Valon: What Once Was (Volkov Bratva Book 0) (3 page)

For the next two days, he struggled with that thought. Sure, someone brought him food, barked at him as if he was one of the dogs if he took too long to respond to their inquiries. When they realized that there had been no place for him to relieve himself—and he hadn’t wanted to do it in a corner of his new living space—and that he’d soiled himself, they beat him with one of the brooms they kept handy, never getting too close to him since the odor was so bad.

It was only then that
Gjarper
returned, commanding them to leave him be. “Bastian needs him alive,” he said as Valon lay crumpled on the dirt floor, his blood now mixing with the dirt. “Come, kid. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Despite his words,
Gjarper
didn’t lead Valon into the house. He led him around to the side where there was a hose and a large metal pan for Valon to stand in.

“Remove your clothes.”

Valon’s face colored as he looked from the pan to
Gjarper
, shame making him look away just as quickly. It wasn’t as though he had been particularly kind to Valon since he’d arrived—as he had left him in the kennels like an animal—but he didn’t want to make the man think of him as less than a human at the very least.

“You want fresh clothes? Move it.”

Valon thought he detected a note of compassion in the man’s voice, but he dismissed that as wishful thinking on his part. As Valon began the slow process of removing his clothes, tossing the soiled and dirty garments into a pile a few feet away, he covered himself as best he could, climbing into the pan.

With his back turned to him during this,
Gjarper
twisted the knob to the hose, water spraying out. His expression never changing, he sprayed Valon with the hose, making him turn in circles as he did so. Then he tossed Valon a bar of soap and ordered him to bathe.

Though it didn’t smell nearly as good as the soaps his mother had used, Valon was glad for it, cleaning himself as best as he could in the limited space and with his audience of one. Once he rinsed off again, a towel was thrown at him, the rough material harsh on his skin.

Finished with that as well, he was given a shirt, about a size or two too big for his lanky frame, and a pair of pants that he rolled a few times at the ankles.

“Dump the water.”

Valon did as he was told, walking back to
Gjarper
and waiting for his next order. This time, he was handed a gold-colored lighter, one that was engraved with a name. He silently pondered over that, knowing that despite any question he thought to ask, they would go unanswered.

“Burn the clothes.” Seeing his hesitation, though not knowing the true reason for it,
Gjarper
said, “Do you wish to put them back on? Get this done and come to the back door. I’ll be waiting.”

When he disappeared out of sight, Valon continued to stare at him, waiting for him to come back. When he didn’t, he dropped to his knees, rifling through the pockets until he uncovered the very thing he’d almost forgotten about.

Valon uncovered the combs slowly, afraid that they might have been broken, but fortunately, they were still intact. Wrapping them back up, he stuffed them in his pocket, picking up his old clothes with one hand and walking several feet into the dense woods.

It was a bit unnecessary, having to burn the clothes instead of just throwing them away, but as he watched them go up in smoke and saw the last bit of connection to his life back with his mother, a part of him understood the need for it.

-

3

______

Waiting for him after Valon had finished his task was not just
Gjarper
, but Bastian as well. Unlike the first morning when Valon had come to him, Bastian looked like the businessman he was rumored to be, but that wasn’t to say there weren’t flaws in his appearance.

He was standing tall as he gave orders to larger men surrounding him, but sweat discolored his collar, and his already small, beady eyes looked particularly narrowed as he tried to get his point across.

They were dismissed rather quickly once Valon entered the room, and he briefly wished they would return, if only because of the way Bastian’s sudden attention on him made his skin crawl. Fear. Fear came in many different forms, but what Valon felt at that moment was as if someone was squeezing his heart, gradually loosening that hold over time.

“Come, I want to show you something.”

Bastian gestured for Valon to follow him, leading him through the house toward a hallway that Valon remembered from his first time walking through. Bastian stopped at one of the doors, turning the knob and shoving the door open, the wood creaking in protest.

He stepped in, moving to the side to give Valon room to come in as well. Looking around, Valon saw that they were in a bedroom. The mattress was no longer on the floor, but on a metal frame, completely made up. There were two dressers in the room, along with a desk in the corner with a small lamp that lacked a shade. While it was not homely in any way, it was definitely a step up from the cage where he had been sleeping before.

Maybe he had been stuck outside because they did not know whether they could trust him, or perhaps, Bastian had learned what happened to Ahmeti and he didn’t think Valon was still a threat.

Bastian led the way to another property further into the woods, away from the barn that Valon had been sleeping in with the dogs. It was another crudely built barn of some kind, with a heavy chain and padlock, keeping anyone curious from being able to get in.

He kept his mouth shut as
Gjarper
inserted a key, quickly removing the lock and chain. He pulled one of the doors open, stepping to the side so Bastian could go ahead of him. Valon didn’t have to ask if he was supposed to follow.

It was dark where they entered, and it took a moment for Valon’s eyes to adjust. But once they did, he took in everything around him. It looked like a crudely built arena with various materials used to build a sort of wall between the center of it and where chairs were set up facing the ring, and when
Gjarper
hit a light switch, and the old bulbs hanging from wires flickered on, he saw that he was right.

Their town was small, smaller than most even in Albania, and because of this, anything that happened here people talked about. None might have questioned what The Organization did to make their money, perhaps looked the other way when it came down to it, but Valon, over the years, had heard the rumors of what happened in this place. He never thought that he would actually see it in person.

He didn’t dare question why Bastian would bring him to this place, but he did chance a glance back at
Gjarper
before facing Bastian once more.

A predatory smile crossed his face as he gestured out around them. “What do you think of my work?”

Valon opened his mouth but didn’t know how to respond. He mimicked Bastian, looking around at everything again.

Luckily, he seemed to take that as answer enough. “In this place, I birth legends. I turn them into the very things that make up armies. In return, I give them everything they could ever want.” He came over to Valon, resting a sweaty but firm hand on his shoulder. “Your father may have been weak and an embarrassment to his people, but you do not have to follow in his footsteps.”

Valon had never considered Ahmeti weak, not when his reign of terror had been so disastrous and ultimately deadly in the end, but if The Organization had felt he was weak, then perhaps Valon could learn from his mistakes and be better.

He would do better, if only to be able to get the life his mother had wanted for him.

“Now, if you can do for me, then I can do for you. In exchange for my compassion, letting you stay in my home, you will fight for me here.”

After studiously avoiding blows from Ahmeti, Valon was sure that he could duck away from any opponent that came for him, and maybe land a few solid hits if he could. If his opponents were anything like him—in regards to never having fought before—then there was a possibility that this would all work out in the end, that he would be able to earn his keep here and not get thrown out onto the streets.

Valon nodded his consent, but upon seeing the expressions on Bastian and
Gjarper’s
faces—one of barely veiled smugness and the other of contempt—he couldn’t help but wonder if he had made another mistake.

__

Hours later, after Valon had been led away from that daunting place, taken back to the barn where he’d slept, the dogs that had kept him company over the night were gone, but he could hear their distant howling and knew they weren’t far. But he and
Gjarper
were not alone, four other men standing around, as though they had been waiting for them.

Valon, not sure what was happening, looked at
Gjarper
, waiting for any sign of what was to come. But
Gjarper
was as stoic as ever. When they were close enough that Valon could smell the rancid scent of sewage on one of the men,
Gjarper
spoke.

“Take him.”

His first instinct was to flee, break away from them, and try to get away from whatever was awaiting him on the other side of those barn doors, but the men held fast, dragging him inside. The marks in the earth from where he’d dug his heels in for purchase was the last thing Valon saw as the doors were closed again.

He was shoved into a chair, a man already standing behind it with a pair of clippers in hand, the cord plugged into an extension cord. Shaking his head, he was too afraid to voice a plea, even more afraid to jerk away from them as one flipped a switch and the clippers buzzed to life.

They didn’t care that his mother had loved his hair, that she had painstakingly taken care of it because she had always wanted him to look his best—the fact that he looked more like his father when his head was shaved was left unsaid between them.

As the blades glided over his scalp, clumps of curling blond strands hitting the dirt behind him, Valon felt like he was losing another piece of his mother. But he didn’t shed a tear, and though wetness pooled in his eyes at another loss, he didn’t dare let them fall. Not yet.

Not even when the clippers snagged from the knots did the man take any sympathy on him, still pulling and tugging, even to the point where Valon felt the sharp pain of the razors cutting his skin. The time it took for it to be over was vast, but he had managed to get through it without making a sound.

When it was done, and Valon could feel the cool breeze, only then did they let him go. One chuckled, another smirked, but only
Gjarper
actually commented on Valon’s new look.

“Better, but you still look like shite. Come.”

He had very little choice to do anything but get up and follow
Gjarper
back to the house into one of the empty rooms. He couldn’t help but touch his head, feeling for where his hair had been, and now it was cut so short he was nearly bald.

Alone again,
Gjarper
pulled out a rusted old toolbox from the closet, setting it on the desk at his side. He flipped the top open and pulled out the contents inside.

There were several small bottles filled with black liquid, and a small machine of sorts that
Gjarper
fitted a needle to. Valon had an idea what it was, or at least could guess. There was no one that worked under Bastian that didn’t bear his mark. It was a sigil of sorts, one of the Virgin Mary, that while pure in some faiths, was the only thing that was meant to protect them in this life.

Gjarper
gestured for him to take a seat, his expression unwavering. There was a moment when Valon hesitated, believing if he could just leave this place—try running again—then he would get away.
Gjarper
might have seen it in his eyes, the panic that was there, but he didn’t make a move to try and stop him—he didn’t tense in a way that made it look like he would chase after Valon should he try to get away.

No, he just waited, letting Valon make the choice.

After all, he would be the only one affected by the decision.

But he had heard of those who ran from Bastian when he offered a helping hand. He wouldn’t get far if he left now, especially when there was nowhere else for him to go.

Swallowing, he traveled the short distance to the chair and dropped down into it, folding his hands in his lap. He didn’t know what to expect as
Gjarper
’s heavy hand fell on his shoulder for a brief second, but it wasn’t until he heard the soft whirring of whatever
Gjarper
had pulled from his toolbox did his imagination run free.

Again,
Gjarper
dropped a restraining hand on his shoulder, but this time he kept it there as he brought the clippers to Valon’s scalp. The vibrating blades made him jump, but the hand holding him steady didn’t let him get far.

Carefully, his hair fell in rings on the dirt floor beneath his feet, and as the clumps fell in abandon, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Not when he felt the cool breeze on his now bare head or when the vibrations stopped and
Gjarper
took a step back.

The urge to feel where his hair had once been rode him hard, but he resisted the urge, balling his hands into fists to keep from doing it. Despite his fear of the unknown, he didn’t want to show weakness in this.

It will grow back
. At least, that was what he hoped. Not once had his mother ever taken off any more than an inch during any of the times she’d sheared his hair.

Blinking away the sudden wetness in his eyes, Valon looked at
Gjarper
, waiting to see what was next.

“Lay there,” he commanded, pointing to a table of sorts built into the wall.

Valon was just light enough to climb onto it and stretch out, watching
Gjarper
from his position. While he had never seen one in person, he could guess what machine he was holding. He couldn’t bring himself to watch him prepare it, nor could he look away from the hole in the roof.

Flinching when the cold, wet wipe swiped across his skin, Valon heard the click of the machine, his jaw clenching as
Gjarper
brought the machine closer to him. And as he lay there, under the grueling agony that was getting a tattoo at his young age, Valon kept quiet, knowing that this was just one more thing he needed to get past.

He would survive. He always did.