“If I answered questions like that, then I would have lost this job ages ago.”
I looked at her closely. “And what job would that be?”
“Tending to the girls he brings back.” She reached for spirits on the cart. “They’re always a pretty lot like you, but a lot less sensible. Too much crying and begging, as if I was somebody that could let them go. At least you have the sense to understand your situation.”
“So, Maxim brings some of the girls he traffics here? For what?”
She was done with my left arm and gestured for the right. There were fewer injuries on it compared to the left.
“Different reasons, but not one of them has gotten out before, and he’s never brought them into his bedroom, not for their first day at least. Maybe it’s a special treatment because of who you are.”
“Nobody’s gotten out before.”
“No. trying to escape will only make him angry at you, and you don’t want that.”
Don’t I? I thought to myself. Maxim could go fuck himself with his worthless anger, I was going to get out of here and fuck him up terribly for kidnapping me, especially if so much as one hair was hurt on Paulina’s or Sam’s head. The woman finished the treatment, put the food on the table, and started packing up.
“A plastic spoon, really?” I asked, lifting the spoon as if it was a dirty rag. She didn’t even answer, just tucked the metal cover under the cart and packed up the medicine.
I attacked her before she could start pushing the cart towards the door. Nothing too severe, she was an old woman after all.
Just a chokehold while twisting one of her arms behind her back, then I pulled her toward the closet where there were a few clothes, but I was sure Maxim wouldn’t have missed them.
After tying her hands behind her back with a shirt, I searched her for the keys she’d used to lock the door, then I stuffed her mouth with a different shirt and went for the door.
As an afterthought, I went back to take the metal cover she’d used to cover my food, and the ceramic plate, tossing the scrappy food on the ground. I needed as many weapons as I could get.
The woman wasn’t struggling, she hadn’t put up much of a fight when I’d started to tie her up, but it might just have been because of her age. I stood behind the door and pressed my ear to it.
There were people in the corridor outside, but there was no other escape route, and I needed to get out of here before Maxim came back from wherever he was.
When I unlocked the door, one of the two men standing on either side of the door frame peeked back. “Done already, baba? He asked before I smashed the ceramic in his face and lurched for the other guy with the metal cover.
Quickly, after knocking him out, I reached for his belt because there were already sounds of people shouting and running, attracted by the noise I’d made.
No guns.
Neither of the men had guns I could use. I laughed when the goons came at me after turning into the corridor, with bats raised and guns raised.
I didn’t last long in the fight before I was knocked out with a bat to the head.
Chapter 23 - Alessandro
In the hospital, it was almost too calm.
The comforting white walls, the tranquil room where all I could hear was my breathing, and the sound of Yuri’s monitor was a sanctuary at this point.
I stood over Yuri’s body, watching him sleep. He’d regain consciousness soon enough, but he looked peacefully asleep for now.
Peaceful because he didn’t know that Katya had been kidnapped by that bastard, if he did, I wondered if he’d be able to sleep as well or if he’d be like me that hadn’t been able to get more than an hour of sleep each day.
We were razing down Triev properties one after the other and every time turned up as empty as the last.
It was as if all my effort was futile, a waste, but I had no plans of letting up.
Somebody knocked on the door, and my brothers entered, quieter than they ever did in my office, out of respect for Yuri.
“I thought you’d be here,’ Frankie said, coming to stand beside me. Dome went around the bed, to lean on the windowsill.