Chapter 8 Petyr
PETYR
I stride out of the house and slam the front door behind me.
There are half a dozen walls between Sima and me, but it’s not enough. I need more miles, more distance, because if I stay, I’m going to bust right through every single one of those walls to get to her.
And that cannot happen.
The night air is cold against my skin. I push past the gate and head down the dark gravel road. My steps are too fast, too hard, but I don’t slow. If I stop, I’ll turn back, and then what?
You’ll go into her room. The cold, rational part of me already knows how this will end. You’ll kiss her pretty lips and forget you were ever mad at her. Let her play you for a fool all over again.
Not in a million fucking years.
But even after I’ve walked three or four miles through the woods, my mind keeps straying back to the topics I’ve sworn not to think about.
So when I get back to the mansion, I don’t go inside—I get a set of keys from the garage, jump behind the wheel of one of my cars, and go ripping right back off the property.
I don’t let myself think about where I’m going. I just drive. Mile after mile of concrete, until the city lights blur back into view and the roads stretch towards the darker side of New York.
When I finally pull up to the warehouse, two of my men are guarding the door. They step aside and give me sharp nods of acknowledgement. “Boss.”
I nod back, then push the heavy doors open. They creak, old and unoiled, a warning to whoever’s inside that their rest is about to be interrupted.
I switch on the lights and see whose night I’m about to make worse.
In the center of the room, two Danilo mudaki are tied to chairs. Heads sagging down, faces bloodied beyond recognition, hardly any life in their eyes as they blink against the glare of neon.
One of my men on guard—Oleg—speaks up. “They were sniffing around the docks,” he explains. “We thought you’d want them brought in.”
You thought right.
I look at the bloodied faces of the prisoners. They were caught trying to make a grab on Gubarev territory, now of all times. Stupid fucking move, if you ask me.
Of course, they didn’t ask me. That’s why they’re the ones tied to the chairs and I’m the one about to beat the living fuck out of them.
I crack my knuckles and circle the chairs. The prisoners’ clothes seem to ID them as low-level trash, corner men, runner boys, minor couriers. Nothing the Danilos will miss terribly.
But that’s how this war is moving now. Each side takes shots whenever there’s a chance, and then the other side pays it back in full. A slow bleed with no end.
I run a hand over my mouth and think. I’ve already taken out a lot of key Danilo players. But I’ve lost men, too—good men, ones I needed. Worthy soldiers.
Worse, the cops have started to take notice. They can’t ignore this kind of bloodshed on the streets forever, not even with the money I throw at them to look the other way. It’s getting too big. Too fucking loud to stay in the underworld.
I need this war to end, and soon.
Sparing these two would be an option. A gesture of goodwill. It would signal to the Danilos that I’m over the petty squabbling.
But I’ve got no goodwill to spare for the likes of them. Not now, not ever.
And tonight in particular, I’m really fucking pissed.
I snap my fingers. Oleg drags a table closer. On it, we keep everything we need: pliers, a blowtorch, knives, a hammer. Simple tools. Reliable. Just the right amount of rust on them to scare our captives into compliance.
I crouch in front of the first man. His lip is split, one eye swollen shut. When I reach out and grab his chin, he flinches hard enough to nearly topple the chair.
“You want to make this easy?” I offer. “Tell me what I want to know, and I won’t touch these.” I gesture to the arsenal on the table. “One-time deal. Take it or leave it.”
For a second, I think he’ll take it. Disappointment starts spreading through me. I’ve been too generous again. Now, I might not get the kind of release I came here for.
But then the idiot spits blood on my shoe, and my face breaks into a grin.
Wrong fucking answer.
I stretch out a hand. Oleg puts the pliers in my open palm. No need for words.
Good. I’m not in a talking mood tonight.
But this guy’s going to be, and soon.
I catch the bastard’s hand before he can jerk it away, then clamp the tool around his little finger.
Snap.
The crunch echoes in the silence, followed by his scream.
The other prisoner tenses in his seat. I catch a glimpse of dread in his eyes, but he shoves it down quickly. Low-level or not, these two are spiteful enough to make me work for it.
Fine by me.
“That’s one,” I say. “You’ve got nine more chances to talk.” The pliers hover over his ring finger.
When answers don’t come, I take my time. Two fingers, then three. The man’s cries break into sobs. “P-Please,” he begs in broken Russian. “He’ll kill me if I talk!”
“I’ll do worse if you don’t.” Crunch. Five more to go.
“Feel like telling me who’s got you pissing your pants?
‘Cause I get the feeling it’s not just me.
And Anatoli croaked, so it sure as fuck ain’t him.
” I close the pliers around the next one, but don’t snap it just yet.
“I should know. I was the one who put that mudak in his grave.”
He shakes his head frantically. I take another one of his fingers.
So fucking satisfying. All the frustration that’s been rotting in me since locking Sima up finds an outlet. One I can trust not to come back and bite me in the ass.
At least in this room, I can be the monster she already believes I am.
I lean in close to the prisoner. “Who’s running your Bratva now? Who’s giving the orders?”
He shakes his head, stubborn.
“Fine.” I shove the pliers into his mouth. “Let’s do this your way.”
Then I twist.
A tooth comes free. Blood starts streaming down the guy’s chin. His gagging fills the air, followed by a muffled scream as I keep taking more teeth.
“Talk,” I order. “Or you’ll be eating through a straw for the rest of your miserable life.”
Finally, after three more teeth, he chokes out a name. “F-Feliks!”
Ah. That’s what I suspected. Feliks is Anatoli’s younger brother. Nikolai’s middle son, if memory serves.
“He’s the one stepping in, then? While his father drinks and fucks his days away in his rat hole?”
“Y-Yes,” he wails. His words are a little slurred, courtesy of missing half his molars, but it’s clear enough to be certain.
Feliks Danilo. The second son, and a reckless upstart to boot. He probably wants to prove himself now that his oppressive older brother has finally kicked the bucket. Must have felt like Christmas fucking morning when he got the call.
I set the pliers down and let my prisoner spit more blood. This time, he’s careful to do it on the floor, away from my shoes. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
I turn to the second man. He’s staring at me wide-eyed. Terrified.
Good.
I grab his chair and drag it forward so close that his knees knock against mine. “What about the old man?” I demand. “What’s he doing while his second son plays boss? All that liquor and Viagra can’t be good for his liver.”
Silence. Not the smartest way to go about this, but if he hasn’t learned yet, far be it from me to judge. I’ll even offer a remedial class.
I pick up the hammer and bring it down swiftly across his kneecap.
The crack echoes through the warehouse. His scream echoes louder.
I lean in. “Try again.”
He stammers through the pain. “The pakhan is… coming. He’s coming here.”
“Nikolai?” I press. “He’s here? In New York?”
“He wants to… to finish you himself,” he gasps. “Wipe you out. All of you Gubarev trash.”
The old man himself—the head of the Danilo Bratva—leaving his cushioned seat among whores to come here, into my city. His ego must be through the roof if he thinks he can take me out.
I straighten up and hand the hammer back to Oleg. “Good,” I smirk. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”
The prisoners whimper, broken and bleeding. But I don’t give a shit. For the last seven months, I’ve been picking off Danilo men like rats in a landfill, and they’re no different. I’ve kept these assholes from planting a single flag in my territory.
And now, the old man thinks he can just walk in and wipe us out? He’s out of his goddamn mind, but that works in my favor.
Because as soon as he’s close enough to reach, I can take out the root of the problem.
All I have to do is get my hands around the old Danilo bastard’s throat. Then this war is as good as won.
I stand over the prisoners. Hell, I’m even smiling. The part of me that needed release finally has it, and it feels fucking incredible.
But right on the heels of that happiness comes a return of the thoughts that have plagued me all night.
Because killing Nikolai will affect Sima. I wonder what she’ll think when I finally put a bullet in her estranged father’s head. I haven’t even told her about Anatoli yet. She has no idea I already killed her brother.
Which means I’m going to have to tell her, sooner or later. That conversation is coming, and I already know it’s going to tear through what little ground we still share. She’ll hate me more than she does already.
I picture her face when she finds out. She’ll scream that I’m a monster, that she wishes she’d never fucking met me.
That makes two of us. My life would be much easier if I’d never fucking met her, either.
But it doesn’t matter. I’ve met her now. I know what life feels like with her, and what it feels like without her. I’ll take the yelling, the cursing. I’ll let her spit in my face if that’s what she needs to get over it. None of it can be worse than what I’ve already done to her.
And what she’s already done to me.
The prisoners moan in their chairs. I signal to my men without looking. “Finish it.”
Two shots echo through the warehouse. The Danilo bodies slump forward in the chairs, lifeless.
I wipe my hands on a rag and toss it aside. “Dump them outside Feliks’s house,” I order. “Make sure he sees what happens when his rats crawl into my streets.”
Both men nod. They start dragging the corpses across the concrete floor. Dark streaks appear, but I’m not concerned. They’ll be washed out like all the others.
I step out, my mind already on the next move.
Feliks. Nikolai. This war is coming to a close, and it’s going to end on my terms. I’ll make damn sure of that. And after that, I’ll face Sima with the truth.
Even if she fucking hates me for it.