrutinizing me with his gaze.

“Not because I’m uncertain,” I admitted before his eye resorted to the familiar twitch. “She deserves to hear it first.”

She earned our answers, and both Enzo and I could do with more straightforwardness, but I wasn’t one to go around giving advice.

I began rolling my sleeves up, not bothering to find out if he understood.

“You realize that after the heartfelt speech, I still have to reorganize your pretty face?”

He threw me a cocky smile. “Give it your best shot, stronzo .”

The first punch landed hard on Lorenzo’s cheek.

The second landed straight in the eye. The third was somewhere in between to finish the picture.

A tooth joined the pool of blood formed under his legs.

I had to make the interrogation believable.

I also wasn’t going to let an opportunity to let go of the rage waste.

Unfortunately, in this case, the receiver was someone with good intentions.

“She can’t know,” he muttered between the punches. I understood, but hated him at that moment for letting me in on a secret I’d have to keep from her.

The fourth, being the last but also the strongest, knocked him out.

I hoped the information I gathered to feed to Ilya would distract him enough not to question the process. Luckily, beyond the beating and slight torture, Ilya stood no ground to hurt Lorenzo. Information extraction was his only excuse.

I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I set on playing my part and seeing it through.

Punching the nearest pipe, I purposely landed miscalculated punches until my knuckles busted open. Our combined blood smudged the front of the shirt I wore when I returned upstairs as the enforcer the Bratva believed me to be.