An excerpt from Back to You: Now (c) 2025
“…kill…”
“…broken…”
“…hurt…”
The words sounded like they were coming from a
speaker at the farthest end of a tunnel.
Stefan understood there were words in succession, but his mind couldn’t
make sense of the sentences or create comprehension. Even when he finally forced movement into his
wrists, it was only to realize that his hands were tied together in prayer. His hanging weight forced his shoulders to
overextend like a cow draining after slaughter, the sensation slightly dulled
by whatever cocktail of drugs his father’s enforcer had given him. His toes limply skirted the floor; Stefan tried
to flatten his soles to take pressure from his joints, but standing was
impossible.
“Looks like it’s wake up time.” A slap impacted his face alongside
laughter. There was more than the one
voice; Stefan could feel the energy of more people. Where was Luca? If this was Stefan’s fate, then what was
happening to the brother who had been with him through it all?
He heard a grumbled, “Fuck you,” and recognized the
vibrato. Luca was next to him, likely in
the same position, except his friend was aware enough to cause the thugs to
turn their attention back to him. Stefan
heard a heavy exhale of breath before the chains squeaked when Luca was hit
hard enough to cause his body to travel.
His brain was foggy and what came out of his mouth sounded
like garbled drivel when Stefan tried to insult his way back into the
party. The reaction was a deep roar of
laughter. “Nice of you to join us, pizdar!”
ridiculed the man who had drugged him in the car. “Didn’t expect you to be out this long.”
“What did you give me?” Stefan’s tongue was swollen. His words were thick, mangled by the disaster
of his nervous system coming off whatever drugs had been injected. Even the pain of having his hair pulled as
his head was yanked up did little to cause a response.
“Would have thought with the way you drink yourself
comatose that a dose of propofol wouldn’t do much. You never use drugs, pici? You’re like a girl on date night.”
It was a struggle, but Stefan had spent years
creating a body that worked as his mind dictated. If he was waking up from propofol, then at
worst he only had fifteen minutes or so of brain fog. He could fight through that. He could make himself responsive. “First, you want to see my ass and get me in your
backseat. Now, you think it’s date
night.” Stefan’s amused half-laugh came
with a sensation of nausea, and he wanted to throw up. “What’d Ivan do? Hire a bunch of ciudati to run his
beatdown squad?”
The punch to his stomach didn’t hurt nearly as much
as Stefan knew it should, courtesy of the anesthesia. The pain did, however, make it slightly
easier to focus. “You think I won’t beat
the shit out of you because you’re Şef’s son?” The man pulled Stefan’s head up by his hair
again. “I’ve got permission to break
you, boy. Don’t make it worse than it’s
already going to be.”
At this, Stefan laughed heartily. “Good luck with that.” He finally raised his eyes with a sneer. “If living with Ivan for twenty-three years
hasn’t come close to breaking me, what the fuck do you think you can accomplish
in a few hours?”
When the man’s fist again connected with his
midsection, Stefan’s body automatically tried to crunch away from the blow, but
the forced hang only made breathing more difficult. “You’re going to learn some respect before
the night’s out,” the man snarled.
“Respect for your stăpân, and respect for your betters.”
“My betters?”
Stefan jeered. “Who the fuck are
they? Not sure I’ve met them yet.” Another punch to his abdomen almost made the
younger man wretch, but each hit pulled him closer to awareness. “And you’re going to have to hit a lot harder
if you think this shit is close to what it will take to break me.”
After a few more hits to his stomach and face,
Stefan was fully awake. He was about to
smart off at the start to another round of beatings when the goon stepped away to
answer his phone. Luca’s voice was
low. “You’ve got to shut the fuck up,
Stef. These guys aren’t playing.”
Do you actually like being a player at someone
else’s table, or is it just an insatiable love of the game? Sam’s voice,
ragged and broken, pulsed in his head like an echo. Stefan could still see her face after he had slapped
her. “I’m not playing either.”
“Stefan-”
“You keep your mouth shut until Ivan gets here, and
then you fucking apologize.” Stefan
clenched his jaws together to force through the directive. “You apologize for helping me and fall on
your sword.”
“No.” Luca
twisted his hands in a vain attempt to free himself. “We’re in this together. We’ve always been in this together.” Despite Stefan’s desire to save him, Luca was
having none of it. “I’m not bowing to
shit. We’re brothers, you son of a
bitch. Braćo.”
“They have their rules. They’ll go only as hard as they think they’re
supposed to.” Stefan dropped his head
back to take a small amount of pressure from his shoulders. “They don’t want to risk Ivan’s wrath by
going too far.”
“We’re on the kill floor; I think the best we can
hope for is walking out of here.” When
Stefan met his gaze, he saw that Luca hadn’t fully understood his motive until
that moment. Realization unraveled
behind amber eyes. “You don’t plan to
walk out of here at all.”
Stefan refused to let their brotherly love interfere
with his decision. “Someone has to make it back to Lena.”
Luca’s voice was strengthened by the undertone of
near-panic. “We’re both making it
back to Lena.”
Stefan shook his head. “I’m already gone, frate. This is just finishing the job that Ivan
started. You,” he commanded, “will keep
your goddamned mouth shut and get the fuck out of here as soon as you can. You’ll bow down like a soldier and get them
to let you go.”
“I’m not leaving you behind-”
“I can’t do this if you don’t get out of here!” Stefan willed his friend to listen. “I will say whatever the fuck he wants me to
say, do whatever he wants me to do if they go in on you. I need you gone, Luca. I need you as far away as possible. I need to know Lena’s going to be okay.”
“You want them
to beat you to death. Jesus, Stef. No!”
Luca’s voice was thin and loaded with grief. Stefan closed his eyes; seeing the other half
of his soul break was a straw he wasn’t up for.
“Your father-”
“-is dead,” Stefan finished. “He died the moment my mother did. It took him taking Sam for me to see it.” When he opened his eyes, he saw the thug
turn, saying something out of earshot to the other, before putting his phone away. “This is the last thing I’ll ever ask of you,
frate. You’ve always been at my
back, but this is where I need you to walk away.” Stefan looked up when the stronger man
strolled to a stop. “That your
girlfriend? And this whole time I
thought we had something special, iubirică.”
“Why is it always the heirs that are dumb as dirt?”
The one guy asked the other as he threw an easy punch into Stefan’s jaw. “They get the world handed to them on a
silver plate and still can’t manage to keep their shit together.”
“Not just a silver plate.” Stefan spit blood on the concrete floor. “Have you seen my car? Fuck, I spend more on gas than you make in a
year.” Channeling as much rich boy
asshole as he could, he continued, “Is that what this is about? You found out I showed your girlfriend what a
real man’s capable of and you need some tips to keep her happy?”
After a few insults and a chest punch that broke a
rib or two, Stefan worried Luca might start his own word game to steal the
attention and interjected as soon as he could grab a breath. “Shit, wait.
Is this about your girlfriend or your sister? I can’t keep the girls I fuck straight.”
