Twisted Throne (Bratva Born #2)

13. Dimitri

Dimitri

We are at the front door of the house. My heart is racing, and my breathing is heavy, but I’m jubilant.

I can’t believe how smoothly this has gone so far. Maya distracted the men brilliantly. We heard her cries even from this far away, and as she screamed and wailed, the men went running with the dogs, all of which were at heel and not in attack mode.

Damen deactivated the fence and the drones, at the same time, and we climbed the fence, ran over the bridge, and reached the front door while the guards were all racing the other way.

We draw our weapons as Damen holds some sort of device that I don’t recognize against the door. It makes a noise, and then the door whirs, and a lock clicks inside the house.

Damen gestures at the door. “After you. Age before beauty.”

I grin at him and, Sig raised, I push the door open with my shoulder.

We file into the house, and all is quiet. There’s no one in here, which is weird.

We creep along the hallway, and then I hear the voices coming from the dining room.

“Try another combination,” a man says.

“I am,” another replies. “I keep trying them, and nothing has worked so far.”

“So we’ve tried Sian’s birthday with various numbers before and after and nothing? And his?”

“Yes, but the combinations of numbers that could be before or after those dates, if it is even them, are huge. Plus, he said not to disturb him, Tom. We’re going against direct orders.”

“I don’t care,” Tom snarls. “He sounded fucked up, and he’s in there with that girl; I’m not going to let him kill her.”

My heart stutters in my chest.

“He’s the boss. I mean, we’ve looked the other way before.”

Jesus Christ, so Barnaby has killed a woman before. Fuck. I need to get to Adriana now.

“You ready to find the code to the door?” I whisper to Damen.

“Yes,” he says.

We walk to the entrance to the kitchen, which is where the voices are coming from.

“Yes, well, it never sits right with me what he does, but I didn’t know them. I’ve got to know Adriana. He’s had me out walking with her regularly, and I’m not about to let that girl die on my watch.” I peek around the door. Tom slams his hand on the table hard. “Keep fucking trying. I’m going up there to talk to him again.”

I raise my weapon and wait for him to exit the room. As he nears the door, I use two fingers to gesture to Alexis and Damen to take the room. As Tom exits, I pull him to me, arms around his neck from behind, and Damen and Alexis, along with Vadim and Valentin, two of Nik’s men, storm into the kitchen, weapons raised. They have numbers on their fronts and backs, so I know who is who.

“If you all keep sitting and put your arms in front of you, no one gets shot,” I hear Damen state.

Viktor is still outside, with me, and as I let Tom go, he has his weapon trained on him.

Tom stares at us, his eyes wide.

“I’ve come for the girl,” I say simply. “She’s mine. I heard what you said in there. If you help me, I’ll let you live.”

Tom nods. “Yeah, I was about to be fired anyway because I can’t leave him in that room with her; he sounds strange.”

“How? Drunk? Drugged?”

“Slurred, weird, off his fucking head. Strange .”

There’s noise in the kitchen, and a few moments later, Damen strides out with Alexis and Vadim.

“They’re all trussed up,” Damen says. “Valentin will stay and watch them.

Damen’s phone goes, and he grins. “You rock, baby. I’ll buy you a diamond necklace for this, but only if you do what you promised to.” He turns to me. “All the guards at the gate are taken care of.”

I cock my head at Tom. “You going to help us? If we can’t get the code, will you try to persuade him to open the door?”

“Yes. I was going to anyway.”

“Are there any other men?” I ask.

“No, there is the housekeeper, though, and I guess she’s asleep, but she is trained in using a weapon.”

“Of course she is,” I mutter. “Where’s her room?”

“Down, and we’re going up.”

“Stay here,” I order Vadim. “If she comes up those stairs, deal with her. But try not to kill her.”

“Yes, boss,” he says, his voice muffled by the balaclava.

We take the stairs fast, me leading and the other men following. When I reach the top of the stairs, I turn to Tom and ask him quietly where to go next. He points to the landing above us and says on a whisper , through the doors to the end into the bedroom, and you'll see the heavy locked door there .

I take the path and enter the bedroom as quietly as possible. I strain my ears, trying to listen for any sounds, but of course if the door to the playroom is a panic door, I won't be able to hear anything. Not even someone with good hearing could, never mind me with my fucked up ears.

Damen enters the bedroom and crouches in the corner, rummaging through his backpack. He takes out a whole load of items that I don't recognize and starts to play around with them. Eventually, he finds something that looks like an old-fashioned tape recorder and carries it over to the door. He gestures for us all to be quiet and places it against the keypad. It begins to make noise, but unless the machine picks up speed, I panic, worried that Barnaby will be able to hear it in the room, and it will put Adriana in danger.

I lean into Tom and whisper in his ear. “Can you speak to him over the intercom and keep him distracted? Maybe ask if he’ll let you in, though if what you say about his state of mind is true, I doubt he will. We can at least try.”

Tom nods and walks toward the door. I take my Sig out of the holster and tap him on the shoulder twice. He turns and looks at me. “Don't try anything,” I warn in a low voice. “And speak clearly.”

“Understood,” he says.

He presses the intercom and begins to speak. “Hey, boss, I know you said no interruptions, but I really do need to speak with you. We think there may be a security threat on its way.”

I don't do anything because he hasn't given away the fact that we're already here. This is probably the only way to get Barnaby out of that door, by making him think that something urgent is happening.

There isn't any answer, so Tom presses the buzzer again. “Boss, this is urgent. Can you at least speak to me through the intercom, and let me know everything is alright?”

The voice I hear next is the very last person I expected to speak. Feminine, raw in a way I've not heard from her before, Adriana speaks into the intercom. “I'm afraid the boss can't come to the phone right now, Tom,” she says with a harsh laugh at the end. “He's kind of busy.”

My initial reaction is to push them out of the way and speak to her myself, but this could all be a ruse. Maybe Barnaby's making her say those things. I don't see why, but I can't discount it. I gesture for Tom to speak to her.

“Hey, Adriana,” he says. He scratches his beard and then speaks again. “I'm a little bit worried about you and Barnaby. I'm concerned for both of your safety. I don't wanna have to try to somehow break through this door, because it could end you both, so I need to know that all is okay. Are you hurt?”

“I'm not hurt,” she says.

My heart picks up speed at that news. Her next words have me jerking my head behind me to look at Damen and Alexis.

“Barnaby isn't doing great, though.”

“Okaaaay,” Tom says, keeping his cool remarkably well. “I really do need you to open the door now, Adriana.”

“Well, see, I don't think I can do that. Because the minute I open this door you'll do something to me, because when you see your boss, you're not going to be happy.”

She sounds a strange mixture of both scared and elated.

I push Tom out of the way and press the intercom. “Adriana, it’s Dimitri. Open this fucking door, right now.”

There's a long silence, but then the buzzer beeps and the door clangs and groans as the lock mechanism opens.

I push inside impatiently, Alexis right on my tail, and step into the playroom.

I blink as I try to take in the sight in front of me. Barnaby is naked, and on his hands and knees, crawling about the room. He’s groaning and speaking utter gibberish. He’s seemingly trying to pick something up off the floor, except there isn't anything on the floor for him to pick up. He puts something in his mouth, yet there isn't anything in his hands, chews and then spits the imaginary item back onto the floor.

There are two or three piles of sick, which Barnaby seems to have crawled through, and Adriana is standing to one side. I take her in, and my eyes widen. She is disheveled, the dress she was wearing clings to her sweat-soaked body, and she's holding a whip. My head swivels back to Barnaby, and I see the livid marks on his back and legs.

Oh my God, she's been beating him.

Tom has barged his way into the room, and he stares in disbelief at the incredible scene in front of us. “What the hell happened?” he asks. He doesn't sound angry, rather bemused and shocked.

“I drugged him,” Adriana says. “I drugged him, and then I decided to play with him the way he wanted to play with me.”

She looks at me, and with the strength of character I've not seen in her before, she asks, “Is Cade safe? His grandparents too?”

I nod. “Yes. We wouldn't have come here if he hadn't been. No matter how much I wanted to come and fetch you, I knew that if I did so without making sure Cade was safe, you would have stayed here.”

“Absolutely I would,” she says. Then she smiles, and it’s bright and happy. “Thank you, Dimitri.”

Barnaby gurgles and crawls to her, trying to grab her legs. “Down,” she snaps, cracking the whip on his back.

I’ve never felt such pride before. I want to burst with it, and as her gaze meets mine, wild and untamed, I fall. Head over fucking heels, no denying it, crazy in love.

This isn't how I expected this to go down. I think I expected to find her traumatized and scared and ready to rush into my arms as the hero of the hour. Instead, she's angry, powerful in her rage, and I've never been as impressed with a woman in my entire life.

“You whipped him,” I say, pointing out the obvious.

“You're observant,” she replies with a smile. “I gave him a taste of his own medicine. I'm absolutely sick of men trying to run my life. I'm sick of being various people's plaything. I'm not going to do it anymore.” Then she looks right at me and delivers her killer line. “The next time a man tries to make me do something against my will, I'll kill him with my bare hands.”

“Holy crap, good luck with that.” Alexis shakes his head and leaves the room. He calls back over his shoulder, “I'll make sure the rest of the men are okay and see what Andrius wants to do about speaking to Barnaby now that he's in this state.” He turns to look at Adriana from just outside the door. “What did you poison him with?”

She grins, and it's a little unhinged. “Angel’s trumpets,” she says. “They grow in the garden. Victorian ladies used to shake them into their tea. It’s a powerful hallucinogenic. I mean, it can kill you, if you take too much, but I don't think he's going to die. He has had a really bad trip, though. He's been sick a few times, and I think he's feeling pretty sorry for himself. He kept seeing monsters at one point, and I could have tried to reassure him on that front, but I didn't. I let him think the monsters were real. Because I've seen far too many monsters in my life in the last few months.”

“What's he doing now?” Tom asks as Barnaby chews and spits again.

“Oh, he keeps thinking that he's eating diamonds. It’s the weirdest thing. He keeps picking up diamonds, as he says, off the floor and crunching them, then spitting them back out.”

“He deals in diamonds sometimes,” Tom says. “Maybe that's where it's come from.”

“You should know,” Adriana says to Tom, “that I have his phone on me. I've taken a lot of incriminating pictures and video. I'm taking it with me. If you ever try to come after me, I'll release everything. I'll ruin him. You need to make sure that he never darkens my door again.”

“He won't ever darken your door again because you’ll be with me,” I say. “You'll be safe from now on.”

“As much as I appreciate you coming for me,” she says, “I haven't made my mind up about what the future holds.”

Oh no way. No way did I do all this for her to walk away. I'm not going to argue with her about it now in front of everyone, and I need her to come with me without a fight. But this woman is mine, and any ideas she has to the contrary will soon be put to rest.

“Andrius wants to talk to your boss,” I say to Tom, ignoring Adriana's words. “You helped us, so you get to survive, and if I were you, I'd wash my hands of this entire sorry situation. I don't think you're going to get to leave without an interrogation of your own. Especially because you've admitted that you know about the deaths of some women. He's going to want to know all the details on that.”

“Damn right I am,” the deep voice says from behind me.

I turn around to see Andrius walk into the room, and pause, as he stares with the same disbelief that the rest of us have at the scene in front of him. “What the hell happened to Barnaby?”

“She drugged him,” I say, jerking my chin at Adriana. I can't help the pride in my voice. This woman is going to be my bride. The moment I saw what she'd done to him, and the power that she took back by doing so, I never wanted anyone more in my life.

Hell, she says she's not going to be bossed around by men anymore, then fine. I’ll beg if that's what it takes. I'll get down on my knees and ask this woman with all the humbleness I can muster if she will be mine. She wants me as much as I want her, and she's not going to meet anybody else she has the same sexual chemistry with, so I think I can persuade her.

I smile at the thought of just how bad ass she is.

“What did you use?” Andrius asks.

“Angel’s trumpets,” she says.

“Well shit, that might mean my plans have to change?”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because Brugmansia, or angels trumpet as it’s more commonly known, can have long-lasting psychoactive effects,” he explains. “It might not do, and it might wear off quite quickly, leaving him just feeling hungover. It looks like you've given him a large dose, though. He might end up having hallucinations and breaks from reality for weeks or even months. In some cases, it lasts permanently.”

“Oh no, that’s such a shame,” she says, and it is so sarcastic it makes me laugh.

“Christ, woman, you ever want a job, come find me.” His face grows serious. “Listen. You guys need to leave and get out of this country, fast. Adriana has been through hell and needs to rest for a short time first. By the time you get the plane and flight slot ready, and get cleaned up and packed back at Volkov’s place, it will be morning, and that’s cutting it fine. This will be discovered sooner than later. You also have shit to sort out back home, right? Finishing off dealing with Ari and any ragtag bands of men he has left. Leave the clean up here to me.”

“Only if you end him,” I say. I jab a finger at Barnaby.

“Oh, don’t worry I will … eventually. I just might take my time with him, if he is too messed up to talk right now. And don’t forget I want to talk to Ari, unless you can get the info I need.” He looks at Barnaby in distaste. “I’ve been filled in on the fact that this fucker killed more than one woman.”

“He did.” Adriana’s face pales as if the reality is hitting her at last.

“Yes, he did, littleblue,” I say. “You were in great danger.”

“She was, but she fucking showed him.” Andrius turns to her. “Adriana, if you ever need anything, call me.” Then he hands her his card.

I should shoot him for being so presumptuous when I’m standing next to her, but then he turns to me. “Same goes for you. You’ll both have to come to Corfu and stay with me and Violet.”

“Oh, we’re not together,” Adriana says.

“Yes, you are,” Andrius replies with a grin. “Now, with all due respect, fuck off and leave me to clean up your mess. You did good, but you need to leave now.”

Adriana nods and glances at Barnaby one last time, then she walks to the back wall and takes the picture of the Snow White, shoves it under her arm, and carries it with her as we leave.