6. Vadim
6
VADIM
"Fuck." I slam my palm against the steering wheel as I speed away from the Vorobyov event in my Ferrari.
The memory of my kiss with Lacey courses through my blood like fire. Her soft lips yielding to mine, the way she pressed against me, that little gasp when I slid my tongue into her mouth. The scent of citrus and lavender that clings to her skin as we kissed.
I wanted to do so much more than kiss her. I wanted to tear that cheap uniform off her perfect body. Pin her against the wall and make her scream my name. Show her exactly what happens to women who send teasing photos of themselves in my clothes.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel as the picture Lacey sent me surfaces in my mind.
She'd been sprawled across the sheets. The phone positioned just enough to hide her face, but not before offering a hint of her golden messy hair. My charcoal suit jacket made for the perfect contrast with her pale creamy skin and breasts.
Her long legs had been parted in invitation and her fingers dipped into her glistening pussy while she bit her lower lip, trying to look innocent while being anything but.
She even positioned the lapel to give me only a teasing hint of her perky nipples.
The perfect mix of sweetness and sin.
She knew exactly what she was doing by sending me that picture.
She looked so natural wearing my clothes, as if they belong on her body. As if she belongs to me. The thought sends a thrum through my chest that I haven't felt in years.
It took everything in my power to not do everything I want to do to her.
Everything I will do to her if our paths ever cross again.
But for now, something more important is demanding my attention. Reluctantly, I force all thoughts of Lacey out of my mind, fish my phone from my pocket, and hit Demyon's number on speed dial.
He picks up on the second ring.
"What the hell was so damn important that you needed to see me in person?"
"Found someone trying to walk through the back door of one of Kirsan's clubs carrying a suitcase full of cash," Demyon says. "Currently having a friendly chat with him at the usual place about some of the deals he helped make."
I ease off the gas, letting the Ferrari cruise. "And?"
"I recognize a couple, but I'll need to check the rest against your list."
"Can't help you there." I drum my fingers on the leather steering wheel. "I don't have it anymore."
"What do you mean you don't have it?" Demyon's voice sharpens. "That list has every single one of that bastard's?—"
"I know what's on it." I cut him off as I merge into the right lane, taking the exit. "But someone else has it now."
" Blyat ." Demyon exhales heavily. "Who?"
"No-one that you need to worry about." I reply. "Make sure our guest stays comfortable until I arrive."
Demyon's dark chuckle crackles through the speaker. "Oh, he's very comfortable hanging around. See you soon, Vadyusha."
And without another beat, the line goes dead.
I park my Ferrari in the alley behind the safe house on 8th, and kill the engine. The familiar dark blue door waits for me at the bottom of worn concrete steps.
Harsh fluorescent lights cast everything in a sickly glow. The metallic tang of blood hits my nostrils before I see our guest—suspended from the ceiling by thick chains wrapped around his wrists. His suit jacket lies in tatters on the floor, and his once-white dress shirt is now stained crimson.
Demyon leans against the wall, cleaning blood off his knuckles with a rag. He gives me a nod as I approach.
"Who is he?" I circle our hanging friend, noting the Zelos watch on his wrist and the faux-Italian leather shoes. Everything about him betrays a desperation to live a luxurious life, but without the knowledge to do it properly.
"Investment banker by the name of Nathan Walker." Demyon tosses the bloodied rag aside. "Helped move quite a bit of cash for Chrysalis Designs . You remember their CEO."
"Kolzak Pavlenko." I snarl, balling my hand into a fist at the mere thought of that monster's name.
Pavlenko was one of the worst offenders who partook in Kirsan's services. Rapist. Murderer. Pedophile. His death was slow and drawn out, and I kept a steady drip of adrenaline and amphetamines in him to make sure he was awake until the very end.
Walker lets out a wet cough. Blood and spittle run down his chin. His eyes are nearly swollen shut from the beating Demyon gave him, but I can still see the fear in them as he tracks my movements.
I grab his neck and force him to look at me. "What other deals did you work on for Kirsan?"
"Who?" Walker's voice cracks. "I just move money around. I don't ask questions."
My fist drives into his stomach. The chains rattle as he swings, gasping for air. The sound echoes off the concrete walls.
Kirsan Kuular built an empire trafficking young women across Europe and Asia. He lures them in with promises of modeling contracts, only to sell them to the highest bidder at the first opportunity.
Fashion shows are his bread and butter, but lately, he's becoming more and more brazen—choosing to openly advertise his victims as exclusive bespoke fashion items.
Once upon a time, he was an ally and business partner to my father Pyotr.
But those times have long since ended.
I spent every single second of my time since becoming the pakhan of the Stravinsky Bratva dismantling the monstrous operation that Kirsan built with Pyotr. The trafficking rings, the shell companies, and all the infrastructure to support them. For ten years, I've been fighting what felt like an endless war.
No matter how many victims we save, and how many parts of it we take down, Kirsan's main operation continues to evade us.
Worse, it continues to grow.
Precisely because of scum like Nathan Walker who enables it.
"Listen carefully, Mr. Walker. You have two options." I wipe blood off my knuckles with my pocket square. "You can be honest with me and get a quick, clean death. Or you can keep lying, and I'll take my time ripping you apart piece by piece until you tell me everything anyway."
I lean in close, letting him see the promise of violence in my eyes. "The choice is yours. One way or another, you’re going to die. The least you can do is die with some fucking dignity.”
Walker's swollen eyes dart between me and Demyon. His hesitation costs him a blow to the gut. The chains rattle again as he swings. Another punch to his gut, and he starts rattling off names and numbers between labored breaths.
"How long have you been working on transactions like these?" I circle behind him, watching his shoulders tense.
"Three years. Please, that's all I know. I swear."
Anger tears through me like a hot knife. Three years. This piece of shit doesn't deserve a quick death.
"You're not telling me anything that I don't already know." I snarl. "Maybe I should just gut you and be done with it."
"Wait!" Walker's head lolls forward, his breath coming in wet gasps. "There's one more thing."
I wait, letting the silence build pressure.
"Each transaction included a ten percent donation to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris. Account number ends with 4721, I remember because it was the same for every transfer."
My hand stills. That's something new .
"Why?" I force his swollen eyes to meet mine.
"I don't know." He coughs up more blood. "It was just part of every transaction. Standard procedure. Wire the main amount to the fashion house, then ten percent to the cathedral's account."
"Who ordered this arrangement?"
"I never met them. Everything came through intermediaries." Nathan's chains rattle as he tries to shift position. "Please, that's all I know. I just move the money where they tell me."
The cathedral donation nags at me. It's too specific, too deliberate to be random. But without my list, I can't cross- reference if this matches any of the other transactions we've uncovered.
I need that list back. Soon.
Nodding, I step back and straighten my cuffs. Walker continues to whimper, and I wait a moment before I start speaking again.
"Are you a family man, Mr. Walker?"
"En-engaged." Nathan's voice trembles.
"Does your fiancée know what you do? The kind of products you help sell?"
"No... please..."
"Do you plan to have children with her?"
Nathan nods weakly. "We... we want two..."
"Two children?" Red clouds my vision. My hand shoots out and grabs his throat. "And you still did these deals for Chrysalis Designs? For Kirsan?”
"I just move money!" Walker sobs. "That's all!"
" Just move money?" The words taste like ash in my mouth as my fist connects with his jaw. "You just move money that pays for women and children to be sold to monsters?"
Bone crunches under my knuckles. Blood sprays across the fetid air in the basement. Each punch lands harder than the last. I lose count of how many times my fists slam into his face, his chest, his stomach.
My pulse thunders in my ears, drowning out everything except Walker's wet gasps.
"Vadim!" Strong hands grab my shoulders, and yank me back. "That's enough!"
I wrench free from Demyon's grip and drive my fist into Walker's stomach one final time. His head lolls forward, body swaying limply in the chains.
"He's dead." Demyon's voice cuts through my rage. " Suka blyat ! I could've worked him all night if you had just brought that damn list, but now we have to clean this up."
" Izvini ." I rake my hand through my hair, forcing my breathing to slow. "Lost control there."
"No shit." Demyon shakes his head, but his eyes hold understanding rather than judgment. "At least he told us something before you killed him. Help me get him down."
We work in practiced silence, unfastening the chains. Walker's body thuds against the concrete floor. Blood pools beneath him and seeps into the cracks.
"Ten percent to a cathedral," I say. “That can’t be a coincidence. That's a deposit."
"You think Kirsan’s using it as a bank?" Demyon drags a black tarp out from behind a stack of crates, along with two pairs of surgical gloves.
"It’s the perfect cover. Who would ever question the money coming into a church?” I help him spread the tarp on the floor and then put the gloves on. "And Alexander Nevsky isn’t just any church. It’s one of the most important Russian Orthodox cathedrals in Europe. It’d be trivial for Kirsan’s to hide dirty money among the legitimate donations, especially with Paris as his home turf.”
“So, not exactly somewhere we can walk in guns blazing." Demyon grunts as we roll Walker's body onto the tarp. "And even if we did get in. We don't know what to look for.”
“Unfortunately not.” I shake my head, pondering Demyon's words as I pace around Walker's lifeless body.
But then again…
A place as a public as a cathedral means that not everyone in there—from the janitors to the tour guides to the security guards to the literal thousands of tourists that walk through its doors—can be on Kirsan's payroll.
Wherever Kirsan has hidden his ledgers, it must be a place that avoids being discovered by curious eyes. Where could that be?
A possibility floats to the front of my mind and I straighten up.
"I know exactly what we’d look for."
"Oh?"
"What's the only untouchable item in an Orthodox cathedral? The one thing that no-one else has access to, except a corrupt man of the cloth hiding dirty money in the House of God?"
"It is way too close to morning for you to be speaking to me in riddles, Vadim." Demyon sighs. "Why don't you just tell me?"
"The Archbishop's bible." I say.
"I don't follow."
"Think about it. The records need to be kept in a location that people won't stumble on it by accident," I explain. "And the Archbishop's bible is the only thing that fits the bill. No one would ask him to part with it. No one would look in it. And there are plenty of sections that never get read. It's the perfect place to hide it."
Demyon rubs his chin, trying to poke holes in my logic. After a while, he whistles.
"Well I'll be damned…"
"Now, tell me. " A bitter smile crosses my face. “When is the only time that someone other than the Archbishop gets a chance to lay their hands on it?”
“A wedding. The bride and groom," Demyon says slowly, catching on. "When the Archbishop leads them around the lectern during the Crowning."
"Exactly."
"What are you saying, Vadyusha?" He pauses, watching my reaction. "Do you intend on actually honoring the marriage contract Pyotr signed with Kirsan, and marry Sayanaa? All to steal from her father?”
"Fuck no." I let out a harsh laugh. "I didn't rip the cancer of human trafficking out of the Stravinsky Bratva just to welcome it back through marriage. Especially not to someone who enjoys hurting victims as much as her father does."
Sayanaa Kuular is every bit as evil as her father. Yet despite her best efforts at being an enthusiastic participant of her father's business to earn his love, Sayanaa herself had been sold a long time ago as part of the original agreement that brought her father into business with Pyotr in the first place:
A promise that she'd be wed to the heir of the Stravinsky Bratva.
In other words, me.
And every year that the marriage fails to materialize, she becomes just a little bit crazier and a little more obsessed at the thought of it.
"Then how else do you intend on stealing that bible if you won’t marry her? You think Kirsan would allow you to do that?”
"Every faithful Orthodox can be married in that cathedral," I say. "Kirsan can't stop us from that."
"And Sayanaa?"
"Sayanaa has her own part to play." I feel my heart racing as I talk. "You know as well as I do that she'll throw an absolute fucking fit at the most dramatic moment of the wedding. That’ll give us the distraction we’ll need.”
"So that's your plan?” Demyon whispers. “You're going to steal a bible from the most famous Russian Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe during your own wedding? On Kirsan's turf? While Sayanaa makes a scene? Do I have that right?"
“Pretty much.”
"Even for you, that's?—"
"Inspired?"
"Insane. Where are you going to find a woman who's as stubborn, reckless, and committed to the idea of justice and fairness as you, to do that?"
"I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out." I say, moving toward the storage closet. "Now help me process the body and we'll dump it in the Sound before daybreak."
"Like old times?" A ghost of a smile crosses Demyon's face.
"Like old times."
Demyon holds Walker's arm up and hands me a pair of gardening shears. One by one, we remove the fingers, then move on to the toes. The teeth come next—crucial to prevent identification. Once everything has been removed, I stab holes at regular intervals along the body. Twice on each lobe of the lungs, four times through the stomach, and then every two inches through the large intestine.
All to prevent gas buildup and ensure that the corpse would sink after it's tossed in the water.
We empty his pockets, and find a wallet with an address in Queen Anne along with a set of keys. There are several credit cards and a hefty wad of cash in there as well. I memorize the street number before tossing everything into our pile of items to burn. His phone joins it.
We'll destroy everything properly later.
Then, it'll be as if Nathan Walker never existed.
As I bend down to gather Walker's shredded clothes, a new scent catches my attention.
It's subtle, barely there beneath the metallic tang of blood, and oddly familiar—a light blend of citrus and lavender.
Suddenly, my mind is filled with the memory of gentle curves pressed against me. Amber-flecked eyes sparkling with hidden fire. The tantalizing way she looked wearing nothing my suit jacket.
The sweetness of her lips against mine.
And this time, a new memory joins those—her chin jutting out defiantly at me in a tiny run-down dry cleaner, as she claimed that we’re enemies.
I would very much like to see her again.
"Demyon." I straighten up, clothes bunched in my fist. "I need you to do one more thing."
"What?"
"Contact Allison's Catering Services and get a copy of the resume for one of her employees," I say. "Whatever price she names, double it. And make sure Allison understands that refusing isn't an option."
"Which employee?" Demyon asks.
"Lacey McKinney."