Chapter 21 – Kolya
“ Y es, pakhan?” The phone sat in front of me on the bathroom vanity.
Surprise laced my cousin’s voice as it came through the speakerphone. “Ah, so you are alive.”
I smeared the last bit of paint onto my eyelid. The landscape in southern Wisconsin was rich and green. That was why any visible skin was covered in blacks and emeralds. The ghillie suit was light and agile, without extra padding. Tendrils fluttered with the slightest movement, mimicking the leaves and foliage.
“We were expecting you for supper,” Dimitri said cautiously.
It was time for the truth to unfold. “I told Chiara my plans changed.”
“You’re not hunting tonight, are you?” Dimitri sounded annoyed.
I looked at the camouflaged fiend staring back from my reflection. I wasn’t in the habit of lying to my cousin. “Adler is back in Phoenix.”
Where I should be.
“So what’s your plan, Kolya? Hmm?” Dimi wasn’t letting this go easily.
And I wasn’t ready to offer a full confession.
“It’s too dangerous for me to return to Chicago. Adler will have allies listening for any word of my arrival. If I come home, he can track me to you, and I’m not putting you all in danger.” I closed the tubes of paint, grabbed my phone, and began to arm myself. I didn’t anticipate needing much firepower, and therefore planned to leave the big boys home.
“What happens when—and you will end this trafficker.” Dimitri chuckled riotously. “But they’ll have another sonofabitch in his place. Granted, your meddling will put a kink in their operations, but you’re just lobbing off one snake for another to take its place.”
It was as though my cousin was the mouthpiece for the torment raging in my own mind.
I clutched the phone hard and squeezed my eyes tight. “I can’t abandon this, Dimi. The victims…fuck, man!”
Images that I could never unsee rattled through my head. The worst thing, I knew there were souls I was letting down. For every human I saved from those trafficking rings, there were too many I couldn’t. I was only one man against an army of evil.
“When will you retire?” Dimitri hedged.
I snorted. “There’s no retiring for our kind, Dimi. You know that.”
“I need you here. Your family needs you here, so maybe—” he spoke over my protests. “You take an apprentice. Hand off what you know. You can always stay in touch and go back to kill some monsters if life in the mob is too boring.”
A way out of my mission.
I paused at the top of the stairs. The guilt over hiding here dulled.
Could I do that?
“I think you could, you’re not getting any younger,” Dimitri chuckled. “And yes, in case you’re wondering, you asked that out loud.”
“No one else is fighting this, Dimi.” I turned off the hall light and made my way into the darkened lower level of the lake house.
“You don’t know that.”
The email flickered through my mind. Either Dimi’s timing with this conversation was a fucking huge coincidence or he knew something about the Cyber Ops.
“What if someone did contact me?” I began.
“That would be great! Join forces.”
Join forces. If only it was that simple.
I resisted the urge to lean against the doorframe. The load suddenly felt heavier than I could bear now that there was a sympathetic ear to listen. I never talked about my problems, but this conversation felt right . The timing couldn’t be more perfect if I tried. Dimitri was inviting me to open up and voice my troubles for the first time in ages.
“If someone else was fighting this cancer, how is it that my presence on the scene is the only thing defeating them? If there were other vigilantes, more of these fuckers would be dead. That’s not what’s happening, Dimi. It’s just me against the enemy.”
My cousin let out a long breath. “It seems impossible, but I don’t believe you are the only one.”
“But—”
“The most badass,” he smirked, and I wished I could see the smile on his usually unsmiling face. “You are a ruthless monster, Kolya. You’re brave and willing to go further than any sane man can. That is why you’ve taken out so many key players in their organizations.”
My lips twitched.
“You aren’t the only one—at least, not the only one willing. Find the others, show them the way.” Dimi yawned. “And then get your ass back to Chicago. I need you…brother.”
It was a word my cousin rarely used with me. The true nature of our biological relationship was a well-kept secret. My father impregnated Dimi’s mother so that her husband—our former leader—didn’t kill her. It didn’t matter, in the end, Uncle Matvei was responsible for my aunt’s demise. But he never suspected his son’s true parentage. It wasn’t until last year that my father disclosed the truth to us. We chose to continue the secrecy. I didn’t want Dimi’s job as pakhan. As the oldest cousin, it would be my right to take leadership of our crime syndicate. There would be unnecessary trouble in the ranks, and for what? So my father could openly call Dimi son and Luka and I could call him brother ? No, we had a strong relationship no matter what we called it. That label could stay buried for eternity and it wouldn’t change a damn thing.
“They’re out there, you just have to look,” Dimi insisted.
Maybe I should respond to that email. “And if I find them, what then?” I hedged. Dimitri might know more than he was letting on, thus the suddenness of this uncharacteristic heart-to-heart.
“Vet them out and see if it could be a working relationship,” my cousin said, as if it were the most natural conclusion in the world.
“I don’t even know where to look,” I lied.
“Quit making excuses, pussy.”
“Thanks for the fucking pep talk, bro,” I said shortly.
“Anytime.”
It was time to put this to rest. “I have to go now, but we’ll talk soon.”
“Wait! How’s lake life?”
An image of tanned skin decorated with ink, tight curves, and a cheerful smile came to mind. My chest tightened with a fierce protectiveness. “It’s good.”
“Doing any fishing?”
“I’m more interested in hunting, you know that.”
“Really? What’s in season?” Dimitri’s interest was piqued.
A twisted smile tugged at my lips. “Locals.”
“Kolya! What are you—”
“It’s under control, pakhan.” With that, I hung up.
***
The local watering hole was the Pine Lawn Tavern. It didn’t look like much from the outside. There were softball fields in the back for summer leagues. Dart and pool tournaments were held inside. And the food wasn’t half bad.
All that investigating earlier this evening summarized to a logical conclusion that this was where Joeseph Aitkin would disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.
Locals came here, and as long as they bought the sheriff’s boys a beer or two, they could drive home as drunk as they pleased. Tourists, who wanted to feel like real Wisconsinites, came to wet their whistles. But they didn’t fit in.
For someone who lived outside society, this place represented a rather fascinating case study.
There was no need to lure my prey outside. While there was a perfectly functional bathroom inside, the good-old-boys preferred to take a leak in nature. I anticipated lurking in the tree line for a couple of hours.
But it was less than half that time before Joeseph burst through the door, bottle in hand, and lumbered to the trees. The fact that this piece of filth dared touch Harley—
I clenched my fists. Her past was her own. I couldn’t fault her for dating him. He was well-to-do and classically good-looking. They’d grown up together, graduating the same year. But for him to throw their relationship back in her face like he did today—
Fuck.
The tears in her eyes.
She fought so bravely to keep them back. That kind of strength, to put on a show all day for her family, and then have to endure that?
“Did the tears fall when I left, little one?” I growled into the wind.
My words were pulled away on the breeze, not receiving any answer.
Joeseph unzipped his fly with a vicious tug. A wrinkled dick flopped out and began to spray over the foliage.
It was a surreal experience to look at another man’s equipment knowing it had been near the woman who consumed my every thought. For Harley’s sake, I hoped he was a grower, because he sure as hell wasn’t a shower.
It was unsportsmanlike behavior to kidnap a man with his dick in his hand.
Unluckily for him, I wasn’t the sporting sort of chap.
Joeseph never saw me coming. I rose from the shadows, looming beside him.
He squeaked, a noise a mouse would have been proud of. Piss spluttered from his tip. I dodged the spray. My body was covered in all manner of forest, and it would be covered in blood by the time the night was done, but I did not want my enemy’s pee on me.
I clapped a hand over his mouth, grabbing him in a submission hold.
He managed to get one swing at me with the bottle. It clonked against the side of my head, but thankfully, it didn’t break.
A growl ripped from my chest.
That would be the only strike he made tonight.
Throwing a quick glance over my shoulder, I made sure no one else was in the parking lot. Behind the Tavern were fields, with acres of new crop, and between those were stretches of deep forest.
I was able to trek a mile into the woods before I released the struggling body. It was no easy feat. He fought and yelled, which meant I had to keep my gloved hand over his mouth. Good thing too, because if I hadn’t been wearing the protective layer, he would have bitten.
He’ll be amusing to kill. That dark thought brought a twitch to my lips.
Eventually, we were in a spot that would have little chance of our game being discovered.
I stopped, drew my knife, and placed it against his throat. Joeseph stilled. He was learning. I removed my hand and kicked him. He pitched forward.
“What the hell is this sick prank?” the rich boy garbled, staggering.
He wasn’t too drunk for this to be fun. Good. I smirked even harder.
“You have sixty seconds. I suggest you start moving,” I barked.
Joeseph stabbed an accusatory finger at me. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Taking a step forward, I arched my arm down in a graceful arc and plunged the blade into his upper arm. In the dark, it was a risk that I would nick something vital. But that was all part of the fun.
Joeseph howled.
There was no one here to help. So I let him curse and scream.
This was what he deserved. No one treated a woman like that and lived. If it wasn’t Harley, it would be someone else. He had time to adapt, learn, and change. But pricks like him never did.
The minutes ticked by and he still wasn’t moving.
I lunged, and again, he wasn’t quick enough. The knife sank to the hilt in his thigh.
At this rate, he was going to bleed out before I could finish with him.
“This is extreme, man. Whatever it is that I did, I can explain!” He hobbled back.
The limp was exaggerated. A much larger target, the thigh had fleshy places that could easily be poked and not inhibit movement.
Wimp.
“Is it the chicks?” Joeseph stammered. “Because I did everything you guys asked.”
I stilled. “Everything?”
“Yeah, man. I kept the icehouse open for exchanges. There weren’t enough days this year to make good ice, so the lakes weren’t frozen for long—especially not down here. But we had a good crop come through Mille Lacs.”
Dread coiled through me. Having spent long enough hunting the larger problems, I had a hunch what he was talking about. Mille Lacs Lake in northern Minnesota was a well-known trafficking spot. Yet, like other hotspots, just because people knew about it didn’t mean it was razed to the ground.
“Joeseph, you and I are going to have a little chat.” I surged forward, wrapping my arm around his throat.
As he struggled, lack of oxygen failing him, I couldn’t help but wonder at this stroke of luck. It might not be connected directly to the southwestern ring that I was currently fighting, but if the drunk’s information led to the conclusion I suspected, this man was involved with a northern section of some trafficking operation.
A couple of days in the basement of the lake house, and I would have my answers.
I swore when I came to town that I wouldn’t seek out the bad guys, that I would lay low. But since one just happened to fall into my lap, well…I wasn’t turning down the chance to do something good.
So long as I was careful, I could work on this local threat.
“Sshhh, just go to sleep,” I murmured to his struggling form.
Pity…. I wore the hunting attire tonight because I’d planned to chase him through the woods in a violent burst of energy. Stalking my prey on foot and having a game with him would exorcise the monsters in my chest. But this was bigger than my need to destroy someone who hurt my girl.
“My girl?” I whispered as Joeseph slumped in my arms.
Was that what I was calling her now? I shook my head. The worst part was how easily the words fit. How I could see the whole dream play out in my head. But creatures of nightmares such as myself didn’t get the girls.