Red. (Den of Mercenaries #1)(8)

“It was you they wanted! Who the f*ck are you? Huh! What the f*ck did you take from them?”

He was irate, jerking in the chair, his arms bloody from his struggles. Just seeing his face, Mishca was afraid to know what they had done to the rest of him.

God, what all had they done to him?

While he didn’t know what the boy—his brother?—was screaming about, he didn’t have time for hysterics. With the amount of bodies in this place, not to mention that someone had probably called Mikhail at this point, they needed to get out of there.

But, he didn’t want anyone to see the boy, for reasons he wasn’t ready to contemplate. He shoved the bag back over his head, but that did nothing to silence his cries, cries that had turned from anger to sobs.

Cursing beneath his breath, Mishca circled him and wrapped an arm around the boy’s throat, applying pressure, hardening himself against the sounds of him gasping for breath. When he finally went limp, Mishca released his hold.

Shoving a hand through his hair, a habit he had grown accustomed to when he was stressed, he gestured to the boy and said, “Get him out of here, and make sure no one sees his face. Tell no one of him.”

Vlad studied him a moment before nodding, never one to question an order.

Mishca had grown used to the careful life he lived, one where surprises were foreign, but as his phone chimed once again, his father’s name flashing across the screen, he knew that there would be far more surprises uncovered in the upcoming days.





Chapter Five





Niklaus was in and out of consciousness for two days thanks to whatever drugs he had been drowning in. During the first, he had woken up in a strange room with bright lights, lying on his stomach on a slab of cold steel as a man wearing a white lab coat sutured the wounds on his back. Luckily, whatever he’d been injected with—he could still remember the bite of the needle and the vague image of the murky liquid—had caused him to pass right back out. During this time, he didn’t remember any pain, could hardly remember his own name as he floated in a place that didn’t really exist.

He only knew another day has passed when he’d roused once again and heard the conversation on the other side of the new room he was in.

“What are you going to do about him?” A muffled voice asked.

The other, and this one’s accent he remembered from the time he’d seen his own face staring back at him, was quick to respond. “Nothing for now. Until I know more, I’m not going to tip my hand. For all I know, someone is f*cking with me.”

“But…”

He sighed, the words seeming forced from him. “But I also knew my mother.”

Before he could even contemplate what this meant, Niklaus was under again.



* * *



He might have woken up disoriented, but Niklaus knew he was no longer held prisoner in the abandoned warehouse. He was lying on the softest bed he had ever felt, and while he still ached considerably, it was a lot better than what he had felt just a short while ago.

He didn’t move, trying to let his body adjust to the comfort, wanting to hold onto the feeling for just a little while longer, his eyes focused on the ceiling.

Though it was all still a blur, pieces of memories came back, and one stuck out more than the others.

He had a brother.

One that, apparently, some people really wanted to kill.

He remembered staring into identical blue eyes, seeing his own surprise reflected in their depths. It was clear that neither had known about the other, but what was clear was how his twin was accustomed to the situation Niklaus had been in. The only shock he had been able to see was the fact that he had been looking at Niklaus, not at the room itself. When that look of shock had vanished, replaced with a look Niklaus hadn’t been able to read, his own surprise had shifted to anger as he realized that it was because of him that they had been taken.

Sarah…

Just the thought of her name, the memory of her smile, brought a pang to his chest that was far worse than any abuse his body had taken. For just a moment, the clean scent of the bedroom he was in vanished, replaced with the stench of burning flames.

Niklaus shook his head hard, trying to dispel the memory though he knew there was nothing he could do to escape it.

He didn’t know how long he had been lying there, lost in his thoughts when he heard the voices carrying from outside the bedroom. Forcing himself up, he dragged his broken body from the bed, wincing with every limp he took towards the door. The closer he got, the easier it was for him to hear what was being said.



* * *



Mishca stood outside the closed door, not knowing what to feel, how to act, or even what to do. On the other side was his twin, one that he hadn’t known existed until twenty minutes prior. In that short span of time, everything he had thought he knew about his mother felt like a lie…but in a way, it also made sense.

When she was alive, and during those times when she thought he wasn’t listening, he often remembered hearing her talking to herself about the sacrifices she had made, but he never had for a second thought that a baby had been that sacrifice.

And Mishca didn’t even know his name.

Jetmir Besnik was standing before him, discussing business with Mikhail as though he hadn’t just spent days torturing someone he had assumed to be a captain in the Volkov Bratva. It sure as hell didn’t sit well with Mishca, and if he were in charge, Mishca would have happily killed them all for the discretion. It was for that reason Mikhail headed this impromptu meeting. He was nothing if not a businessman. He didn’t think about the fact that their plan was to torture Mishca, only what he would gain from it.