TAKING OVER TROFIM (Dominion of Brothers series Book 4) (35 page)

Someone from the next door down poked their head out, “Shay hasn’t been around much at all lately. I think he got evicted.”

“Oh yeah? Then who borrowed his car?” Diesel turned on the young man with a speculative glance that had the man cowering back quickly.

“Hey man, nobody here had anything to do with that.” The neighbor threw his hands up in surrender.

“What time did it show up?” Trenton asked.

“Around ten-ish last night.”

“See who drove it in?”

“No, but someone else said the dude left with someone else in a white SUV.”

Trenton took a look at the dead bolt then to Diesel, “Pop it.”

Diesel nodded. He pulled a dummy key from his back pocket and slipped it into the keyhole, then using the mallet he’d carried in, he gave the lock a hard bump and the key turned with ease and he pushed the door open. But no Shay. The room was empty save for a bed, dresser and a small desk and a few personal items laying around. It didn’t even look as if it had been tossed.

“So now what?” Diesel glanced back at Trenton still standing inside the door looking in.

“Now we start a man hunt.”

“You want to call your guys in for this?”

Trenton nodded and they headed out, but then stopped dead in his tracks, and threw an arm up to block Diesel. They both looked on at the white SUV pulled up out front. There was movement on the other side, a door slammed shut, and then it sped off, leaving behind a crumbled Shay Wilks dropped on the ground in the parking lot.

Trenton pointed Diesel to his truck. “Run them down!”

Diesel was tearing off, while Trenton ran, dropping down at Shay’s side and pulled him up in his lap, glad to find him alive. “Shay, talk to me!” Trenton carefully pulled Shay’s face around so he could get a look at him. A large golf ball size blood blister was forcing his left eye nearly shut, while a similar pock swelled against his right brow. His lips were split in more than one place and his nose had taken a beating as well. Shay arched up violently and cried out trying to pull from Trenton’s arms.

“Don’t touch me!” Shay cried out and Trenton wasn’t sure Shay recognized him. He let Shay go to give him some space.

Shay rolled off Trenton’s lap and onto his arms and stomach.

“Shay Wilks! It’s me, Trenton Leos. You’re safe with me now.”

~  *  ~

Shay brushed his arms out to be sure the man didn’t try to touch him again “Why are you here?”

Trenton didn’t reach for him again. “Looking for you.”

“Where’s Trofim?” Shay pushed up onto his knees, his head was spinning but he willed himself to clear his thoughts and then he saw his car. His shoulders slumped and he dropped his head. Defeat filled him.
How would he ever manage to keep Trofim safe now?
“You didn’t answer me.” Shay twisted, glancing over his shoulder and the hardened look that glanced back at him caused more pain than anything his father had just done to him.

“I need to tell you something.”

Sobs welled up out of control and the nausea struck making his stomach kick up as he tried to speak, “No—”

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

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Shay sat sideways in the front seat of the large vehicle. He stared out the window watching houses and buildings go by while Trenton spoke to him, telling him the horror his Trofim endured, yet nothing registered. Tears streamed endlessly down his cheeks, his heart hurt more than the flesh on his back.
His Trofim, his beautiful Trofim. How had god allowed such a thing to happen? How was hate more powerful than love in this world?

He racked his brain for where he had gone wrong in all this.
Maybe he could have escaped and gotten back soon if he had tried harder. Maybe if he just settled for a phone call and told his father to fuck off instead of driving up to his home. He went back days, weeks finding at every turn something he could have done different, someplace he could have turned left instead of right. When that self-punishment wasn’t good enough, Shay went back years
.
He could have stood up to his father in the boathouse, instead of letting Trofim watch in horror as his father took a belt to his back. He could have claimed he’d lost his passport and gotten a replacement and went after Trofim.

“I didn’t deserve him. But I couldn’t live without him.” Shay whispered leaning his head against the window glass.

“He seemed to share the very same feelings. He didn’t want to lose you. But he was afraid.”

“Afraid I would fail to protect him?”

“Afraid there was no protection for you.”

“And what do we do now? What choices do we have any more? My father will never stop coming for me.”

“The money is spent. What else does Benjamin Wilks have to gain from keeping you his prisoner?”

Shay’s mind seized up.
What was it about that question that stuck out?
He twisted around, looking along his shoulder at Trenton. “What do you mean it’s gone? All of it?”

Trenton gave him a quick glance before returning his attention to the road, then nodded.

Shay slunk down, but the contact of the seat on his back had him rolling forward again, but his eyes— they went outside, to the strip of gray gravel then blurred by on the ground. “If that’s true then there was never a future.” And he said nothing else the rest of the ride while Trenton made a few calls; one to someone to request they brought over a bottle of post care tonic.
How obtuse it sounded to him, but Shay was too exhausted and numb inside his empty shell at the moment to spite Trenton for it
.

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

When the vehicle came to a stop in front of the hospital Shay jumped out and ran. Nothing mattered but getting to Trofim. He pushed through people and staff, and catapulted passed the doors to the back nearly slamming into one of the orderlies when he did. He ran wildly past the curtained rooms of the ER searching for Trofim. “Where is he?” He shouted mindlessly.

“SHAY!” Someone called out his name and Shay spun around to find Trenton standing calmly at the far end of the hall. Either a guardian or the ghost of Christmas past, the man looked at him solemnly then walked down another hall. Shay’s feet skid as he darted after him. He turned the corner just in time to see Trenton making another turn just up ahead and Shay chased after him, catching up in the elevator.

Shay huffed to catch his breath. Trenton remained calm. “I’ll take you to him, but you need to find some strength in you for this.

The elevator took them up two more floors then the door opened.

“Where?”

“ICU.”

Shay took an immediate left and rushed down the hall; it opened up to a waiting room and there he saw the Laszkovi family, dark shadows eclipsed red rimmed eyes that matched red noses in every corner and stretch of the room.

He wasn’t sure if he ever managed to do what Trenton had told him, but if he did, it rained and spilled at his feet in that moment, and then he broke into a full run.

“You can’t go back there!” Someone shouted and Shay vaguely saw the arm reach out trying to block him, he twisted away, and kept on running, he skidded alongside the nurses’ station. “Trofim Laszkovi.” One of the interns glanced up and pointed down to one of the glass partitioned rooms.

Fear thundered in his head as he ran for the room seeing a man in uniform standing guard outside. The officer stepped out to block Shay just as he intended to lunge through the door.

“NO!” Shay screamed out.

“You can’t go in there!” The guard held him tried to say, but Shay only knew he needed to get to Trofim. Nothing else mattered or even registered.

“The hell I can’t!” And he shoved past, breaking free. The inertia sent him stumbling into the room. Shay came to an abrupt stop as the sight of his lover and Pyotr’s head laid beside him with a careful grip on Trofim’s hand.

Trofim, the beautiful hedonic body he loved so much was now a mass of black and blue swollen contusions, wrists wrapped in bandages already soaked through with dark red stains.

Fresh tears burned the back of his eyes and began pouring out. The words that squeaked out were barely human. “Oh god, no.”

Any further words and tears he wanted to express became lodged in the back of his throat. Someone placed their hand on Shay’s shoulder but he slapped it away without bothering to see who it had been. He went to the bed. He wanted to touch Trofim, but he couldn’t find a place where he could that was not already battered; even trying he feared he’d cause Trofim further agony. He tried to hold his hand, but they were mangled and skinned up from fighting back. He tried to hold his wrist but they were bruised and cut from the ropes that had been used to tie him down.

“Shay.” Pyotr glanced at him, letting out a heavy breath. His head shook trying to find words but if Pyotr found any, he silenced himself when the nurse stepped in.

She glanced at Shay with uncertainty then went to Trofim’s bedside, checked the IV line in his arm, tapped the screen of the monitor a few times to glanced over the read outs from the monitor wires running to Trofim’s body. Her brow furrowed a moment looking at Shay another moment but apparently dismissed whatever thoughts she had and stepped back out.

Shay snatched the clipboard from the bed and scanned over the report. It was the only thing that would get him under control right now.

His eyes scanned over the medical profile, reading up on detail after frightening detail, page after page, but the bottom line was his lover had been bludgeoned to near death and now lay in a coma fighting silently inside for his life.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

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Trenton waited out in the lobby along with several of Trofim’s brothers and Cliff. He was too high strung to sit, so he stood, arms crossed over his chest, propping one elbow so he could strum across his lips with his fingers as he remained deep in thought. He leaned back against a magazine laden table along one of the walls that gave him a clear view of the hall coming from the elevators, and the door leading into ICU. The doors’ windows gave him a glimpse of the nurses’ station. So there he remained and kept watch.

He’d spoken some with Darko earlier. Mostly listening as Darko vented over the attacks they had all endured several years ago before Trofim fled the country. Darko and Pyotr were the brothers Trenton knew best. And despite Darko’s susceptible hot headedness, it was good to see Maxum with him. It was a power match he approved of. They both won in this one. Maxum also talked, but that conversation remained under breath as he spoke of some of his findings in following some money pools.

Sasha was another brother he knew well, but he’d long since gone home. Despite Trofim’s critical condition, Sasha’s twin husbands had needs that could not be set aside. The girls: Varvara and Andjela had also gone home, but were expected back later with food.

Trenton had been introduced to Jovan earlier. A tall thick boned man with an introverted quietness to him. Troubled thoughts shadowed the man’s eyes and not all of it seemed to be from the current family emergency. He looked uncertain about himself, even as the others looked to him for strength while Pyotr remained in the room with Trofim.

There was one other brother present. Trenton vaguely remembered meeting him at Kimmi’s farewell party, but the name slipped his mind.

“Where?!” Someone was shouting from down the hall near the elevators, then a man followed by a woman and three young kids came from the hallway.

Trenton glanced up and saw a copy of Pavle’s face on the new arrival. The rest of the Laszkovi family gathered around him and a round of hugs were shared.

“Where’s the rest of the boys?” Jovan made a mental count of children and asked when he apparently came up short.

“We left them home, they’re old enough to watch over themselves a few days. Where is he? I want to see him” The man’s voice was frantic.

“You can’t. Pyotr and Shay are already in there and the hospital won’t allow more then the two right now.”

“Shay? As in Shay Wilks? The man who caused all the trouble a few years back?”

“Calm down, Artyom.” Darko took ahold of him and turned him from the doors that led to ICU.

“I don’t want to calm down. I want to know what happened. Is Shay Wilks here?”

“Yes, Shay Wilks.” Trenton blurted out. Though it wasn’t his place, he saw rage in the man and there was no room for any more rage. The Laszkovi family was a strong one. That much Trenton had known and admired about them, but even a strong spine could break under pressure. “But Shay isn’t the cause of all this.”

“The fuck he isn’t, and who the hell are you?” The new arrival spat at him.

“Artyom. Enough.” Jovan was suddenly straightening up and stepping forward. For the first time he appeared tall rather than slunked over and he took hold of his brother and pulled him in for a hug, receiving several fists to the back for it. Jovan stood like a mountain that could endure the beating and time, and soon the family shuffled over to a corner to sit down and brought their brother up to date.

Trenton turned away, giving them his back for privacy and pulled out his phone. His first order was to send a text to his slave.

—TXT- T. Leos: Are you behaving?—

A few minutes later a response came

— TXT– Mouse: No, of course not.—

Trenton stifled his laugh,
brat
. Even the distant communication eased his own dark thoughts.

—TXT– Mouse: When will you be home?—

—TXT- T. Leos: Not until late. I have to take care of some things.—

There was a long pause, before Katianna responded again.

—TXT– Mouse: Find the men who did this to him. Do what you know how to do best.—