Valon: What Once Was (Volkov Bratva Novella)(7)

They were dismissed rather quickly once Valon entered the room, and he briefly wished they would return, if only because of the way Bastian’s sudden attention on him made his skin crawl. Fear. Fear came in many different forms, but what Valon felt at that moment was as if someone was squeezing his heart, gradually loosening that hold over time.

“Come, I want to show you something.”

Bastian gestured for Valon to follow him, leading him through the house toward a hallway that Valon remembered from his first time walking through. Bastian stopped at one of the doors, turning the knob and shoving the door open, the wood creaking in protest.

He stepped in, moving to the side to give Valon room to come in as well. Looking around, Valon saw that they were in a bedroom. The mattress was no longer on the floor, but on a metal frame, completely made up. There were two dressers in the room, along with a desk in the corner with a small lamp that lacked a shade. While it was not homely in any way, it was definitely a step up from the cage where he had been sleeping before.

Maybe he had been stuck outside because they did not know whether they could trust him, or perhaps, Bastian had learned what happened to Ahmeti and he didn’t think Valon was still a threat.

Bastian led the way to another property further into the woods, away from the barn that Valon had been sleeping in with the dogs. It was another crudely built barn of some kind, with a heavy chain and padlock, keeping anyone curious from being able to get in.

He kept his mouth shut as Gjarper inserted a key, quickly removing the lock and chain. He pulled one of the doors open, stepping to the side so Bastian could go ahead of him. Valon didn’t have to ask if he was supposed to follow.

It was dark where they entered, and it took a moment for Valon’s eyes to adjust. But once they did, he took in everything around him. It looked like a crudely built arena with various materials used to build a sort of wall between the center of it and where chairs were set up facing the ring, and when Gjarper hit a light switch, and the old bulbs hanging from wires flickered on, he saw that he was right.

Their town was small, smaller than most even in Albania, and because of this, anything that happened here people talked about. None might have questioned what The Organization did to make their money, perhaps looked the other way when it came down to it, but Valon, over the years, had heard the rumors of what happened in this place. He never thought that he would actually see it in person.

He didn’t dare question why Bastian would bring him to this place, but he did chance a glance back at Gjarper before facing Bastian once more.

A predatory smile crossed his face as he gestured out around them. “What do you think of my work?”

Valon opened his mouth but didn’t know how to respond. He mimicked Bastian, looking around at everything again.

Luckily, he seemed to take that as answer enough. “In this place, I birth legends. I turn them into the very things that make up armies. In return, I give them everything they could ever want.” He came over to Valon, resting a sweaty but firm hand on his shoulder. “Your father may have been weak and an embarrassment to his people, but you do not have to follow in his footsteps.”

Valon had never considered Ahmeti weak, not when his reign of terror had been so disastrous and ultimately deadly in the end, but if The Organization had felt he was weak, then perhaps Valon could learn from his mistakes and be better.

He would do better, if only to be able to get the life his mother had wanted for him.

“Now, if you can do for me, then I can do for you. In exchange for my compassion, letting you stay in my home, you will fight for me here.”

After studiously avoiding blows from Ahmeti, Valon was sure that he could duck away from any opponent that came for him, and maybe land a few solid hits if he could. If his opponents were anything like him—in regards to never having fought before—then there was a possibility that this would all work out in the end, that he would be able to earn his keep here and not get thrown out onto the streets.

Valon nodded his consent, but upon seeing the expressions on Bastian and Gjarper’s faces—one of barely veiled smugness and the other of contempt—he couldn’t help but wonder if he had made another mistake.

__

Hours later, after Valon had been led away from that daunting place, taken back to the barn where he’d slept, the dogs that had kept him company over the night were gone, but he could hear their distant howling and knew they weren’t far. But he and Gjarper were not alone, four other men standing around, as though they had been waiting for them.

Valon, not sure what was happening, looked at Gjarper, waiting for any sign of what was to come. But Gjarper was as stoic as ever. When they were close enough that Valon could smell the rancid scent of sewage on one of the men, Gjarper spoke.

“Take him.”

His first instinct was to flee, break away from them, and try to get away from whatever was awaiting him on the other side of those barn doors, but the men held fast, dragging him inside. The marks in the earth from where he’d dug his heels in for purchase was the last thing Valon saw as the doors were closed again.

He was shoved into a chair, a man already standing behind it with a pair of clippers in hand, the cord plugged into an extension cord. Shaking his head, he was too afraid to voice a plea, even more afraid to jerk away from them as one flipped a switch and the clippers buzzed to life.

They didn’t care that his mother had loved his hair, that she had painstakingly taken care of it because she had always wanted him to look his best—the fact that he looked more like his father when his head was shaved was left unsaid between them.