Chapter Text
Chains have always felt too medieval to Ilya. They’re so … clunky. Heavy, impractical when you’re in a hurry. Sturdy, sure, but they make polyethylene rope these days that’s even stronger and more durable.
That said, he could be talked back. Because Shane Hollander strung up in chains is a sight to behold.
Alexei’s men have already had one round with him, his skin red for now but on its way to bruising. It’s obvious he’s barely hanging on to consciousness, blood pouring from a gash at his hairline, eyes—one swollen—slitted open only just as he tracks Ilya across the room.
“Silly of me,” Ilya says, circling Hollander with slow, deliberate steps, “to not put you on display before.”
He runs a hand down Hollander’s side, from chest to hip, ignoring the flinch.
Ilya smiles. His Rozanov smile, the one that’s all sharp edges. Funny how easy it comes now.
He grabs Hollander by the jaw and squeezes.
Hollander makes an aborted sound of pain, and the chains clink like applause above his head. His arms must be killing him.
Ilya’s smile widens. “You will die here, Hollander. With pain and without mercy. We will slow clocks down while we take you apart.”
He leans in until his mouth is next to Hollander’s ear, close enough that he can smell the animal fear the other man is working so hard to hide.
“You want to know more of Rozanov name, yes? I will show you exactly what our legacy means.”
Mounted to the far wall is the reason for this room’s classification as the masterskaya—the workshop. A modular rack displaying various instruments for pain: rope, knives, hoods, pliers, tape, bats, branding irons, guns, and so on. Hollander would’ve seen it when he was first dragged in here, and surely he can sense now, even with the rack behind him, that Ilya is parsing through the selection.
The pause is for show; Ilya knows exactly what he will use. But he likes hearing the quickening of the other man’s breath over the hum of the ceiling panel lights.
“Is shame to end it like this,” Ilya says, weapon in hand as he turns. Hollander was stripped soon after capture, of course. Pairing with the shackles around his wrists are those around his ankles, bolted to the ground. He is stretched out in the center of the room, on full display for anyone to see.
Ilya traces the tip of the knout down Hollander’s spine, notes how the man tenses, and steps back with a roll of his wrist, letting the rawhide strips dangle from the wooden handle. His Rozanov smile, he thinks, remains in place as he raises the whip and slashes it across Hollander’s back.
The crack sounds first, followed by Hollander crying out in a way that tells Ilya he’s trying not to, and that makes Ilya happy. He strikes him again, across his ass—his thighs—and again, his back. And again and again and again.
He is not smiling anymore. He might actually be crying, but he does not let that stop him. He’s covered in sweat by the time he stops. Hollander is limp—unconscious, and that simply won’t do. But Ilya will leave the next few rounds for someone else. The bloody latticework across Hollander proves he got his first grievances in, and he will have many, many more in the coming days.
Blood drips off the knout; Ilya flicks the whip twice, droplets spattering the floor, and returns it to the rack. His shirt, too, is soaked. Blood, so much blood—
Ilya does not allow himself to become lost in the grief. Not now, not here.
He hits one of the switches on the wall next to the door and hears the rolling clink of chains as Hollander thuds to the floor behind him. Slackened, for now. The second switch turns on the speakers, cranked up to a deafening volume. Heavy metal roars through the room; as Ilya shuts the door behind him, the handle rattles with the reverberation. Hollander will not stay unconscious for long. He will not have a chance to sleep at all if they do it right.
And Ilya intends to do everything right, if only to begin the rectification he knows he will never be able to complete.
***
Panic continues to ripple through the air as Ilya climbs the stairs to the ground floor. Matvey, speaking quietly with Yuri in the entrance hall, has red eyes. Through the entrance to the sitting room, Daniel sits in an armchair, head buried in his hands. His uncle, Ilya knows, was killed.
The familiar weight of Dima’s hand lands on Ilya’s shoulder at the foot of the grand staircase. His strong and silent presence, always comforting to Ilya, is now irksome. “Kak vy?1” he asks.
Ilya doesn’t bother with a reply; obviously he is not okay. “Where is Alexei?”
Dima drops his hand. “Chasovnya.2”
The chapel. Of course. There’s a painful lurch in Ilya’s chest. He nods, and begins climbing the carpeted stairs. The bodies have been removed, though bloodstains remain. Ilya counts three different splotches as he ascends, black by now against the deep red velvet of the runner. One of Alexei’s men hurries down the stairs without looking twice at Ilya. At the second floor landing, Ilya gathers himself once more. Every loose end, every frayed wire is shoved deep, deep inside him.
He takes a right, trailing his hand along the mezzanine railing so he has something to cling to amid this nightmare.
Behind him, from the direction of the master suite, comes wailing. Polina wouldn’t have been allowed to attend the ceremony.
A line of four men blocks the sturdy wooden door to the chapel. Alexei’s men. Ilya swears he catches a current running through each man’s expression as they take in the blood coating his clothes.
Ilya nods as they part, and pushes open the door.
The chapel is silent despite being full to bursting. At the center of the nave, a table has been set up to look like an altar—a tablecloth, flowers, candles. Before it stands Alexei.
His brother’s head is bowed as he approaches, and in the low yellow lighting, Ilya witnesses a tear sliding down his cheek.
Ilya’s resolve splinters at a truth laid so bare even Alexei cannot hold back the tide of grief. Death has cleaved its way into this evening.
Atop the table-turned-altar lies the body of Grigori Rozanov, pakhan of the Rozanov Bratva. Former pakhan. Shot through the throat while drinking from a glass of Beluga Noble. No casket on hand, yet everyone wants to pay their respects to a man who loved his country, loved his men, and loved the duty of his family line.
Loved his sons? Possibly. Some days. Loved them for what they could do—continue the line of a Rozanov pakhan, leader of organized crime centered in Boston.
But Ilya does not dwell on that reality. Now, everything has been stripped away, down to the fact that his father was murdered and Ilya is full of so much sorrow he could drown.
When Alexei lifts his head, Ilya wipes his own eyes. Their anguish is shared, and so is the evening’s cost. “Gde ona?3” he asks.
The Rozanov Bratva’s roots are long steeped in tradition. It shouldn’t pain him on this night of all nights, but it does—that her body is not allowed in the chapel. Perhaps if he hadn’t taken his losses out on Hollander, he could have stepped in to change that.
Alexei’s eyes appear glassy. In the span of a few hours, he’s aged one hundred years. Ilya asks again, in English. “Where is she?”
“Ilya Grigorivich—prozhaluysta, ser,” calls a voice from behind them, low enough to stay obsequious. “Yeye telo bylo vyvezeno vmeste s telami drugikh pogibshikh.4”
Ilya snaps his attention back to Alexei. “‘Removed’? No service at all?”
His brother stays mute, though something flickers in his gaze. Something Ilya knows well for all the times he looked in his father’s eyes.
Ilya shakes his head, breath catching as he turns to leave. Back through the gathered mass, ignoring how their whispers seem to follow him, and through the door. If the anguish over his father’s death is the tide, this comes as a tsunami. How could they? he asks himself. How could I? Again, he relives what went through his head between every crack of his whip across Hollander’s skin. My fault, all my fault.
Footsteps sound behind him as he mounts the staircase once again, to the third floor. To revisit.
Alexei grabs his arm and swings him around, slamming him against the railing and then some—Ilya grapples for purchase as he nearly loses his balance.
“You fucked him!” Alexei spits, face screwed up into a snarl. “Do you deny it? That you got lost in his pussy and forgot who your family was?”
His grip on Ilya’s shirt tightens, and Ilya prepares himself to be pushed. Three levels up means a long way down.
But the shove does not come. Alexei looks mad with rage, yet he does not let Ilya go. Perhaps three Rozanovs dead in one night would be too much for him.
Ilya disentangles himself from his brother’s grasp and moves to the center of the stairs. “I did not know.”
He doesn’t know which is worse: the truth or how much shame coats it.
I wanted him separate, and now he’s the one who’s ruined everything.
Alexei lets out a string of curses in Russian before pinching the bridge of his nose and turning away. “They are dead. Because of you. Because you did not know.”
Ilya doesn’t let himself retreat from the battering ram of the words. This will be one of many punishments he’ll make himself endure as feeble attempts at penance.
Another one is obvious: “You must take Father’s place as pakhan,” he tells Alexei. “I do not deserve it, and they will never trust me.”
Alexei keeps his back to Ilya, so he keeps talking.
“I will be loyal to Rozanov name. Let my guilt be the binder. For Sveta.”
That seems to have an effect. One of the few unifying topics between them. Alexei turns, features carved like stone. His mother’s eyes and full of determination, but their father’s nose and chin. “For Sveta,” he repeats, and when Ilya nods to the third floor, Alexei dips his chin in agreement.
They finish mounting the stairs shoulder to shoulder. The entrance to the library is ajar; just three hours ago, Ilya approached full of cheer. A night of celebration; his father’s seventy-first birthday. Now, there is only dread.
If he keeps his eyes level, the room is almost normal. Shelves crammed full of books from floor to ceiling, interspersed with heavy velvet curtains covering windows. A fire still crackles in the hearth. A pool table, billiard balls scattered about. A heavy desk covered in framed medallions, pictures, a globe.
The seating is where the differences become stark. An armchair lies on its side, stained with blood. The couch is skidded out of place. Shards of glass cover the rug—someone shattered a bottle of sherry over Hollander’s head to bring him down, after—
Ilya covers his eyes with a hand like he can scourge the image, but it’s no use. The scene replays.
Father shot through the throat, choking on nothing.
Alexei shouting for men.
Ilya paralyzed with shock.
And Shane Hollander.
Except it wasn’t Hollander. Not to Ilya, not yet. He did not know this man with hatred in his eyes and a Glock 19M in his hand. Not this version.
He knew Milo—who wore glasses and worked for an architecture firm. Milo, who was shy but wasn’t afraid to ask for what he wanted, including any opportunity to suck Ilya’s dick. Milo, whom Ilya had trusted.
But Milo is not Milo.
He is Shane Hollander, who briefly locked eyes with Ilya before pointing his gun at Svetlana and pulling the trigger—and before his end, Ilya will exact every drop of pain possible.