Page 4 of The Enemy’s Defector (Ivanov Syndicate #3)

NIKOLAI

I was moved again.

From one place to another, I was relocated so I wouldn’t mark a routine or begin to guess where I was.

The only difference about this torture chamber was my attacker’s identity.

Unlike all the other times I was near my captors—who rotated and changed up so I wouldn’t be able to familiarize myself with any of them—I saw this man’s face.

He didn’t don a mask like all the others did.

He wasn’t trying to hide his head or hair or anything else about him.

Nothing particularly stood out about him as he stalked me in slow circles. There wasn’t anything unique about his ugly face, twisted with a scowl or curved in a smug smirk.

As I sat in a chair and tried to breathe through the pain ripping through my body from his hits, I struggled to place him.

And I couldn’t.

“You think you’re tough, huh?” he taunted, wiping sweat from his brow.

Wherever this place was, the heat was a factor to intimidate me. I was sweating in this sweltering room, so hot and dehydrated that I felt practically desperate for water.

Just a little longer.

Endure it.

Tough it out. Breathe through it and take it.

You can do this.

I blinked, wishing the sting of sweat in my eyes wouldn’t inhibit me from seeing this asshole better and clearer. I wasn’t sure I ever knew his name. But something about him was vaguely familiar, enough to make me wonder where I’d seen him before.

Because I had.

I’d been in this godawful, overheated room for too many hours to think straight. Maybe it was a trick. An illusion. Maybe I’d never seen him before and was just so eager to grasp at any familiarity now.

“You think you’re just a tough guy.” He charged again, ramming his fist into my face and chest with a brutal battery I had to tense and brace for.

I could slip out. I could lose this farce of being tied up. Whoever this asshole was, he didn’t realize I’d been trained in evading capture and getting out of bonds.

So, yeah. I was fucking tough to sit here and let myself be used as a punching bag. I wouldn’t tell him that, though.

Just a little longer.

The more he taunted me and talked, the more I might recall where I’d seen him before. The longer he spoke, the better my chances of a memory lighting up and making a connection. I was after intel, and if tolerating this asshole’s beating would get me answers of any kind, I’d do it.

“Not gonna say anything?” he teased as he paced back and forth.

“Nothing to say,” I replied dryly. Giving him the satisfaction of a reply wasn’t my goal, but speaking was an exercise of using my voice. It’d been so long since I’d spoken, I wanted to see if it still worked. If my jaw could take that movement.

Besides, that was the fucking truth. For all his postering and looking like some kind of badass torturer, he wasn’t asking me anything.

There was no interrogation happening. He didn’t inquire about anything at all.

Just this taunting bullshit that made some men feel bigger and better about themselves.

It took a certain kind of fool to beat a tied up man just to feel like an Alpha.

If that was how he got off on torture, whatever. I only had to place him—if I could.

The fact that he didn’t ask me anything further confused me.

Not once, since I was taken, did any contractors or soldiers or fucking anyone ask me about something the enemy might want.

They’d clearly targeted me because I was an Ivanov.

That was obvious. But they weren’t treating me like a usual hostage.

Whoever had put out the order for me to be taken wasn’t interested in beating secrets and intel out of me.

So, what’s the purpose?

There had to be one, and the longer I was kept in captivity, the more that huge question gnawed on my patience, which was running really fucking short.

“Some tough bastard you are,” he said around dark chuckles, hitting me so hard my neck ached at the impact.

How do I know you?

Who are you?

What the fuck is the point here?

I knew better than to ask them. The less I talked at all, the less I’d give anything away. They knew I’d be curious about my circumstances, and I wasn’t going to show my weakness by asking anything.

Even if I wanted to argue, shout back, or shoot questions at this stranger, I’d have an audience now. Another man came in. This one was masked, and he was immediately concerned why the stranger beating me wasn’t wearing one.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why aren’t you covered?”

The stranger smirked, then laughed. “What’s the fucking point? It’s not like he’s getting out alive.”

“That’s what the orders were,” the masked man said with a rough shove at the other.

Bingo. See? I knew it. These guys were the hired contractors, not directly affiliated with any enemy family.

He was wrong, though. I would be getting out of here alive. Just not until I had some answers to bring home to my brothers.

“You’re not following the orders,” the masked man scolded. “Just like you didn’t on the last assignment.”

I perked up. To them, I was moaning in pain and almost passing out from the agony of the beating. I slanted more to the side, giving them the impression that I was about to fall out of this chair they’d tied me to. But I was wide awake and alert mentally, listening nonstop.

What last assignment? Perhaps that would give me a clue to work with.

“Fuck that.” The unmasked man tried to hit the other man but missed. “I followed orders.”

“You didn’t,” the other argued. “You were supposed to hire someone to erase all the surveillance footage from that block after the hit was carried out. The poison didn’t end up working fast enough, the others had to run, and?—”

This time, the man who showed his face did strike his companion. Or boss. Whoever he was. They were at odds and not agreeing about their “work”.

I’d heard enough, though. I couldn’t be sure and they wouldn’t answer me if I asked any questions. But it sounded like they were talking about the night Father was poisoned. Maybe these hired hands were indirectly responsible. It sure as fuck sounded like it.

Keeping my gaze down as I maintained this sluggish, wounded look, I let my thoughts race.

These fuckers have to know who poisoned my father. They’d know who they got their orders from. Even if there is a filing rank and chain of power, this is a start. I can trace it back from them and find out who tried to assassinate Father.

“Shut the fuck up.” The unmasked man glanced at me, then watched his “buddy” stagger back from his hit. “You want to go off on me for not putting a stupid-ass mask on but you’ll come in here and run your fucking mouth like that?” He hit him again, and I knew my chance to overhear anything was over.

They argued more, ending up carrying their fight out of this holding room I was in.

Sweating and breathing through the oppressive heat and pain, I focused on the little I’d heard.

It sure as fuck sounded like they were talking about the night Father was poisoned. As soon as Grandmother saw Father poisoned, then the second time, when they tried to poison him again and the nurse saved his life, the surveillance feeds for the surrounding buildings had been wiped.

That was why I’d gone to Katerina for help. I’d sought her for her hacking skills, counting on her to hack into those computer systems and provide me with a clue of who’d trespassed to poison my father.

But she hadn’t had enough time to hack. She’d only gotten so far. Even with the limited low-quality videos she’d recovered, she didn’t have the time or opportunity to sleuth into it any further.

She hadn’t had the time because that was when I’d caved. Our one night of passion together, when I dismissed common sense and slept with the enemy.

With the mental image of that night fresh in my mind again, I closed my eyes and willed my body to cool down from the heat forced into this torture room. I steadied my breath to the sweet memories of Katerina coming for me, crying out so sexily and making me wish for so much more with her.

“Fuck,” I muttered on an agonizing note of missing her, especially when she stopped speaking with me after that one night.

This was no time to even think about her. But I couldn’t help it as I tried to be patient during this captivity.

She’d branded herself in my mind, my soul, and it was only with fleeting, wistful thoughts of her that I could obey my mantra.

Just a little longer.

Endure it.

A little longer.

If only I could know that she would be there for me when I was out of here.