Chapter 74
1950words
DAYS LATER
I'm torturing a lot of people these days.
It's not something I love, though violence has a special place in my heart, much as I'm loath to admit it. I was never so naive as to think that taking over the Bratva from Yannick would be a bloodless venture. But to have to create precise suffering for my enemies is different than a battle for my life.
The upside is I'm quite good at it.
'Did you think that betraying me would end well for you, Mikhail?" I walk around my former brigadier, where Mila has tied him to a chair. The ropes cut across his tan, long-sleeved shirt, digging into his stocky muscles. The constriction is enough to leave his limbs numb without doing permanent damage.
I'd hoped we'd snag one of my defectors, but Mila surprised me by capturing one so quickly. She spotted him when he was ordering a hot dog from one of the many carts downtown and stalked him until he was out of view of anyone who'd care before she knocked him out and carted him back to my place on her motorcycle.
Now we're back in my wine cellar, the floors barely scrubbed clean of Sergio's blood, as we reenact the same scene. Mila watches from the shadows, her legs curled to her chest, where she sits on an oak barrel. She looks like a child waiting for her turn to play with a toy.
'I was making a smart choice." Mikhail glares up at me. 'The only choice."
'By betraying me?" I grab him by the jowls, burying my thumb into his skin until I feel like I'm about to break something.
To his credit, Mikhail holds my gaze and refuses to show any sign of fear at what he knows is inevitable. I knew there was a reason I chose him to be one of my brigadiers.
Which is why his betrayal pains me more than I care to admit.
Releasing him in disgust, I spit on the floor. 'You went to Yannick, didn't you?"
'I did."
'Tell me where he is. The roach is hiding somewhere. Shine some light on him for me before I slit your throat."
'Why bother?" he chuckles dryly. 'You're going to kill me anyway. Why not skip this unnecessary pageantry, Asher Volkov?"
'You talk," Mila interjects, 'and Asher Volkov will make it quick. You don't, then I get to play with you." She tosses her knife up, catching it easily by the curved tip as a sharp smile dances across her red lips.
Mikhail's brow scrunches, the first hint that he's getting nervous. Putting my hands on either side of the chair, just outside his thick shoulders, I lean close until I'm all he can see.
'Which will it be? Me or her?"
'I don't know where he is. He's busy moving around again. Probably has his face buried between the thighs of his new whores."
'He reopened the brothels?"
'He did."
Behind me, I hear Mila gasp.
'You didn't know, devushka?" Mikhail makes a face as he tries to look through me at Mila. When he can't, he turns his gaze back to me. 'Did you forget that I was the one who brought you most of your intel, Asher Volkov?"
I hate the smugness in his voice and the triumph in his eyes. Even now, as he tells me the truth, he mocks me to my face. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I yank his head back, hoping to see fear dance in his eyes. Maddeningly, he continues to smirk through his grimace.
'You should know better than to taunt me like this," I warn him.
'Maybe." He shrugs. 'But shouldn't I enjoy myself in my last moments?"
'How many brothels are there?" I inquire.
'Can't tell you." He clenches his jaw. 'I'm bad with numbers."
This was a man I drank with, a man whom I trusted with my life. He had an engraved shot glass. He swore an oath to me. He was part of my inner circle. In another life, without the pressure of a brutal war hanging above, I would've counted him as a brother.
But now …
I hold my hand out without looking back. 'Mila."
A few soft steps, and she places the pommel of a knife in my grip. I bring the razor edge to Mikhail's chin. Finally, his eyes widen. Fear always takes hold of a man at the end of his life. A satisfying thrill rushes through me. Maybe I don't hate this as much as I try to convince myself I do.
'Fuck!" he roars as I glide the knife through his cheek, leaving a thin slash that weeps blood. 'Fuck you, Asher!"
Placing the edge to his other cheek, I wait for him to focus on me. Sweat droplets have beaded along his brow. His boldness has slipped away now that I'm reminding him of how it feels to be sliced apart, piece by piece. 'How many brothels, Mikahil?"
'Fuck! I think there are ten, maybe twelve!"
'That wasn't so hard, was it?" Calmly, I nick him just under his left eye. He screams louder. 'Where are they? Exact locations."
Over the next few minutes, Mikhail rambles out addresses. Mila records them, lingering just out of the corner of my eye. She's drawn to his suffering. And when he has expended his usefulness, I slit his throat quickly.
It's the only mercy I'm willing to give him.
But despite the treasure trove of information he gave, he refused to tell me where Yannick was hiding. Perhaps he genuinely didn't know. But it doesn't matter. As I wipe my hands of Mikahil's blood, I know that Layla will chide me later for this mess.
I pass the knife back to Mila. She takes it, sheathing it slowly.
'This is going to have consequences," she says.
'We've killed plenty. What's one more?" I ask bitterly.
'He was one of your own."
'No, he wasn't," I say sternly. 'Not in the end."
No one who betrays me can be called anything but a traitor.
I grimace, making fists at my sides. I'm fueled by the rush that comes with killing. It mutes the regret that gnaws at me for ending the life of someone I thought would stand by me until the end. The war tests all of us.
Mila looks at me thoughtfully as I walk to a wall of wine bottles and grab a bottle. She offers me a corkscrew without prompting. I take it and open the bottle, drinking straight from it until my throat is a searing mess of fire. The heat spreads down my limbs. I felt no joy killing Mikhail. Not even relief.
It was just my duty.
Then why do I want to numb myself?
Refusing to dwell, I take another pull, then offer her the bottle. She doesn't take it.
'You need to tell the Bratva the truth about her."
My heart jumps. The thorny ball that saws through my insides isn't softened by the wine. I suck down more anyway, gasping for air after I've had my fill. 'Why? What would that achieve?"
'Once everyone knows she's Yannick's daughter, you will stave off future defections. And men like Mikhail, who already defected, might return. You know this as well as I do."
She's not wrong. But as I take another pull from the bottle and eye the lifeless body of a man I once considered a friend, I know the real reason why it will do me no favors to inform the men of Camila's true parentage. The alcohol gives me the push I need to speak the truth.
'The men who betrayed me can never be trusted again!" I growl, gesturing with the bottle. Wine drips out to join the blood. They mix, their reds impossible to tell apart.
'I'm not asking you to trust them." Mila approaches me with shadows in her eyes. 'I just want you to put them in one place. Much easier to slit the throat of a full room than to stalk men one by one."
I lower the bottle in the middle of bringing it back to my lips. There's a chill moving through me, hair standing up as my instincts fire, warning me that there's danger nearby. Mila won't attack me, but I know she's capable of it if she wants.
'Is this personal for you?" I ask softly.
Squaring up with me, she rips her shirt aside to reveal the chained fox tattoo. 'Of course it is." The tattoo looks blacker than normal in the low lights. She hides it away again. 'I haven't forgotten, and I know you haven't either."
The memory of our past rises like bile in the back of my throat. She was a tiny little thing once, sobbing in terror and pain as she prayed for a savior to rescue her from the endless nightmare of her own existence.
She won't be satisfied until she gets her revenge—a revenge that I've denied her. Looking down my nose at her, I nod. 'I had to check."
'You should've never doubted," she reminds me.
There's a noise at the top of the stairs. Light filters down the steps. 'Asher?" Camila calls. 'Are you down here?"
Mila snaps her eyes to mine, then we both stare at Mikhail's corpse. 'Stall her," I whisper.
She obeys, darting up the stairs to intercept Camila before she can enter the cellar enough to see what we've done. I can't allow her to see this. Even though Camila knows I'm a killer, I don't want her to see that I've brought that home. The same home where we plan to raise our child.
She already thinks I'm a monster.
'Mila," I hear Camila stutter.
'Nice to see you, Camila Yannickevna," Mila drawls.
That patronymic makes me stiffen like wood. When Sergio screamed it out in the safe house before we were interrupted by bullets, I was able to ignore it. But now? Hearing it from Mila's lips makes me feel ill. Checking myself, I note a single spot of blood on my jacket. I yank it free, throwing it on Mikhail before adding a canvas sheet—one meant to protect the wine from dust—on top. The corpse in the chair is nothing but an odd lump now. Easy to ignore.
I rush to block Camila on the stairs. 'Camila," I say.
She squints down at me from her higher position. Her face is sour—I don't know if it's because of Mila's comment or her suspicion of what we were doing in the cellar.
'What were you two up to?"
'Nothing." I shoot a look at Mila. She rolls her eyes with a slight grin. Taking Camila's hand, I walk past her, tugging her gently but firmly upstairs. 'Mila, you can go; we're done here."
'What are you done with?" Camila asks sharply.
Ignoring her question, I lead us back up into the light. The wintry sun is unusually bright, making it feel like an entirely different world from the dark cellar coated in blood. How fitting. My home is split in half by the civil section that acts as a front for the world … And underneath the light is the half that lurks with the demons of my awful actions.
I have to keep the two separated. For Camila's sake. I have to keep her from seeing the demons that lurk just within the walls.
Mila starts following us out. But I turn back, give her another look, and shut the door.
If cutting off the demons is impossible, I'll settle for locking them away.
