Chapter 1 Maxim
MAXIM
“Please, please don’t kill me,” Dmitri, the man I’m here to scare, begs. He knows who I am. Everyone in the Bratva knows who I am. They call me The Shadow of Death because there’s no way you’ll be seeing the light again after I’ve finished with you.
“You fucked up.” I push the end of my gun into his temple. The man is shaking like a leaf. It’s pretty disgusting really, he’s supposed to be some big deal in the Bratva, but he looks like he’s seconds away from pissing himself.
“I know, I know. But it wasn’t me, it was my cousin. This is all on him,” Dmitri pleads.
My bosses have informed me of the headaches Dmitri and his cousin Nikolai have caused for the organization. They are not pleased at all with them. Lucky for Nikolai, he’s already dead. Apparently, his ex opened him up like a bad tin of tuna just before Interpol turned up to bust him.
“Blaming the dead, come on now, Dmitri. That’s low, even for you.” Unfortunately, my job today is not to put a bullet between his eyes like I want to because Dmitri is annoying as fuck. “Now, what the hell should I do with you?” I taunt him.
“Please, I will give you anything you want. You want girls? I can get them to you—young girls.”
I pistol-whip his face for that comment. I’m no fucking pedophile.
“The fact you just offered me underage girls is enough for me to end you.”
Dmitri gulps and tries to swallow, his eye bleeding from where I hit him.
“But today is your lucky day. They don’t want you dead, yet,” I say, emphasizing the word yet, and his body relaxes for a moment.
“But your time is limited. Because of the stunt your fucking cousin pulled selling the jewels and not telling anyone, they believe you are the only person alive who knows the whereabouts of these jewels.” I sneer, stepping away and standing in front of him.
He looks up at me, his right eye closing over where I hit him.
“You have six months to find every single jewel, or I will kill you. So, if I was you, I wouldn’t fuck around, time’s a-ticking,” I say, tapping my watch.
He stands up shakily. “I need your help then.”
His statement makes me laugh, and I turn and look at Sergei, who just shrugs, a bemused look on his face.
“And why the fuck would I help you?”
“I already know where two of the jewels are.”
“How is this my problem?”
“I can’t go anywhere near them—they know my face. You could steal them, or at least one of them. Keep her safe while I find the others.”
This makes me laugh. Is this fool serious? “And why would I do that?”
He reaches around to his back pocket and pulls out his phone. He
swipes it a couple of times and shows it to me. “This, this is them.” He points to two beautiful blonde girls, one with sapphire eyes and the other with jade-green eyes.
“Cute. And?”
“This one.” He points to the second blonde. “Grace. She loves being dominated. Kinky as. Great fuck.”
“Not interested. I don’t need to kidnap some woman for a fuck. That may be how you get women, but it’s not how I get mine.” My lip curls up at him as I look him up and down in disgust.
“I’ll pay you.”
Now he’s got my attention. I’ll bite. “Not sure if you can afford me.” I cross my arms over my chest.
“Name your price.”
“One million dollars.”
His face pales. “One ... million ...”
“My services don’t come cheap. They’re paying me half that just to rough you up. Don’t forget you have to find all the jewels. Do you seriously want to waste your time on those two when you could be finding the others?”
“If I can get them at least one or two it bides me some time. You can’t kill them.”
This guy is an amateur. I roll my eyes. I know how precious these jewels are from the chatter over the years, but I’ve never seen one before.
They are always under lock and key, only pulled out when favors are needed.
The fact that this idiot and his cousin sold them, I understand why they want them back and him dead.
I still don’t understand the effort the Bratva is making to find these women.
Are their pussies lined with gold or something?
Can’t they train more gorgeous women to do their bidding?
“You’ll have to give me time to get the money to you.”
I shrug. “It’s not my neck on the line, Dmitri.”
“I know, I know. I promise I’ll get the money to you.”
“Good. Now that that’s all sorted. I need to finish this job.”
Dmitri’s eyes widen, and I let out an evil chuckle. Did this fucker
think he was just going to get a little pistol-whipped after the stunt he pulled?
Fuck, no.
Sergei and I descend on him as his screams fill the abandoned warehouse.