TAKING OVER TROFIM (Dominion of Brothers series Book 4) (33 page)

Sirens could be heard in the distance and someone else was coming up the steps.

“Oh shit! What happened to him?” It was Ozzy.

“He was attacked!” Sasha twisted and tossed his phone at Ozzy, “Here, take pictures, take a lot of pictures while we work to get him stable.”

“Do you know him?”

“He’s my brother!” Sasha shouted then returned his attention back to Trofim.

Cliff fell to his knees beside him, thrusting his hands out to grasp Trofim’s body then stopped as if afraid to touch.

“Where’s the clines?” Sasha asked still unsuccessful to get the twine loose.

Cliff was pushing in, with the requested tool in his hand and was quickly cutting Trofim’s arms and legs free from the bench he’d been tied to. Sasha immediately took Trofim by the torso and rolled him off and gently set him on the floor. And the shock of what they found continued to be revealed.  Trofim’s face was a mass of red and blue swells, his nose and lips caked in dry blood and spittle. Scuff marks from boots marked his shirt but none as prevalent as the single shoe print in the center of Trofim’s chest. “Get the shears and cut his shirt up the side.” Sasha told him as he rummaged through the medical kit for an oxygen line and what he needed.

“Police!” Someone called up from the bottom of the steps.

“UP here!” Sasha called back to them and then a swarm of footsteps came up the stairs. The leading officer had a hand on his gun but stepped aside for the paramedics to get through.

“Let us take it from here.” One of them said and Cliff got to his feet pulling Sasha with them.

“Who called it in?” An officer stepped up.

Sasha shook his head watching as the two paramedics began taking vitals of his brother who remained unconscious, “I did.”

“How did you come across him?”

“We were just getting off shift and heading back to our station. I noticed my brother’s bike still in the parking lot and I knew something had to be up. It was too late for him to be here. So we stopped to check on him.”

“You said your brother? Are you related to the victim?”

“Yes. He’s my older brother.”

“What’s your brother’s name?”

“Trofim Laszkovi— T, R, O, F, I, M, L, A, S, Z, K, O, V, I.”

“And how old is he?”

“Thirty-two.”

The officer pulled out a note book and jotted down some notes. “What else can you tell me?”

“Earlier we were heading over to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, we were already on the bridge when I glanced over and I saw my brother’s bike in the parking lot. It was kind of late for him, but we have a big race coming up so I didn’t think too hard on it. But when we got further down on Harlem River Drive, I had glanced back and from there I could see a white SUV in the front of the boathouse just outside the door to the stairway.

“Did you recognize the vehicle?”

“No, I’m on the same crew as my brothers and nobody I know from them or any of the other crews that use the house have a white SUV that I know of.”

“Did you get a look at anyone else? Maybe hanging around outside?” Sasha shook his head, “Do you know what model the SUV was?”

Sasha sucked in a deep breath and tried to think about it. “It was fairly new. And large. Maybe one of those Escalades or maybe an Excursion?” He shook his head once more, “We were too far away by then for me to really tell.”

The officer turned away and spoke into his radio. “Be on the lookout for a white SUV. Late model possible a Cadillac Escalade or Ford Excursion.” He dropped his hand from the mic and turned back to Sasha, “So you stopped to check in on him and then what?”

“I came upstairs and found Trofim tied to that bench.” Sasha pointed to the one his brother had been tied to. But then the flashback of what he’d seen came back with a powerful slap to his gut and his eyes blurred with fresh new tears.

He brought his hand up to shield his face from the scene but there was no escaping it.

“Pyotr.” Cliff’s voice whispered the name and Sasha’s head slammed around to look at him. “It’s me, we’re— we’re at the boathouse. It’s Trofim.” Cliff’s lips quivered, “You better get here, fast.”

Sasha’s resolve crumbled and he fell to his knees and wailed, “Why?” The very word clutched and stumbled from his throat. Cliff dropped down beside him and wrapped his arms around Sasha and held on as Sasha began to rock.

By now the upstairs was crowded with several more police officers another medic team plus two detectives were just arriving. The room illuminated with a barrage of red and blue lights beaming up through the windows from the parking lot below.

An officer started taking pictures, so Ozzy approached him, and handed over Sasha’s phone to show how they’d found Trofim when they arrived.

The officer who’d been talking with Sasha stepped aside and began speaking into the radio mic clipped to his shoulder. “Victim on site is a Caucasian male, thirty-two years old. Victim has sustained multiple injuries. Apparent aggravated sexual assault.”

The officers kept back against the wall while one of the detectives walked around carefully, using his flashlight to scan about the locker room. The other detective, a woman stood just behind one of the paramedics with gloves already on her hands and specimen bags stuffed into a suit coat pocket for collecting evidence even before they were gone. The people here knew this routine too well. Too often their presence was the very thing that destroyed the credibility of a crime scene and killers and rapists got off the hook. But when the victim was alive it was person first, evidence second. As hard as it was on them they kept that in mind as their hands absently did what was required of them. Swabs used to clean up cuts and wounds were immediately passed over to a detective and dropped into a bag with the least amount of transfer.

“Move aside fellas.” Someone behind them called out and Sasha and Cliff both got to their feet and split apart just as two men came to the top with a gurney and carried it over to where Trofim was being cared for. An IV for fluids had already been administered, with a back board and neck brace placed on him. One of them had managed to pull Trofim’s shorts back up in place. And that’s when Sasha just couldn’t think any more.

“Do you know if your brother was having any trouble with anyone? Owed them some money perhaps, an ex-girlfriend out for revenge?”

Sasha didn’t answer, he heard the question but it just didn’t register as words in his head. He felt dizzy, felt his body waver on his feet and the room began to spin.
How could this have happened? Why would anyone do this to him?

“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt him?” The officer repeated the question.

“No, nothing like that.” Cliff answered this time, taking the pressure off of Sasha who was fighting to catch his breath between silent sobs. “He has a boyfriend.”

“He have a fight with him?”

“No. Never.” Cliff shook his head.

The officer looked at them both skeptically, “Do you know where we might find this boyfriend?”

“Probably at the hospital?” Cliff shrugged, his eyes glued to the paramedics as they hooked up a cardiogram to Trofim.

“Come again? Which hospital?”

Sasha managed to speak up and take over with the Q and A. “Queens. He’s an intern there. He’s usually on graveyard shift.”

The officer made a few more notes, nodded, and stepped away again to talk with the detectives then into his radio mic.

Even with all the questions, the room seemed bitterly quiet while the one detective still walked around with his flashlight and swept the room. Bags collected items of hair and clothes, plucked with tweezers then dropped in and zipped tight. A marker was used to label them making soft scribbling sounds. “He have a locker here?” The detective called over to Sasha.

Sasha nodded and pointed, “Seventy-four.”

The detective opened it and glanced in then pulled out a cell phone, “Gotta a couple of missed calls.” He said aloud more for his partner rather than for anyone else in the room. He tapped and swiped across the screen then suddenly the locker room echoed with the voice mail message being broadcasted off the speaker phone:

~~”Hey babe, just called to say I am on my way”—
there was a long sigh, the sound only a happy man can make
— “I can’t wait to hold you. God, I love you. Hope you had a good row out there. See you in a few.”~~

One of the paramedics listened to Trofim’s heart with a stethoscope referring back to the read out on the cardiogram and shook his head, “He can’t wait any longer we need to get him to a hospital.”

Another voicemail played, this time the contented happiness was missing. Grayed over with something that had haunted the man for as long as any of them had known Shay:

~~ “Hey babe. Taking longer to get home, so I’m just going to head straight for work. Just wanted to let you know I’m okay. I’ll see you in the morning, promise.”—
there was a beep, maybe the phone
— “Well, battery is about to go. Hey? How do you say I love you in Serbian?”—
And then Shay’d hung up
. ~~

There was an exchange of silent glances then the female detective nodded to the paramedics and they hurriedly dropped the gurney down to load Trofim onto it. They counted to three then together carefully lifted Trofim up and over. Blood and spittle left a trail from the bench to the white sheets and tears exploded from Cliff’s face.

With Trofim strapped safely in, both the paramedics stood, brought the gurney up to height, and then made their way down the narrow stairway, and out the front door.

Sasha and Cliff followed and watched as Trofim was loaded up in the ambulance.

“You should go with him.” Cliff whispered. Sasha only nodded and jogged up to the others to join them.

“What hospital are you taking him to?” Cliff called out.

“Mount Sinai.” One of the men answered but Sasha was quickly snapping around to say otherwise.

“No! We’re taking him to Queens.” Sasha interrupted.

“That makes us passing 5 other hospitals along the way.” One of the paramedics commented back.

“I know, but we’re taking him to Queens.” Sasha repeated it until both men nodded. And they all climbed in and closed the doors.

The ambulance blasted out its sirens and off they went.

~  *  ~

Cliff watched as the ambulance disappeared down the expressway. In his mind he envisioned vengeance of the man who did this to Trofim
. He wanted the attacker found and then he would pay Diesel and Trenton anything they asked for to make sure the man disappeared forever. Fuck the courts and prison cells that looked like college campuses. Cliff wanted the scum shackled and offered up as a bitch in a Turkish prison somewhere far away and dark where the perpetrator would never see the light of day again
.

Ozzy stepped up and took his shoulder and held him until Cliff shrugged him off. He felt the grief of having just lost his sister a few months ago well back up.

“I’m going to head in, why don’t you stay with me, and then I’ll get you to the hospital.”

“No I’m going to—” his words trailed off when he saw the black Audi Quattro tear into the parking lot. It came alongside him and Ozzy, then skidded to a stop and Pyotr was instantly jumping out and grabbed Cliff.

“What’s happened?” Pyotr’s eyes scanned over the collection of police cars on the scene.

Cliff felt numb, hearing everything in a muffled delirium from underwater.

“Cliff?”

His lips trembled and he struggled to get the words out, “Someone attacked him. They tied him to a bench and— and th— they—” he shook his head violently, he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“No.” Pyotr shook his head, disbelieving it himself. But his eyes scanned into Cliff’s own and the pain that struck the face looking at him said Pyotr knew what he said was true.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

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Shay sat up at the top of the steps crouched low peering as best he could through the small crack under the door to the house on the other side.

He hadn’t heard a sound since his being shoved in the basement. Usually there was lots of stomping, and drinking, then more stomping until his father finally worked up the courage to come down and beat the life out of him. But there was nothing. He strained to listen for a tv or phone call, maybe some crumbling or even the snores of a drunk passed out man.  Utter silence greeted his ears. He pressed the button on the side of his watch, the blue digit glowing to tell him he wasn’t going to make it in for work at all. His hope draining with the indigo light as he released it. He fished his phone back out and powered it up, but no sooner than the screen came up it turned itself off.

“Fuck.” He cursed in the darkness and tried again, but it was no good. There wasn’t enough power remaining to keep the phone on. He would just have to sit this one out like all the other times and face the fact he wasn’t getting out tonight. At least not until his father wore off the drink and came back. But as much as his dad hated him, Ben knew damn well he couldn’t keep Shay locked down here forever.

Shay got back to his feet, feeling a rush of dizziness as he did and grabbed the rail to steady himself. His head was still pounding with more than one tender spot. He took a step using the rail to keep his balance and then he heard the wood snap.

The room flipped on him and the last thing he felt was another blow to the head that sent a flash of blaring starlight flashing inside his eyes, and just as quickly went out.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

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