Another Man's Treasure Read online

  Ilia grabbed the chair.

  “Are you crazy?” he demanded.

  Patrick tried to pull away from him.

  “Stop! Stop. He’ll kill us.” Ilia yanked the chair away.

  “Help me!” Patrick’s face was red. “Fucking help me, Ilia! Help me move the couch. Help me… do something!”

  “He’ll kill us.”

  “He’ll kill us anyway!” Patrick grabbed for chair. “Give that to me!”

  Ilia shoved with the chair, catching Patrick in the chest with the leg. “He won’t just kill us! He’ll make it hurt! Do you fucking how much he’ll make it hurt? Do you fucking understand?”

  He was shouting it. The wind tore his words away.

  He sucked in a breath and tasted blood again. The rat’s blood. His own blood. Heard the man’s screams still, and, worse than that, the muffled sobbing sounds he’d made at the end. The words he’d slurred in Chechen. Abject and afraid.

  That sick, shining moment of clarity when Ilia had realized the man had no longer been begging for his life. He’d been begging for death.

  That was the power Nick had.

  Patrick made another grab for the chair, but Ilia held it tight. He carried it back inside. Set it down in the kitchen, and couldn’t bring himself to let it go. Stared at his white knuckles.

  Patrick was right behind him. “We’ll hit him with it. When he comes in. We’ll wait by the door and—”

  “No!” Ilia remembered the glass.

  “Fuck you, Ilia!” The wheeze in Patrick’s voice was hardly intimidating. “We have a chance!”

  “Chance at what?” Ilia uncurled his fingers from the chair and put his hand to his temple. He wished Patrick would just fucking stop talking.

  “I don’t know what he’s done to you, how the fuck he brainwashed you! But it’s fucking pathetic. If you want to stay here with that monster, then fine. But I’m getting out of here!”

  “Said I’d...look after you,” Ilia mumbled.

  “Yeah, great fucking job you’ve done of that. You went and fucking watched TV while he raped me. Remember that?”

  Ilia gripped his head more tightly. Pulled on his bangs. No choice. Nothing I could do.

  “You’re as bad as he is!” Patrick raged on. “You’re a fucking accomplice! How do I know you weren’t part of the plan to kidnap me? Huh?”

  Ilia swayed in place, pain thickening his tongue, swiping at his skull until he wanted to go to his knees. “Wa—wasnnn…”

  “Maybe you planned it together. You and your fucking boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend!” Ilia jerked his head up. That was a mistake. His stomach lurched, and everything in front of him was dark-washed.

  “You know,” Patrick said, “I knew you were a fucked up piece of shit that first night I came here, when you were with his brother—”

  “Shut up!” Ilia stepped forward and shoved Patrick as hard as he could. Patrick fell back and caught himself on the back of the sofa. Ilia lunged, trying to hit him, wanting to hurt him. Patrick caught his wrist.

  “You’re plotting with him,” Patrick insisted in that asthmatic rasp, straining to hold onto Ilia. “You’re just like he is. You’re whatever he fucking wants you to be.”

  Ilia squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pull away. “I’m nothing like him!”

  “Then grow some fucking balls and help me!”

  Ilia swung at him. Patrick shoved him back and got him on the floor. Landed a blow to Ilia’s jaw. Ilia swallowed bile, writhing against the pain. Kicked at Patrick, snarling. “Whore!” Ilia shouted. “Fucking whore!”

  Patrick wrapped his hands around Ilia’s throat. “Not a fucking whore,” he ground out. “And you’re not either.”

  “Money…” Ilia choked. “You fucking...walk away from me... once you get your money. Came back... f-for more.”

  Patrick’s face contorted. He lifted Ilia’s shoulders and slammed him back on the floor. “You idiot. Didn’t come back for the fucking—” He slammed Ilia again. “—money.”

  Ilia spat at him. Missed. “Look like uh—like a c’puter person. Like the fuckin’...guys fix computers. On c’mmercials.” Nothing made sense now but the pain—in his head, in his body, his mind. He lay back, panting. “But you can bite,” he whispered. “That’s good.”

  “God damn it,” Patrick muttered, easing off him a little.

  Ilia twisted onto his stomach so he could bring his heel into contact with the small of Patrick’s back. The ribbon pulled tight, and Ilia heaved. Patrick put his weight back on him, and Ilia lashed out. Patrick struck the back of his head, probably not that hard, but the pain merged with this headache and made Ilia gag. He let out a furious cry, clawing and kicking.

  All at once Ilia felt Patrick go still. He opened his eyes and saw a black patent leather shoe in front of him.

  “And what exactly,” Nick asked coolly, “is going on here?”

  VII

  Nick set the hammer on the table. “You want to hurt each other?”

  “No, Nick,” Ilia said, his voice low. He could hardly hear himself over the roar of blood in his skull.

  “Pick it up,” Nick said.

  Ilia kept his hands on his lap.

  “Pick it up,” Nick repeated. “One of you.”

  Ilia didn’t dare look at Patrick. All he could remember was the screams of the man whose hand had been smashed by that same hammer, and how Ilia had watched.

  “Pick it up, or I will.”

  Ilia moved suddenly, the pressure in him straining until it snapped. He grabbed the hammer and pulled it to his chest. Couldn’t let Nick hurt him with it. Couldn’t let Patrick. Ilia had to be the one with the hammer. Better to use it than to have it used against him.

  “Hurt him,” Nick said.

  Patrick cried out, the legs of his chair scraping against the floor as he rose to his feet quickly. “Don’t! Don’t!”

  “Where are you going to run, Patrick?” Ilia asked, his voice hollow.

  Patrick pressed back against the wall. His gaze was wild, frantic, as he looked around the kitchen for a weapon of his own.

  Ilia stood, grasping the hammer loosely.

  Nick moved around behind him and gripped his hips. Pulled him back, and ground his crotch against his ass. “Can you really do it, Ilia? Can you really crack his skull open?”

  “Yes.”

  It was a lie. Maybe it was. Ilia didn’t know anymore. He only knew that Nick had reduced everything down to the most simple equation: Patrick or him. And it wasn’t going to be him. Not ever again.

  And if that meant smashing Patrick’s head open with a hammer—if it meant shooting his own father while he slept—Ilia would do it. He would be the monster that Nick had made him.

  Nick slid his hand down Ilia’s pants and gripped his cock. Teased it into stiffness. “You are a marvel, Ilia.” His breath was hot against Ilia’s throat. “Do you want him to suck you off?”

  “Yes.”

  Patrick whimpered like a child.

  “Come and suck Ilia’s dick, Patrick,” Nick said. “Or I’ll let him smash your brains out with the hammer.”

  Ilia tightened his grip on the hammer.

  Patrick peeled himself off the wall and, crying, kneeled at Ilia’s feet.

  VIII

  Patrick had ruined everything.

  Before him, Ilia had been strong.

  Before him, Nick’s full attention had been on Ilia, a blazing spotlight in the dark. Ilia couldn’t escape from it. But now...now without that focus, without that spotlight, without that constant reminder not to make a misstep, Ilia had room to breathe. Room to see. He didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to be a witness.

  Because the more he saw, the more he knew it wasn’t right.

  The more he knew he was kidding himself.

  He wasn’t strong.

  He wasn’t cold.

  It was rape.

  IX

  The Brugmansia was looking better. The flowers were
whiter and fuller. It wasn’t wholly recovered, but it would be soon. Ilia kissed one of the blooms, imagining he could taste the poison.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I

  Mikhail’s cock was big. The biggest Ilia had ever seen—not that he’d seen many. He liked that it wasn’t easy to take Mikhail. He liked that it took him some effort every time. He liked the way it hurt at first, and the way Mikhail made shushing noises and soothed him with touches. He liked the way Mikhail praised him for taking him all the way inside.

  “Ah, Ilie. You are so good to me, so good.”

  The memory of fucking Mikhail could give him shivers for days afterward.

  “You’ve got a boyfriend,” his mother said, in that hesitant way she spoke about his sexuality, as though she wasn’t sure if she was hitting the right pitch. His father’s disapproval was much more certain. The whole neighborhood had heard their screaming matches about it.

  “Mmmm.”

  “Is he nice?”

  Ilia was fucking giddy. He blushed, and laughed. “Yeah, he’s really nice, Mom.”

  She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m glad. Maybe...maybe one day we can meet him?”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  That hurt her, he could tell. She hunched her shoulders a little as though Ilia had hit her in the chest and she was winded.

  “You know, with Dad being so open-minded and everything.”

  Her smile was weak. “Of course.”

  Three nights later he got home to find his father waiting up for him.

  “Eli. We need to talk.”

  There were photographs. Photographs of Mikhail and Ilia at a restaurant, walking down the street, in Mikhail’s car, kissing under the trees at Tidal Basin.

  His father scrubbed his fingers through his cropped hair the way he did when he was trying to contain his temper. “This is the man you’ve been seeing? Mikhail Kadyrov?”

  Ilia gaped at the photographs. “Where’d you get those?”

  His father pushed the photographs toward him. They slid off the kitchen table. “You must know who this man is!”

  “He’s...” Ilia swallowed. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  His father made a sound like a moan. “Eli. Jesus Christ. You break it off with him, you hear me? This guy, he’s dangerous. He’s a killer.”

  He’s Mikhail.

  “Tomorrow we’ll go to the station,” his dad said. “We’ll talk to the chief, figure out how to get you out.”

  But Ilia had never felt so safe, so loved, as with Mikhail.

  That night he packed a bag and knocked on Mikhail’s door.

  Never went home again.

  II

  Ilia had many reasons to hate his father, but he couldn’t imagine shooting him. Not for real. Not anywhere outside a fantasy.

  This is for Mikhail, Dad.

  Dad. It’s me. Then he’d lift the gun. My name is Ilia, and this is for Mikhail.

  His dad had taught him to shoot. Taken him to the range that the cops liked, every weekend for a few years since he turned eleven, and taught him guns. Ilia had hated shooting, but had loved hanging out with cops and listening to their war stories about headshots and clean takedowns and returning gunfire. By the time he was fifteen he was done with all that. He’d dyed his hair, gotten his first earring, and was listening to music his dad hated. He was making himself different, partly because he felt different and partly because of the way it riled his dad up.

  But firing a gun wasn’t something he’d forgotten.

  Nick stood behind him, cigarette in one hand and gun in the other, and pointed at the targets pinned to boxes at the end of the warehouse. “You show me how you handle a Glock, and maybe you get something bigger.”

  “I don’t need anything bigger,” Ilia said. “It’s a hit, not the Valentine’s Day Massacre.”

  He screwed the silencer on. He was aware of the other men in the warehouse. He remembered one of the men from Mikhail’s house: Kysna. Saw his narrow-eyed look and the way he pulled his lips back to show his canines when he smiled, as though he’d learned which muscles he should use from a book on anatomy but had never understood the sentiment behind the action. Kysna, Mikhail had said, was fond of Nick. He was walking around now with his chest puffed out proudly, showing his death’s head grin whenever Nick made a joke, basking in Nick’s glory.

  Mayrsolt the driver stood a few feet away, his own gun drawn. Ilia might be able to shoot Nick, but he had no way of knowing if Mayrsolt would let him get away.

  There were three other men in the warehouse too. Ilia didn’t know them. They stood wreathed in clouds of smoke produced by those awful black cigarettes that Mikhail had sometimes smoked.

  “Shush now,” he’d laughed whenever Ilia complained of the stink. These remind me of my grandfather.”

  These men were Nick’s men too. Doku wasn’t here. Basayev wasn’t. The older, wiser men, whom Mikhail had treated with respect. The uncles, he had called them once. Mikhail had listened to them always, and deferred to them on occasion.

  Nick didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought.

  Ilia slid the magazine into the gun and clicked the safety off. Raised his arm, and squeezed the trigger. Saw the puff of dust rise from the cardboard target.

  “Not bad,” Nick said. “Go again.”

  Ilia shot again. He was so relieved Nick wasn’t forcing him to practice on a human target that he refused to let himself flinch when he squeezed the trigger.

  “You have a good eye.”

  “I played a lot of video games.”

  He needed this to be a fantasy, a game.

  “Games.” Nick snorted. “What a fucking child you are, hmmm? You play games and you suck cock. What a life for you!”

  Ilia felt the weight of the Glock in his hand.

  “Silly boy.” Nick reached out and tousled his hair. “Maybe that gun will turn you into a man, hmmm?”

  Ilia lifted his chin. “I don’t need a gun to be a man.”

  Nick took the gun from him. “Listen to this little whore. He thinks because he licked my brother’s balls that he has a pair of his own!”

  Ilia didn’t know where his anger came from: the disrespect that Nick showed Mikhail by saying that, maybe. God knew Ilia had hardly any pride left of his own, but he guarded Mikhail’s fiercely. The sudden anger burst inside him like a lightning strike, arcing from point to point inside his body until he was burning with it.

  He curled his hands into fists. “You’re not half the fucking man Mikhail was! And the entire family knows it!”

  Nick’s face went slack, his expression suddenly empty. His dark eyes betrayed no emotion at all. “Say it again.”

  Ilia might have been staring into the flat, black eyes of a shark. He couldn’t speak.

  “Say it again.” Nick raised the Glock and rested the end against Ilia’s breastbone.

  The smoking men murmured to one another in Chechen.

  “I—” Ilia hated himself for that sudden, reckless moment of rebellion. That moment when he hadn’t given a fuck what Nick would do, because it had been so fleeting that he could hardly believe it had happened. He would die now.

  He would die.

  He deserved to die, and a part of him wanted to die, but the rest of him wanted to live. Still wanted it, and he had no idea why.

  He stared at Nick. Each shuddering breath that expanded his lungs made his chest kiss the barrel of the Glock through the thin fabric of his shirt.

  Crack.

  Ilia’s head snapped back with the force of the blow, and his legs gave out. He crumpled to the cement floor, waiting for blood, for pain. Waiting to be dead. It took him a moment to understand what had happened—someone had slapped him down. He heard the men laughing. His cheek throbbed.

  Kysna stood over him. He jabbed a stubby finger down toward him. “You show Nikolay some respect, you understand me, whore?”

  Ilia rubbed his cheek.

  “Get up,” Nick said. �
��Shoot again.”

  Ilia was shaking too much. It wasn’t until Mayrsolt shuffled over and reached down a hand that he was able to get his feet underneath him again.

  Nick held the Glock out. “Again.”

  Ilia sucked in a deep breath, and blinked at the target.

  Tried to remember what he was doing.

  Tried to focus.

  Dad, my name is Ilia. This is for Mikhail.

  He squeezed the trigger, and another puff of dust rose from the cardboard target.

  Nick whistled, the sound echoing through the warehouse.

  III

  “My father is a cop,” Ilia said, his voice trembling.

  Mikhail pushed the first few inches of the dildo inside him. He smiled. “I know.”

  Ilia shifted, his cock leaking. He scrabbled for purchase on Mikhail’s desk, and knocked a stack of papers askew. “You know?”

  “Mmm.” Mikhail put his hands on Ilia’s knees, shifting his legs further up and apart. “You think I date a man without checking his background first?”

  “Will you kill me?” Ilia gasped, squirming.

  Mikhail bent down and kissed his stomach. “Will you betray me?”

  “No!”

  “Then, no,” Mikhail said, pushing on the end of the dildo until Ilia screamed.

  IV

  “Can you cook, bitch?” Nick asked from the kitchen.

  Ilia looked up, but Nick’s gaze was on Patrick.

  “I’m tired of takeout,” Nick said. “It’s expensive.”

  “I can cook,” Patrick replied tonelessly. He’d stopped crying, these last few days. So that was something. But Ilia sometimes caught him looking at Nick with such hatred that it made Ilia go cold.

  Nick settled back. “Good. Write me a list of whatever you need to make dinner for the rest of the week. Nothing fancy.”

  V

  “No one’s come around here looking for you yet,” Ilia said. He and Patrick were on separate ends of the couch. “You sure they’re looking?”

  Patrick rubbed his nose. Didn’t look at Ilia. “My co-workers are probably worried.”