𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚'𝐬 𝐏𝐎𝐕
“Now, answer a few questions—like how good a girl you are, will you?” Dimitri said as he sat across from me on a chair. He leaned forward and added, “Let’s try something simple. Who controls the docks?”
“Why don’t you go for a swim and ask the sharks?” I barked back.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Not the ideal answer I wanted.” He signaled to one of his men.
The guy stepped forward and dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on me—thick with condensed ice bricks. They hurt like a bitch, but I didn’t show any emotion. I just closed my eyes tightly as the freezing pain shot through my head.
Dimitri leaned back, exhaling smoke. “Where’s the real safehouse? Not the one in the Bronx. The one with the reinforced walls and the panic tunnels.”
I knew where it was. I’d done my homework. Every blueprint, every emergency route—I had it memorized. I could draw it out blindfolded. But my lips stayed shut.
I don’t like my brothers much—God knows they’ve given me reason enough to walk away—but this? Giving them up? That’s a line I can’t cross. Even if they wouldn’t do the same for me. Even if it means pain. Even if it means worse. My silence was the only loyalty I had left to give, and I held onto it like a lifeline.
He signaled again, and another bucket of icy water came crashing down on me. I gasped, breathing hard under the shock. My body screamed, but my mouth stayed shut. I had to believe that was enough.
Dimitri watched me shiver for a beat, then leaned in with a smirk.
“You think they’d come for you, don’t you?” he said softly, almost amused. “Kick down the doors. Guns blazing. Save their little sister.”
I clenched my jaw. Hard.
I wanted to believe it. Wanted to picture them storming in, raising hell, putting a bullet in this bastard’s head. I wanted to believe they cared enough. But that picture—it was starting to blur. Fading at the edges.
What if they didn’t even know I was gone?
What if they did—and left me anyway?
Dimitri saw it. The flicker. The crack.
“That silence you’re clinging to?” he said, exhaling a slow curl of smoke. “It’s not loyalty. It’s delusion.”
I forced myself to look him in the eye, even as my stomach twisted. My voice came out rough, but steady. “You’re wasting your time.”
He raised an eyebrow, amused. “We’ll see.”
He signaled again.
Another bucket of ice-cold water crashed into me. I sucked in a sharp breath, head throbbing, body numb. My lips were trembling now—and not just from the cold.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Tried to push away the doubt gnawing at me like rats in the walls. I wasn’t going to break. Not yet. But for the first time, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep that promise.
Dimitri didn’t speak right away. He just watched me—calm, patient, like a man watching a clock run down.
“You know,” he said finally, “they didn’t even ask about you when we tapped their line last night. Not once. Not a mention.”
He let that hang.
I opened my mouth—then shut it again. My heart gave a slow, traitorous thump.
He smiled like he heard it.
YOU ARE READING
The Hidden Pain
Teen Fiction"Blood may bind them, but secrets could tear them apart." --- Separated at the age of two. Raised in shadows. Loved by no one. She spent her life behind walls she built to survive-walls no one has ever dared to break. Until the day her stepfather di...
