(Huge WARNING! Okay, before reading this fic, please know that it will be very dark dealing with nonconsensual acts like rape, enslavement, mild physical torture, and the breaking of a person's will. It'll be gritty and mean exploring a nastier side of my sexuality by using a pretty vile person (Steve from the Italian Job) to enact these atrocities on, so if this will offend you, please click your back button now! You have been warned!)
(Are you still there? :P Okay, a little summary: This story takes place directly after the end of the movie The Italian Job where Charlie, Stella, Left Ear, Lyle, and Handsome Rob have gotten their gold back from Steve after making a deal with Moscov to hand over his cousin Yven's killer; who happens to be Steve. The scene breaks with Steve asking Moscov, "You're not going to shoot me are you?" And Moscov replies, "Oh no; I'm not going to shoot you. I'm going to take you back to my workplace. There are many machines I want to show you." Steve on the verge of passing out is then carted off by the Russian Mafia. And that is where my story takes off from. So without further ado…)
Steve's heart raced as he stuttered out, "Wait! Please just... just give me a chance to explain. It didn't go down like you think. I swear to you that Yevn's death was a mistake. I was..." he was cut off as one of Moscov's flunkies landed a quick fist into his gut. Steve groaned as his body buckled involuntarily from the force of the sudden blow.
Moscov's men deftly swarmed around him to tie his hands roughly behind his back and shove a burlap sack over his head. His feet slipped on the smooth railroad gravel stones as he struggled, kicked, and stomped in a desperate attempt to free himself from his captors that pushed him violently and blindly forward.
He felt sick; he was going to die at the hands of these men, and they weren't going to just shoot him, they'd already stated that. No, these men's bread and butter was violence. Moscov was a well-known man in the underworld, and no one gave him an odd look without expecting to suffer the consequences. Steve knew he would be no different. He was shoved roughly into a vehicle to be pinned between two very large men leaving him unmovable.
He wanted to cry, but he only felt a cold numbness run in waves down his spine and into his hands and feet. His body shivered from cold sweats brought on by the absolute terror of what would inevitably follow this car ride. He imagined getting every bone broken in his body, perhaps they would then tie him into a junked car to get crushed into a small cubic ball to never be seen or thought of again. Either way, it promised to be excruciating and lead to the end of his life, as he knew it.
He could hear them speaking back and forth in Russian where every now and again a very unsettling eruption of laughter was shared amongst the vehicle's occupants. Steve thought bitterly, 'Great, the last moments of my life will be spent not even being able to comprehend what the hell my murders are saying while they torture the life out of me.' The car ride took over an hour, and by the time they had arrived at their destination Steve had lulled himself into a stupor as he'd imagined a million and one horrible ends and a million things to say in his defense. He doubted anything he could say would really matter now anyway, but it wasn't until the car turned off of the pavement and onto a graveled roadway did his trembling begin.
A few minutes later the car rolled to a stop and he was yanked none too gently from the car. His legs were like rubber partly from nerves and partly from loss of circulation; they collapsed on their own onto the now hot dirt, and he sat on his knees in a petrified slump. The burlap sack that had been placed over his head was then yanked off, and Steve's eyes squinted in the now harsh sunlight. He was grateful the bag had been removed as his face was drenched in sweat and the slight breeze gave him one moment of relief before a kick from his left landed in his side followed by another kick to his gut. Harsh words spoken in broken English barked out the command, 'Get up dog!'
Steve coughed the pain rising up in his side as he scrambled up to his feet. He was dragged once more by a meaty paw looped and locked around each elbow and a leading hand on each shoulder. He was lead straight forward into a small building the size of a double-wide trailer.
The inside of the building looked like a typical office with off-white walls and thin easily vacuumed carpet. A wide oaken desk resided in the middle of the room sparsely covered with only a large appointment calendar and a pen holder holding a handful of pens, a metal ruler, and other miscellaneous office supplies. A fine leather-backed executive chair sat behind the desk exuding its authority of position, and behind it a more practical work desk with filing cabinets sat against the wall housing a computer.
A long black leather sofa stretched along the wall opposite the door, and on the couch sat a finely dressed middle-aged woman with dark chestnut hair tied into a tight bun, a white-collared dress shirt, and a knee length black skirt that showed her legs off nicely. She had thin rimmed black glasses that magnified her crystal blue eyes that had flicked up from the appointment book she'd been busy writing in when they had entered.
The woman's eyes drifted up to meet Steve's, and as his locked with hers the urge for self preservation kicked in, and he called out to her, "Lady! You got to help me! These guys are going to kill me!"
The men hauling him forward threw him down into the middle of the floor. Moscov entered, and one of his many goons closed and locked the door behind them.
The woman had not moved or given any form of facial change other than amused curiosity up until this point. Her eyes left Steve, and traveled to the right to meet Moscov's. They exchanged a familiar smile as she closed her appointment book and rose off the couch embracing him in a warm hug as she exclaimed, "Cousin!"
Steve's mouth parted as this new revelation left him speechless. His eyes drifted to the floor in despair; there would be no rescue from this fate; she was one of them.
Moscov gave the woman a big toothy grin pulling her back to look at her as he replied, "Nadia! I did not think you would have gotten to town so early! How was your flight?"
Nadia responded, "Long cousin, long. Is this him?" She turned from Moscov to glare down at Steve whose eyes left the floor to look back at her. She spat, "Is this the man who killed my brother Yven?"
Steve shook his head rebutting, "No! It wasn't like that! I swear to you; you've got the wrong guy; I've been set up!" Steve hoping to regain some kind of ground continued to rattle off, "They just wanted my gold, so they told you I killed Yven, but the truth of the matter is, like I said earlier, Yven was already dead when I found him." Steve tried to remain calm even though his insides felt like jelly.
Nadia looked down at Moscov's metal-lined briefcase asking, "Are they in there?" Moscov bent down to unclick the lock and open the case. Inside was six neatly packed gold bricks. Nadia leaned down to take one out and examined the Palestinian dancer depicted on its carved surface.
She turned her now very cold eyes back to Steve lifting up the brick for him to see as she remarked, "This? This was your gold?"
Steve was unsure of where the conversation was going as his eyes darted back and forth between Nadia, Moscov, and the gold brick. He answered hesitantly, "Yea. Yea, that's my gold."
Nadia placed the brick back into the case striding back over to Steve with three fluid steps. She placed one hand on her hip and leaned down so that they were face to face as she growled, "This gold of yours, I have moved it for the past four months. My brother, Yven, was not a stupid man; simple yes, but not stupid. If it was not you who killed him, then why would the only money stolen be the money I sent him for the gold exchange? No hand guns, no drugs, not even his safe, nothing else was taken. There was no gold, and there was no money for the gold. Now let me ask you; where would this money go?"
Steve's face paled and his eyes glazed over. He tried to think of something to say in his defense, but his hesitation was all she needed as she leaned her face away from his and slapped him hard across the cheek. Her hand was hard as steel and precise in its strike like a cobra's bite as she growled, "If I didn't wish to hear your screams, I would cut your lying tongue out of your mouth myself."
Steve turned back to face her eyes squinting hatefully. In his mind, this was all a game for them to make him squirm. He decided, if he was going to die, he'd prefer it to be quickly. He spat, "You can hit me all you want sweetheart; it's not going to bring Yven back. You want me to say I killed him? Fine. I killed him. I shot him, I took my gold back, and then I took your money."
She stared at Steve a moment before walking behind him. He tensed nervously awaiting her response to his blunt admission. She spoke to one of Moscov's men in Russian telling him to cut Steve's wrists free. The goon looked to Moscov for reassurance and after getting a nod of approval; he followed through with the command.
Steve felt his hands get wrenched up in the air, and he gasped expecting his elbows to be popped out of their sockets at any moment. He was pleasantly surprised to find his wrists had been freed. He rubbed the rope burns grateful for the small freedom and wondering what it meant. A sly smile made its way across his face as he assumed that she might have actually believed that he hadn't killed Yven.
A smirk played across her face looking down at his smug face as she rumbled, "Such insolence for a coward. You need to learn your place. Give me your belt."
Steve's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he asked, "What?"
She held out her arm as she stated more firmly, "Your belt. Give it to me now."
Steve looked back and forth between Moscov and Nadia fidgeting to undue his belt and trying to understand what she could want with his belt after cutting his hands free. He had a feeling that he wouldn't have too long of a wait to find out.