Without Mercy, page 6
part #4 of Running with the Devil Series
He strode over the cage and rattled its door. “How long are you planning on staying in there being afraid of me?”
Mari pushed herself back against the wall. Time to suck it up, princess. Put on your big girl panties. Push back a little. “Why wouldn’t I be afraid of you?” Her voice sounded reedy and so she cleared her throat. She wanted him to see the logic in her fear. She needed a stronger voice. “You stole me off the street. Tied me up, gagged me. Brought me here, wherever here is. Locked me in a cage. Locked me in this cabin. And haven’t told me anything about why this is happening to me.”
Anto furrowed his forehead, “First of all Marisol, this is a lodge, not a cabin.”
Mari drew in a sharp breath. She’d barely slept last night; she had a headache; her heart wouldn’t stop pounding and this asshole was playing games with her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Then she clamped her mouth shut. Why would she even think to say something like that to this terrifying man?
But Anto laughed, deep and booming. “No one knows the answer to that, Marisol. Many have asked. Maybe you can keep yourself busy while you’re here, figuring me out. You can tell me what’s wrong with me.”
Mari felt helpless, she wasn’t getting through to him. She tried for blunt and direct. “Why am I here?”
Anto’s eyes drifted for a moment, thinking. Then he asked, “Why do you think, Marisol? You are reasonably intelligent, have had lots of time to think this over. Of all the possibilities, which seems the most plausible to you?”
He walked out of her line of sight, not waiting for an answer. She could hear him rustling around in the kitchen. Then he reappeared with two bottles of water in his hand. He set one on the little kitchen table in front of a chair; the other he opened and took a deep swallow. After he wiped his hand across his lips, he said, “Are you thirsty?”
Mari glanced at the water bottle on the table. She nodded.
“What’s that? I didn’t hear you.” He was no longer smiling, his eyes were storm clouds, his face thunder. She was disconcerted by his swift change of mood.
She took a tentative step forward, toward the bars of the cage. “Yes,” she said with a shaky voice. “I’m thirsty.”
“Then come out of the cage and sit with me. Have some water.” He waved vaguely towards the unopened bottle on the table. “Talk to me.”
Mari stood stone still. She couldn’t make her muscles work. They wouldn’t obey her brain’s command to move forward.
Anto scowled, the scar on his face deepening. “I don’t like rabbits, Marisol, or stupid women. The cage is not for your protection. It’s your prison. I can come in anytime I wish.” And to prove the point he slammed his water bottle on the table and stalked over to the cage throwing the door open with force. It hit the bars with a loud bang that made Mari cower and cover her ears with her hands. But it wasn’t because of the noise. It was out of complete and utter terror of the giant stomping toward her.
She flattened herself against the wall, palms pressed hard against it as if she could magically sink backwards and disappear. He was unpredictable, temperamental and she wasn’t sure what she’d done to set him off. He grabbed her arms when he reached her and gave her a little shake.
“Do you see, Mari?” he snarled into her tearful face. “You are not safe in here. You are in here so that when I sleep, I know I won’t wake up with a knife sticking out of my neck.”
Mari inhaled deeply, willing her tears to stop. “I’m sorry,” she hiccoughed, craning her neck to look at him, wanting him to see her terror, wanting him to find his empathy.
“Don’t apologize to me,” he roared at her. “Stop being a fucking rabbit.”
He dropped her arms and turned abruptly, stalking out of the cage and slamming himself down in a chair at the table. “Get the fuck out here!” he bellowed as he picked up his water bottle. He took a long swallow and stared his expectation at her.
Mari inched away from the wall and walked on shaky legs toward him. He was right, she wasn’t safe from him. Her prison had been a security blanket, a barrier she could hide behind. He disabused her of that notion. She sat down on the chair opposite him and tucked her legs under the table, tangling her fingers together in her lap. She wanted to reach for the water bottle, wanted to drink. Wanted to eat. But she couldn’t get her hands to work, couldn’t find her voice. She looked up at him as he watched her. Maybe that was what she needed to do to find her calm. Aversion therapy. Keep looking at him, studying him, staying near him until her fear abated.
Anto was waiting for her, his eyes narrowed, his jaw set. She untangled her fingers and reached for the water bottle. “I’m not a rabbit.”
She wrapped her fingers around the water bottle but before she could pull it towards her, his hand shot out and circled hers, stopping her. Startled, she looked into his eyes. Gun metal grey stared back at her, searching her face. He gave her hand a hard, cruel squeeze then released it, retreating to his side of the table. “Good, Marisol. Good that you are not a rabbit. Rabbit’s make me want to hunt them, skin them and eat them.”
The water bottle was half-way to her lips when he said this, and water splashed on her as Mari’s hand shook involuntarily. But her fear gave way to a spark of anger. “Why would you say such a thing to me?” she sputtered. “You tell me I shouldn’t be afraid of you, then you threaten to skin me like a rabbit!”
Anto blinked his eyes at her reaction, a frown tugging at his lips. “Because it seemed like the right thing to say.”
“It isn’t! It’s never the right thing to say.”
“Perhaps not with your spineless pale friends, but in my business, it’s exactly the right thing to say.”
“Your business? The business of kidnapping and imprisoning women?”
Anto jutted out his lower lip and shook his head. “I don’t know the protocols around kidnapping and imprisoning women so I’m making them up as I go along. You are my first.”
Mari took a deep cleansing breath, trying to ease the tension from her shoulders. If she was his first, at least he wasn’t a serial killer, unless of course she really was his first. She thought she’d ask since it appeared they were having an unfiltered conversation. “If I am your first, I’m guessing you aren’t a serial killer.”
Anto laughed. “Not in the conventional sense.”
Marisol shuddered. Why couldn’t he just give her a straight answer? “What exactly does that mean?”
“It means that things sometimes get messy in my line of business.”
“What exactly is your line of business?”
“Can’t you tell?”
Mari shook her head, trying to keep her fear at bay, trying to be bold. “How could I tell? You’re not Bruce Banner’s alter ego because you’re not green. So no, I can’t tell.”
“Sarcasm is cute on you, Marisol.” But his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I am bratva. Russian mafia.”
“Oh.” Blood rushed to Mari’s head and she felt dizzy. She clutched the table’s edge so she didn’t lose her balance and fall out of her chair.
Anto made no move to help her. “How can you not know that, daughter of the Chief Constable?”
Mari folded herself into the chair trying to make herself invisible. It was futile she knew, but her body seemed to move of its own volition. She met Anto’s eyes. They were filled with expectation. “My dad doesn’t discuss his work at home.” Her eyes filled with tears and she took a frustrated swipe at them with the back of her hand. She didn’t want to start crying again, but for god’s sake, she was at the mercy of the most terrifying man she’d ever met. Big, aggressive, cruel, bratva.
Her lower lip trembled as she wrapped both hands around the water bottle, using it to anchor herself. “Why?” she whispered. “Why me?”
Anto watched her from across the table. His features were impassive, no hint of what he was thinking or feeling. No evidence of kindness or empathy. “Why do you think?”
Mari felt another tear slip down her cheek. Why couldn’t she be braver? “My dad?”
Anto didn’t answer. He waited.
“You want influence over my dad? You need something from him. You think holding me will influence him.” A single sharp laugh escaped Mari as she ran a thumb under her eyes, drying her tears. “You picked the wrong daughter. If you want to really influence my dad, you should have grabbed my sister.” And then she clamped her mouth shut.
But Anto shook his head. “I picked exactly the right daughter. You are not here to use as influence over your father, although that makes sense, so it’s a good guess.”
He threw her a smile that reached his eyes and warmed his face. Mari almost lost her breath as she saw the sincerity. It changed him from a terrifying maniac into an almost handsome man. Her heart raced a little faster and her face grew warm. Was she blushing? God, was she nuts? She was scared to death of this man and then drawn to him because he smiled? In what universe did that happen?
“Why then?” she muttered. She needed him to speak and be terrifying, not nice. She didn’t want herself to start grasping at his little shows of humanity, didn’t want to be lulled into a false sense of security. Didn’t want her mind to try to convince her he was friendly. He was a kidnapper. Mean, bratva, tattooed, too big, too bearded. Too nebulous, too dismissive. Too –
“Someone wants you dead.”
Mari choked. “You promised you wouldn’t kill me!” Her voice sounded strangely high. She was getting close to breaking down again. Her head was spinning as her heart raced. She couldn’t understand what was going on. She stood up so abruptly, she knocked her chair over. Then as she reached down to pick it up, another wave of dizziness hit her – terror, hunger, panic? Didn’t matter. She dropped to her knees and lowered her head, clasping her fingers together at the back of her neck. She fought to regain control, to control her breathing.
Then Anto was next to her, on his knees, his hand forcing her head a little lower, telling her to take deep, even breaths.
“Get away from me,” Mari shrieked as she tried to scramble away from him. She got tangled up in the chair and banged her thigh on the legs of it. Pained seared through her and her urge to flee gave way to anger. “You sonofabitch!” She swung toward him and slammed a fist into his face, connecting solidly with his nose. “Quit playing games with me!”
She tried to hit him again, but he was faster, grabbing her hands and forcing them behind her. Forcing her body to his. That didn’t stop her struggles – she reared back with her head and slammed it into his chin. It must have caused him some damage because it damned near knocked her out. But it was not enough to get him to back off. He captured both wrists in one of his monstrous hands and brought his other hand to her head, drawing his fingers through her hair and pulling her head back so she had no choice but to look into his face. She noted with satisfaction that his nose was bleeding.
“Let me go,” she screamed trying to bang her head against him again, jerking and twisting her body.
Anto spun her around and pushed her face down on the floor. Then he dropped his full weight on her, knocking the wind and her insanity out of her. “Get off,” she moaned, trying futilely to struggle. “You’re crushing me.”
“You wanted me to stop playing games.” His warm breath brushed her ear. “So I am stopping. This is not a game.”
The fight ebbed from her body and she was on the edge of collapse as the tears started again. Stupid asshole tears. “Please don’t kill me,” she sobbed.
“I am not going to kill you, Marisol.”
Mari would have laughed if she had the breath to do so. “Then who?”
He rolled his body off her, rolling her with him so that were lying on their sides on the floor facing each other. He studied her as he brushed her wild hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. Gently this time. Incongruently.
“I don’t know.” His hand stayed resting on her head, his fingers teasing her hair. Mari was too spent to protest, to say anything. A little heat flared in her belly as she closed her eyes and let his caresses lull her.
“Please tell me something. I need to understand.”
Anto let of her go with a heavy breath and heaved himself off the floor. He took one of Mari’s hands and pulled her to her feet like she was a rag doll. “Sit on the couch,” he ordered. “I need to clean my face up.”
Mari did as she was told, taking a seat, watching him warily through the door of the bathroom as he wet a hand towel and used it to wipe the blood from his face. He dropped the cloth into the sink as he checked his appearance in the mirror, detoured through the kitchen picking up a bottle of vodka and two glasses. Then he sat down next to her, leaving just a small gap between them. He poured the vodka into the glasses and handed her one. He tossed his shot back in a single swallow and replenished his drink generously. Mari held the vodka in her hands, twisting the glass nervously. Was he nuts? There was not a chance in hell she was going to drink vodka straight-up or even not straight up. Not in the morning and not when she hadn’t eaten in days.
He slammed his second shot, refilled it, then leaned back against the crouch, his glass dwarfed by his long thick fingers. Mari put her untouched vodka glass on the table and tried to subtly shift a little further from him, but he noticed and a small frown creased his face. He moved his head towards her. “You are lucky that I am to keep you safe, because anyone else would not be able to walk after punching me.”
Mari’s hands trembled, but she tried to stay solid. “You’d hit me? A woman?”
“I do what needs to be done. And you hit me first. You deserve to have your head knocked off.”
Mari wanted him to tell her more about who and why she was a target, but she couldn’t leave his last statement unchallenged. She was almost grateful for his words, it shifted her distress off to the side. He was to keep her safe? She was lucky he didn’t knock her head off? She turned to him, bringing her knee up onto the cushion. A little pain from her bruised thigh stabbed at her, but she welcomed it, hung onto it. It helped keep the fear in its corner.
“I had a right to hit you, Anto.” The first time she’d called him by his name and she saw him respond to the familiarity of it, a flash of heat in his eyes, a small satisfied twist to his lips. “You stole me off the street, brutally tied me up, forcibly brought me here, somewhere isolated and remote. You’re keeping me prisoner, holding information from me.” She steeled her voice. “I have a right to fight back.”
She watched his face as he mulled her words over, keen intelligence in his eyes. He was no fool. He knew exactly what he was doing. For a second, Mari softened towards him.
“It is a feeble argument. There is always an imbalance of power where I am concerned. If I used it as a reason to let others hit me, I would be broken and bruised.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. His logic made a warped kind of sense. He was so big, so powerful, so smart. She understood how he owned the world. She opened her eyes to see him studying her face, his cool grey eyes assessing her. She said, “I promise you, Anto. The next time I hit you, I will make sure that you stay down. So that you can’t knock my head off.”
His laughter boomed, dropping like fragments of a grenade. Still chuckling, he said, “So far Marisol, that’s the best thing you have said to me.”
Mari felt herself responding to him, to his appreciation of her words. It didn’t happen that often in her life. So many people were dismissive of her. She was too shy, too quiet, too awkward, too dreamy. Too much trouble to get to know.
“Who wants to kill me, Anto?”
Anto shrugged. “That’s not important. What does matter is that on Saturday, if I had not snatched you, you would’ve been dead by noon. A message to your father to get his nose out of someone’s business.”
Mari felt her shyness sliding away. This was not a social situation. Not a hot guy eyeing her up wanting to ask her out. This was life and death. Reticence was not a shield in this situation and her brain seemed to understand that. “Let’s say I believe you – “
“Why wouldn’t you believe me?” Anto asked. He looked like a boy who just been told there was no Santa Clause.
Mari frowned at his interruption. “Because you kidnapped me!” She’d wanted to add asshole, but she wasn’t quite that bold. Just because he said he wouldn’t kill her didn’t mean he wouldn’t crush her to death if he took exception to her words. “Because you brought me here. Because you’ve been planning this for weeks.” Her hand waved vaguely toward the cage, the barricaded stairway. “Maybe you haven’t killed me yet because my father will want proof of life. Like hearing my voice on the phone.”
Anto snorted. “I will not be calling your father. I’m not that stupid. And even if I was that stupid, I would not concern myself with proof of life. Your father might ask for it, but would he really risk your life if I refused him?”
Mari knew he was asking a redundant question. She knew that at this moment, her father was moving heaven and hell to find her. No stone would go unturned. “Okay. Understood.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned her back against the arm of the couch. Why did he have to sit so close to her? He was disconcerting in so many ways. “I believe you.”
He grinned. “You are a liar, Marisol.”
Mari ignored him. “You tell me you’ve kidnapped me to save my life. Why didn’t you do the terminator thing and walk up to me and say, ‘Come with me if you want to live’.”
Anto laughed, loudly. “You do have a sense of humour after all. Use it more often. It fits you nicely.” Then he sobered. “Would you have come with me?” Another rhetorical question.
“Couldn’t you have told my dad about this so-called murder plot?”
“Really, Marisol. I wouldn’t have thought you that dense. Since when does bratva cooperate with police?”
