He continued to stitch me up, his face expressing how much he found me lacking.
I screamed when he finished the last of the stitches, cutting the thread and tightly tied it. Blood was still dripping down from my arms and onto Nikolay’s bed.
I didn’t know how much blood I actually lost, but I was starting to feel lightheaded.
Don’t faint, don’t faint, don’t faint.
My vision blurred, and I looked around the room, trying to find something to focus on to help keep my thoughts away from the pain. I found Nikolay’s black curtains, black stitching of small square designs that blended in with the fabric.
I counted the squares.
I got to fifteen when Luca pulled out his phone and smiled at me. “Be a good girl and give me the best performance of your lifetime, okay?”
I licked my parched lips and tried to stay in the present. It was getting so hard.
So fucking hard.
Tears blurred my eyes as he dialed and put the phone on speaker. Mikhail answered after the third ring, his voice tinged with anger.
“Hello?”
I let out a small whimper at the sound of his voice, tears springing to my eyes.
“Ah, Mikhail. Have you figured it out yet? Please tell me you did before getting on that plane. It would be such a waste of time for you to have to turn it around, no?”
“You’re the one who sent me the picture. And the coordinates.”
Luca smiled. “Yes. It was me. Sorry, but I had to get all three of you out of the house. I know how much you value family. I mean, you’re always going on and on about the brotherhood and your brothers and blah, blah, blah. Am I right?”
Luca laughed.
There was something seriously deranged about this man.
“Who’s this?”
“Don’t you recognize my voice? I gotta say, I’m hurt. It hasn’t been that long.”
There was only silence on the other end. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want Mikhail to know how badly I was hurt—at least, not yet. Not until I knew what Luca wanted.
He’d said something about an exchange. Tears fell down my face, and Luca looked at me, then wiped them away with his bloodstained hands … my blood.
“Luca,” Mikhail said finally. “You really are a cockroach, aren’t you? We cut off your head, and you’re still moving, polluting the Earth with your mere presence.”
“Enough,” Luca said angrily. “I wouldn’t test me if I were you.”
“Yeah? And why’s that?”
Luca pressed his thumb down on my wound without warning.
I let out a bloodcurdling scream, until my vision tunneled from the pain, and then—
Nothing.