Page 74 of One of Them

I understood.

“Maxim?”

“Hmm?”

“When you look at her, what do you see?”

Lorenzo’s question struck me as odd, causing my movements to pause.

“I ain’t so sure you want me to answer that,” I chuckled. “You might end up punching me.”

“Tell me,” he insisted.

Was this a test? A game to figure out where my loyalties lie?

Strange, given he was the tied-up one. When it took a while to sort my thoughts, he began answering instead. “Ilya sees her as an object. The same orphan he found her as. Someone with nothing to lose to manipulate as he sees fit,” he noted. “A tool to win him battles, while he plans the war.”

Well said, I thought. It seemed to be precisely how things were standing.

Lorenzo continued, “I see her as someone who made it through life alone. She sacrificed all that was left within to find herself. She likes to call herself independent, but in reality, she wants to be a part of something. Seeking what she lacks: stability and acceptance. There is a great lot she isn’t telling us, but once the truth comes out, I hope to stand by her with a handful of others. United.”

His bluntness surprised me, but my mind was clear, despite how I reacted.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” I voiced.

Slight disappointment clouded his face, his eyebrows lowering. He sat back, restricted in the chair, scrutinizing me with his gaze.

“Not because I’m uncertain,” I admitted before his eye resorted to the familiar twitch. “She deserves to hear it first.”

She earned our answers, and both Enzo and I could do with more straightforwardness, but I wasn’t one to go around giving advice.

I began rolling my sleeves up, not bothering to find out if he understood.

“You realize that after the heartfelt speech, I still have to reorganize your pretty face?”

He threw me a cocky smile. “Give it your best shot,stronzo.”

The first punch landed hard on Lorenzo’s cheek. The second landed straight in the eye. The third was somewhere in between to finish the picture. A tooth joined the pool of blood formed under his legs. I had to make the interrogation believable. I also wasn’t going to let an opportunity to let go of the rage waste. Unfortunately, in this case, the receiver was someone with good intentions.

“She can’t know,” he muttered between the punches. I understood, but hated him at that moment for letting me in on a secret I’d have to keep from her.

The fourth, being the last but also the strongest, knocked him out.

I hoped the information I gathered to feed to Ilya would distract him enough not to question the process. Luckily, beyond the beating and slight torture, Ilya stood no ground to hurt Lorenzo. Information extraction was his only excuse.

I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I set on playing my part and seeing it through.

Punching the nearest pipe, I purposely landed miscalculated punches until my knuckles busted open. Our combined blood smudged the frontof the shirt I wore when I returned upstairs as the enforcer the Bratva believed me to be.

Despite wearing light clothing, sweat had already formed on my forehead by the time I arrived in Colombia.

The Amazon rainforest, stretching across multiple countries, was the dampest environment the Cartel could have picked as their base. I could see the advantage of such a strategic spot, with its rough terrain and unpredictable conditions. A far cry from the usual environment I worked in.

As I ventured deeper into the jungle, the colors intensified. Half the plants looked so beautiful, you itched to touch them. Exquisite, but poisonous.

There was a comparison somewhere, but I couldn’t quite place it.

Getting a hold of the Jungles, as they called them, had proven difficult. It took longer than I expected to convince them to meet up, and a few dayswere wasted in the process. Days I spent worrying, hypnotizing the servers, and manifesting an answer.

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