45. Alexei
Alexei
“Nice job,” I say to Roman as I cross the deck, not looking at Thorne at all.
“You know what they say—if you enjoy the job, it doesn’t feel like work at all.” He gives Thorne a look of blistering contempt. “In this case, the pleasure was all mine.”
He stands up. “I’m sorry for what happened to you,” he says, his eyes meeting Renata’s. “I hope tonight gives you closure, as the therapists say.”
“I’m a bit like you.” Renata smiles coldly. “Sometimes I prefer my closure at gunpoint.”
Roman grins. “I like this one.” He claps me on the shoulder. “You two have fun. I need a drink. In decent company,” he adds, glaring at Thorne. “Which, just in case nobody tells you before you die tonight, you definitely aren’t, asshole.”
I take a seat on the sofa opposite Thorne, and Renata sits beside me. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Thorne,” I say softly, “but we both know that would be a lie. And unlike you, I have moral objections to telling lies.”
I tilt my head to Renata. “I don’t think you’ve met my friend in person. Say hello, Renata.”
“Hello, Silas.” She doesn’t smile.
“Renata and I were childhood friends,” I continue. “She was my only female friend, actually. So when she came to me one night looking like this”—I touch the tablet on the table, and a photograph of Renata as she was that night, bruised and bleeding, fills the screen—“you might imagine how I felt.”
I pause.
Thorne stares straight through me as if I’m not here.
“I don’t think you’re imagining it in enough detail, Mr. Thorne. Pavel,” I say, not taking my eyes from Thorne’s face, “please put the photographs onscreen so everyone can see them clearly.”
The screens scattered around the deck flicker to life, Renata’s bloody face filling every one.
“You see the cut on the side of her face?” I say conversationally.
“Your son Carter did that with a broken bottle. It took sixteen stitches to sew up. I know that, Mr. Thorne, because I did the stitching.”
I swipe, and another photograph fills the screen, this time of the bruises on Renata’s torso.
“You can’t see broken ribs,” I continue, “but as you will find out later this evening, they’re extremely painful.
Renata had seven. Did Carter break them before he raped you, Renata?
” I turn to her questioningly. “Or was it after? I forget now.”
“Before.” She answers flatly, staring directly at Thorne. “After I declined to go for a drink with him. He said that a little whore like me needed to learn some manners.”
“Where were you,” I go on, “when this conversation took place?”
“In a back alley, near a dumpster. He dragged me there off the street.”
“In this back alley?” I put another photo on the screen.
Renata nods.
“You can’t see the bloodstains on the dumpster,” I say politely to Thorne.
“But they’re there, I promise you. Your son had quite the appetite for violence.
Or rather, for inflicting it on innocent young girls he wanted to rape.
When it came to actually enduring violence himself, he wasn’t quite so keen. ”
Another image fills the screen, this time of Carter, hanging naked from a tree in the Everglades, blood dripping from the Romanov eagle carved into his chest.
Thorne makes a strangled sound.
“Your son made similar noises,” I say calmly. “Although by the time I took this photograph, he’d stopped making much noise at all.”
“You’re a dead man,” Thorne hisses. “I’m going to fucking destroy you—”
“You’ve already tried that.” I cut him off coldly. “And yet here we are.”
Thorne lunges across the table. I dodge his pudgy body and flailing fists and throw him back onto the cushions.
Renata comes around the table and dangles her handcuffs in front of his face. “Hands behind your back, asshole.”
He gives a bark of laughter. “You’re going to arrest me? Please. Go ahead.”
“Oh, I’m not going to arrest you.” She puts her mouth very close to his ear. “But very soon, you’re going to really wish I had.”
Thorne pales, and for the first time, real fear enters his eyes.
“Back to Carter,” I go on. “That night was the first time I ever carved my own mark into a man’s skin.
” I tilt my head to one side, regarding the image critically.
“It was a rough job, I’ll admit, but effective.
I made a cut for every blow Renata suffered.
Carter said at first that he couldn’t remember how many times he’d hit her, but then he told me his daddy was so rich that he could afford to pay me for every injury he’d caused her instead of being cut for them.
He was very generous with your money, Silas.
Offered me millions of dollars. But we both know I didn’t take his offer.
That was just another one of the little lies you told tonight. ”
I lean forward, locking eyes with him. “Here’s the thing, Silas.
I don’t particularly care that you’ve told lies tonight, or lied about me.
But when it comes to my friends, I have what you might call a protective instinct.
And when it comes to the women in my life, that instinct is primal, to say the least.
“That’s the funny thing about degenerate criminals like me, Thorne. We’re psychopaths with a talent for deadly violence. But we also have a code—even among ourselves. Suite cams please, Pavel.”
The image of Carter disappears from the screens, and they all go dead except for one showing the feed of the Hunters in their suite.
“On screen one,” I say conversationally, “we have Marty Hunter Jr. and Kristi. His wife passed out before she could hear you call her a whore, but Kristi certainly caught every word. They’ve been watching you on the flatscreen.
Unfortunately, they’ll be leaving us soon, since Renata here is going to be taking them both into custody.
They’re both headed to the kind of maximum security prison that will likely test both of their blow job skills.
“Screen two should come as no surprise,” I say as the second feed flickers to life.
“Rico Lucchese has thoroughly enjoyed listening to your remarks about him and his family, and is quite eager to renew his friendship with you. And after the explosion in Sicily that you and your Cartographer buddies organized, Luca Bellini is also keen to have a quiet word or two. Unfortunately, our new friends Knut and Benson won’t be sticking around for the show.
They’ll be leaving with Renata before they see things we all know they’d rather not. ”
Knut and Benson exchange a relieved glance.
“Renata,” I say, “why don’t you tell our guest what’s on screen three?”
“I’d love to, Lex.”
The third feed flickers into life.
“No,” Thorne whispers, the blood draining from his face. “Please, no.”
“Dad!” Tyler Thorne shouts at the camera, struggling against the ropes tying him to a chair on the Luccheses’ abandoned riverboat casino. “Dad, please give them whatever they want!”
“Tyler,” Thorne whispers, staring helplessly at the screen. “Hold on, son.”
Behind Tyler’s chair, two of Renata’s brothers stare grimly into the camera at Silas. One of them raises a hand to his own throat and slowly draws it from one side to the other.
Thorne shudders.
“As far as threats go,” Renata says coldly, “it might not be the most creative. But my brothers don’t need creativity. Their reputation for unfettered, mindless violence is well established.”
“Your brothers?” Thorne blanches.
“I see you’ve heard of them, then.” She nods. “Before tonight, my brothers hadn’t heard of you. They didn’t even know Carter’s name, let alone what he did to me in that back alley. I never told them.
“Not because I didn’t want them to kill Carter, because I did.
I wanted Carter dead as much as I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
But I knew my brothers wouldn’t understand how I felt.
They couldn’t, because they’ve never known how it feels to be completely overpowered, utterly helpless against the worst violation a person can suffer.
“There was only one person I knew who would understand that, because he’d been forced to watch as his own mother was violated the same way I was: Alexei.”
I stay silent. I know Renata isn’t saying this for my benefit, but for her brothers, who are staring at their sister like they’re seeing her for the first time.
“My brothers didn’t know why they were told to take Tyler from his apartment today—although they were rather disappointed when I told them they weren’t allowed to hurt him until I said so.”
“No.” Thorne struggles against his handcuffs, his face anguished. “I’ll pay whatever you want. Anything. Just don’t hurt him, please.”
“It’s funny.” Renata hunkers down right in front of Thorne, her face barely inches from his.
“I said almost those exact words to your other son. I begged Carter not to hurt me. When he hurt me anyway, I begged him not to rape me. I said my family would do anything, pay anything, if he let me go. Would you like to know what he said to me?”
Thorne stays silent, his eyes flickering to his son.
“Pay attention, Silas.” Renata clicks her fingers in front of his face, and a flash of pure, malevolent rage crosses his dark eyes.
“And there it is,” she says softly. “The same look that was in Carter’s eyes when I started begging. I’ll tell you what he said, Silas, even though you didn’t ask. He said, ‘My mother used to beg like that, too. So unless you want to end up dead like her, shut up.’
“I stopped begging after that, Silas. I knew he meant it. I’ve always wondered about it though. Did he mean that he killed his mother?” Renata touches his face gently. “Or was it you?”
He shrinks from her hand.
Onscreen, Tyler has stopped struggling. He frowns at his father’s face onscreen. “You told us she fell down the stairs.” His voice is almost plaintive.
“Ah.” Renata grimaces. “It was you, then. But Carter was a lot older than Tyler, so I guess he saw a lot more than his brother did. Learned from it, too, if the way he treated me was any indication.”