45. Alexei #2
“Don’t kill him.” Thorne’s eyes shift to me. “Please don’t take both of my sons.”
“Well, it’s funny we should mention that.” I look at Renata. “Shall I proceed, or would you like some more time?”
“No.” She shakes her head slowly. “No, I’m done here.” She looks Thorne up and down. “I’d say good luck,” she says coldly, “but there’s really no point.”
Turning around, she kisses me lightly on the cheek. “Thank you, Lex,” she says quietly, putting her hand on my shoulder. “For everything.”
“Always.” I cover her hand with my own briefly. “I’ll be seeing you, carnalita.” I grin up at her. “Or should that be Madam Mayor?”
“Ha.” Renata rolls her eyes. “We should at least pretend there’s going to be an election.” She looks up at the camera. “Night, boys. Try not to make too much of a mess for my people to clean up.”
She heads downstairs, and moments later, I hear the scuffle of the dragons throwing the protesting Hunter family into a high-powered speedboat, then the roar of the engine as they disappear across the bay, along with the sound of another boat arriving.
“Now that all the law enforcement have left,” I say, “let’s take a look behind door number four, shall we, Silas?”
The final screen flickers on. Kiril Novikov, sitting on a chair, hands bound behind his back but otherwise unhurt, scowls into the camera.
He’s in the middle of the dance floor in the nightclub he stole from me, although it looks rather the worse for wear.
Unsurprising, given Paddy’s handiwork, not to mention that of the men standing behind Novikov.
One of them steps forward, his lean figure covered in debris, dark blue eyes gleaming fiercely amid the blood on his face. He pulls Novikov from the chair and pushes him forward.
Thorne frowns. “Who is that?”
“That” comes Roman’s voice from behind me, “is my fucking godson, asshole.”
“What’s going on?” Thorne stares around, pale and visibly afraid, between the screens and the grim wall of faces gathered silently on the upper deck.
“Some of the people here you already know.” I nod at Rico, Luca, Roman, Lance, and Dimitry. “Jorge Cardenas, however, you undoubtedly know by reputation. He’s Renata’s oldest brother and head of his family in Miami.”
Taking in the deadly eyes staring him down, Thorne asks sullenly, “What are you going to do with my son?”
I ignore his question. “You mentioned earlier that Kiril Novikov has his own reasons for hating me. What he might not have told you is that he also has a lot of reasons to thank me, not least for sparing his life the last time we met. Which is where all of this comes together, Silas.
“Kiril’s father once begged me to spare his sons, just as you’re begging me now to spare yours. Because of that moral code I told you about earlier, I honored his request. I left both Kiril and his brother alive. Would you like to know how Kiril Novikov repaid that favor, Silas?”
Novikov sneers into the camera and spits on the floor. “Fuck you, Petrovsky.”
“First,” I say, ignoring him, “Kiril killed his own brother. Then he came into my city and used your men to take over the best part of my operation. After that, he sent sadistic fuckers to kidnap Ofelia Borovsky from a Granada street in an effort to find me.” My voice is deathly cold, but my mind is surprisingly clear.
This is when I’d usually let the killing rage take over.
It feels like I’m remembering another life.
“I’m not going to get into what he did to Rico’s family,” I go on, “or to Jorge’s business.
Both of those gentlemen will explain that to you in their own time.
I’m telling you this, Silas, because I want both you and Tyler to understand the decision I’m facing.
You see, Tyler,” I say, turning to address the terrified young man in the chair, “your father is going to die today. That isn’t a matter for debate, I’m afraid.
Even if I wanted to let him live—which I don’t—these men behind me would kill him anyway.
“But you, Tyler—you pose a problem. On the one hand, honor says you are an innocent who shouldn’t die for the sins of your father.
Unfortunately”—I turn back to Kiril Novikov—“exhibit A here is exactly why sometimes the honorable choice is the wrong one. So we’re going to give you a little demonstration of what happens when people abuse the chances I give them.
Mickey.” I nod at the camera. “Why don’t you show Tyler what I mean? ”
“With pleasure.” Mickey smiles coldly and slices the rope binding Kiril Novikov’s hands.
Roman stiffens, and from the corner of my eye, I see Dimitry grip his friend’s shoulder.
I understand it.
One side of Mickey’s body is still healing from burns, and he had a bullet removed from his shoulder less than a week ago.
In comparison to Kiril’s thickly muscled bulk, he looks so lean as to be almost insignificant.
The other men in the room move to the edges of the dance floor, leaving Mickey and Kiril circling each other in the center.
The screens on deck show them from every angle and amplify their every word.
“Oh, you want this, little boy, do you?” Kiril spits again. “Your people should have used more force when they came for me. Then you might have had a chance. As it is, I might die here today—but not before you do. No matter whose fucking godson you are.”
A meaty fist barrels through the air, lightning fast.
Mickey ducks beneath it. “We’ve never met before tonight.
” He speaks without any trace of breathlessness, his voice low and controlled.
“So you might not be aware that Ofelia Borovsky is my sister.” He ducks beneath another swift blow from Kiril.
“It’s not the first time Ofelia has been kidnapped by people who hate our family. ”
Kiril throws a high kick, and Mickey dances away from it, his expression never altering at all.
“The last time it happened,” he goes on, as if they were sitting at a bar, “under the Orlovs, Alexei Petrovsky killed every man involved. Many just because they’d looked at my sister the wrong way.
He spared you because your father had nothing to do with Ofelia’s kidnapping and made his objections to it clear.
Alexei recognized an honorable man and treated him as such. ”
Spinning with an almost terrifying precision, Mickey lands a devastating roundhouse kick to Novikov’s ribs, causing a distinct crack, audible even through the feed.
“For reference,” I say to Silas, “that’s what a broken rib sounds like.”
“You, on the other hand,” Mickey says as Kiril’s face sets into animal savagery, “are proof that honor isn’t a genetic certainty.
I wonder what your father would have thought about you not only kidnapping my sister a second time, but telling your own men they were free to do whatever they wanted with her. ”
His arm flashes out, catching Novikov in the solar plexus. The breath heaves out of him, and he staggers backward, eyeing Mickey warily.
“There was a lot of competition to kill you tonight,” Mickey goes on. “We all argued about who has the better right. In fact, we argued about it so much that we almost came to blows ourselves. Shall I tell you what we decided on, Kiril?”
Kiril surges forward and grapples him, landing several solid blows that make the spectators on both the dance floor and the deck wince. “Fuck you,” he grunts as Mickey twists out of his grasp. “I don’t give a fuck what you decided. You’re still going to die.”
“Maybe.” Mickey lands another kick. “But that’s how our world works, Kiril.
We all die eventually.” His head jerks back as Kiril lands a glancing blow on his eye.
“The question,” he goes on, as if nothing has happened, “isn’t how we die, but how we live.
And you’ve made some very bad choices, which is what led us to finally agree that the most valuable use of the short time you have left is for your death to serve as a teachable moment to others. ”
He thuds a rapid sequence of blows into Kiril’s torso, leaving him winded and gasping. “Silas Thorne and his son are the others, in case you were wondering.”
“Fuck Silas Thorne,” Kiril pants, glaring into the camera. “And fuck whatever this is.”
Reaching beneath his foot, he pulls a knife from the heel of his boot, flicks it open, and slips it in between Mickey’s ribs.