Under Control: A Fake Marriage Mafia Romance
Under Control: Chapter 31

I have to admit, the boy holds out longer than I expected.

When I caught the kid, I figured he was just some pampered fucking asshole.

But as I carved him up, careful not to remove any fingers or mark him in any visibly permanent way, I got a feel for his mettle.

Arsen’s not soft. No, he’s not soft at all. He’s got other scars from a dozen other painful sessions, possibly sessions like the one we had. I don’t ask him about those, because I don’t care, but it’s clear he’s not weak, and that wasn’t his first time, far from it.

I can respect that.

Unfortunately, sooner or later, everyone breaks.

I’m tired when I finally emerge from the basement after finishing a second session with the young man. Anton’s waiting for me at the bar with a cup of coffee brewed and ready, though it’s only lukewarm at this point. A college football game’s playing on TV.

“You’ve been busy,” he comments.

“The boy gave me some good information.” I drink my coffee and sigh. “Where’s my wife?”

“At the hospital visiting her mother. She left a little bit ago.”

“That’s good.” I crack my back and lean forward on my elbows. “There’s going to be more blood.”

“Did he give you locations?”

“And names. Lots and lots of names. I’ll pass along everything to the brigadiers and they’ll follow it up. If the boy’s lying⁠—”

I shrug slightly. Karine showed him mercy, but I will not. If Arsen lied to me, again and again, and sent me chasing after ghosts, he’ll pay for it very dearly.

My wife is not soft. I watched her stand up to a hardened Bratva killer at a table of other ruthless monsters. She didn’t balk when she saw her cousin tied up down in that basement, even though she knew what would happen to him. Instead, she curled up and fell asleep outside the door, and didn’t seem bothered when I emerged smelling like sweat and blood.

No, she’s not soft at all, but she cares about people still.

There’s a crucial piece of me missing. I’ve always known it. Where most people care about their fellow humans, I replace myself bored by them more often than not. Anton’s the rare exception; beyond him, I’ve had few friends.

Maybe it’s what I love about Karine. She has a little of my darkness in her, but she’s still more human than I’ll ever be. Because she’s something like me, we can have this relationship. And I get to experience normal humanity through her sweetness.

Still, I wonder if I should’ve just killed the kid for her, just so she understood the depth of my obsession.

I give Anton everything Arsen told me. He writes it down without comments and proceeds to pass it along as instructed. I stay in the basement and drink my coffee, staring at the TV without seeing it, ready to catch a few hours of sleep when my phone starts to ring.

It’s Karine. I answer immediately. “How is your mother?”

“She’s gone.” Her voice is frightened and I’m instantly on edge.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s missing, Valentin. I got here a few minutes ago and when I went in to visit, she wasn’t in her room. The nurses looked all over the place, but she’s gone. Right now, they think she got transferred somewhere else, but, Valentin, I don’t think that’s what happened.”

“I’m coming,” I tell her. “Stay there. Delay them if you can.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just do it.” I hang up the phone and rush up the steps. I replace Anton on the phone in the back yard. “Soldiers. I need soldiers right now.”

I fill him in as we rush over to the hospital, but I’m running on a hunch and not much else. Once we arrive in the parking lot I send him and the soldiers to sweep through as much of the hospital as they can without attracting too much attention, starting with the parking garage and the exterior.

“What are we looking for?” Anton asks.

“Armenians.”

I hurry inside and take the elevator up to Miriam’s floor. I replace Karine waiting outside of her room, pacing back and forth, while the nurses and doctors studiously ignore her. When she spots me, she comes running and throws herself into my arms.

“They still can’t replace her,” she says, barely holding back tears.

An ugly, raw feeling enters my chest.

My wife, my malishka, my everything, is hurting right now.

And I am going to burn the fucking world to the ground.

I start by interrogating the nurses. They’re pushy and arrogant, but I gradually break them down until one woman finally admits that nobody has checked on Miriam for at least a few hours.

“I saw her last night though,” one woman says, an older nurse at the end of her shift. “She was there at around four in the morning. I poked my head in just to check like I always do.”

“And it’s your normal policy to ignore your patients?” I ask, glaring at the doctor on duty.

He glances around and stammers something worthless.

The nurses sent to check the other areas of the hospital return shortly after that and deliver the news I expected.

Miriam is nowhere to be found.

“I need security footage,” I growl at the doctor. “I need it right fucking now.”

“I can’t, I mean, that’s not my job.”

“Then call the hospital security team and get them down here.” I don’t want to deal with law enforcement, but these rent-a-cops will be good enough for now. “Why the fuck are you still standing there?”

The doctor flinches, clearly not used to someone speaking to him like that, but he finally obeys. I move Karine back into her mother’s old room and sit her down in a chair. “Stay calm. I’ll handle this.”

“They have her,” she whispers, shaking and biting her lip to keep from crying.

I know who she means. And I don’t say anything, but she’s right.

They fucking have her.

Security is a pair of shaved-head white guys with guts and bad attitudes. I tear into them until they take me back to the surveillance room. It’s basically a closet filled with monitors showing dozens and dozens of different cameras. Meanwhile, I’m getting text updates from Anton: nothing outside, nothing in the parking garage, nothing on the lower floors.

“Okay, this is the hallway outside Mrs. Vardanyan’s room at four in the morning. There’s the nurse going into her room.” The security jar head points. “Now, let’s see what happens.”

He speeds it up. People move down the halls, but nobody goes near the room. The time slips back in the upper left corner, then suddenly several bodies zip through the frame and disappear into Miriam’s room.

“Rewind,” I order and he does it.

Four men appear. They’re wearing black slacks and jackets.

Just like the security guys sitting in front of me.

“I don’t know them,” the security man at the monitor says, sounding nervous.

“Keep watching.” I glance at his partner, and he seems just as concerned. I’m halfway waiting for one of them to draw on me, but neither does.

Instead, we stare at the silent hallway on the monitor, until the four security guards re-emerge.

Pushing Miriam on her hospital bed.

“Motherfucker,” the security guy whispers.

“Follow them,” I snap and the two men hurry to obey. They pull up footage after footage and jump ahead to the proper times, and we watch as the four men wheel Miriam down the back elevator, into the parking garage, and carry her into the back of a waiting ambulance.

“This is crazy,” the security man says.

“I need that footage. Put it on a flash drive for me.”

“I can’t. I mean, that’s against policy. Fuck, I have to call the police. I need to report this.”

I stare at him and lean down into his face. “If you report this, I will bury this hospital in lawsuits, and I’ll make sure you end up floating at the bottom of the fucking Schuylkill. Give me the footage, then shut your fucking mouth.”

His eyes go wide. I can tell he wants to push back, but he glances at his partner.

The guy just shakes his head slightly.

They get in line after that. A few minutes later, I’m striding back to where Karine’s waiting in her mother’s old room, and I pull her out of there. The nurses are whispering and staring at us, and I figure we don’t have long before those security idiots get their shit together and finally do report this.

“They took her,” I tell Karine, hating myself for not posting enough guards. I should’ve seen this coming. “I’m sorry, but your uncle took her.”

The look of pure agony on her face breaks my goddamn heart, or whatever is left of it.

I stop before we reach the parking garage. Anton and my men are waiting for us there. I hold her tight and kiss her, and pull back so I can look into her eyes.

“I swear to you, no matter what happens, I will get your mother back. Do you hear me? I ran into a fire to save her once. I will do more if that’s what it takes.”

“I believe you,” she whispers, her voice sounding so small.

And I mean it. I will rip the world to pieces to get her mother back. Because if Aram ends up hurting my wife, I will never be able to live with myself, and I’ll make sure the Brotherhood is nothing more than a bloody smear on Baltimore’s pavement.