19. LEO
NINETEEN
LEO
Being kidnapped isn't as fun the second time.
Externally, it doesn't make much difference.
A warehouse with a gray, stained floor, with dried blood in the corners and an ugly layer of dust. A place that's huge and claustrophobic at the same time.
Big, muscular men guarding the doors. Distant, on the other side of the wall.
Silence, with the lights out, and a prolonged solitude designed to dissociate you from reality and lower your resistance before a real interrogation begins.
The reduction of sensory stimuli affects the limbic system.
The prefrontal cortex is inhibited. Heart rate, blood pressure, and glucose levels rise.
This technique has been used before. The CIA, the KGB, criminals of any size who have seen an action movie.
Not in that order. It's scientifically based.
The problem is that my hippocampus has been atrophied by years of excess cortisol. The adrenaline doesn't come. This doesn't work on me.
It is, at most, tedious.
I don't know how much time passes. I don't know where I am. Sometimes, I hear distant conversations from guards who think they're speaking quietly. They appear in a crescendo and disappear in a decrescendo.
I cling to that. Clues that tell me what's happening beyond the obvious—Sal willingly opened the doors for the Malakovs.
Sal, the little chicken who faints if Dante breathes a little louder than normal.
I need to deliver the results of those analyses; I promised Svetlana I'd deliver them on the same day.
But is it the same day? I don't know how long I was out, and I don't know how long I've been here, listening to guards complain about abusive hours and a nervous boss. Hours, for sure. Days? I don't know.
"...he hung him on a meat hook," says a passing voice from a nearby corridor. "Viktor Orlov."
"I don't believe it," says another voice.
"I saw the pictures. The boss is pissed..."
A familiar name. Viktor Orlov . One of the Malakovs' chief accountants, a cousin of one of the big bosses. I've strengthened encryption for him in the past.
They're scattered comments. They talk a lot about Viktor. Hung like butchered meat. They talk about the stock market. Assets. A fire somewhere. Things seem ugly out there.
But, as always, my body only reacts to one name.
"...they're saying Dante Volkov himself is on the street," says a lost whisper, and just the sound of his name brings me warmth. "Tearing through all the important guys. They hired security for Sergei..."
Sergei. Viktor's brother, or something like that.
I think about it. Was it Dante who hung a Malakov accountant on a meat hook?
"...all this for some IT guy?"
"I told them not to invade that mansion. I think it was because of it."
Laughable. Dante is a territorial man, but a mansion is just a set of bricks. He, above all, knows this.
I don't know how much I can believe a scared whisper in a hallway. But this is good. Dante burning the world, hanging idiots in suits on meat hooks for an IT guy. A good result for my work. The Volkovs are right to fear losing the one who fixes their cybernetic weaknesses. They know what I can do.
And, as much as a computer is what makes me objectively indispensable to them, the idea of a world in flames just because Dante wants me burns my nerve endings.
At some point, a metallic noise pulls me out of my head. My eyes—photophobic—burn with the light, coming in saturated beams. I see two silhouettes. A muscular, large man; and a slender, older man, wearing an expensive suit. High-ranking and a brute. How fun.
They approach slowly. The goon closes the door, and I feel his curiosity on me. When he speaks, it's in a coarse, raspy voice of someone who drinks too much.
"Is this the famous Nyx ?" he says, savoring the name. "What a disappointment. I was expecting a hot blonde."
Original. Nothing I haven't heard three dozen times before. The man in the suit ignores the comment. He stops in front of me, keeping the distance of someone who doesn't think I'm worth any proximity. "Leonel Hays," he says. Unlike the big guy, his voice is clear. "Or do you prefer Nyx?"
He pauses, but doesn't wait for me to answer.
"It's a shame our first meeting outside of a screen is like this. Your work for us in the past was impeccable. The Volkovs are setting fire to everything out there for you, creating hell on earth. You must feel important."
Dante wouldn't let them enter his house and take something of his. That's obvious.
The big guy doesn't stop walking toward me. He crouches down and grabs my chin with calloused, swollen fingers. He squeezes, forcing my torso up.
"Important or just well-used ? You're all marked up," he laughs, forcing my face to the side.
He sees the bruises as a joke. "And it's not just from punches, is it, sweet thing ?
" He pushes his thumb into a purplish circle—next to the bite marks.
Dante's marks. "Does he bite you when he's fucking you, little whore? You must moan real nice."
That wording doesn't cause me any shame. I swallow my disgust—he smells of putrid intoxication—and give him a smile, letting him hold my face however he wants. "Want to hear? Hit me hard enough and maybe I'll show you."
He didn't expect that reaction, but he recovers well. He analyzes the marks on my face. I bite my lip for him, and he looks down at my groin. His synapses don't work well enough to understand that I'm not turned on.
"You like a beating to open your legs, is that it?" he says, torn between a fantastical, pornographic excitement and hatred for my courage. He doesn't let go of my face. Dante would hold on tighter.
I peek at the older man in the suit. I say, before he can interfere, "I said hard enough. I doubt you could get close to what he does."
This is predictable. A brute who gets offended at the possibility of not being the strongest Homo sapiens in history. A man who takes a sexual comparison with another man straight to his dick, to his chromosomes, to his testosterone. To the certainty of who he is. He gets pissed.
"You little motherfucker," he says.
He grabs my collar and pulls me up. He throws a punch at my face.
A direct trauma to my nose, from the side, enough to displace the straight line of the bridge—I feel my septum crack, my breathing converted to asymmetry.
I was right: this punch would be too light to affect my jaw.
My molars would hold. Dante, on the other hand, shattered them.
What a joke.
I spit on the floor without thinking. A reflex with a metallic taste.
"The other guy hit harder," I say. I can't even hide the contempt.
The brute roars with hatred. I peek at the boss—a voyeur of violence, watching his man about to beat a hostage, until he finally speaks.
"Enough."
The brute, disgruntled, is at least obedient. He lets me go reluctantly. He takes a step back, moves closer to his boss, like a puppy. As if he needed his leash pulled to stop him from pouncing on a piece of steak. How cute.
The boss approaches. He tilts his head, analyzing me. His curiosity has a clinical pragmatism. He says, "You're not afraid of pain?"
I let my head rest back on the floor. I see him perfectly, looming above me. I give him a crooked smile. "It's just sensory information."
He nods, calm. "Our intelligence noticed an interesting development.
The tech company where you work was recently acquired.
A rushed transaction, for a price well above market value.
By a holding company that, if you dig deep enough, has the scent of the Volkovs.
Is that how he controls you, Leonel? With the threat of destroying your civilian life? "
What a pathetic impression. I let out a laugh at the ridiculousness of it. "Threats only work if you have something to lose... I'm sorry, you haven't introduced yourself yet. What should I call you?"
He raises an eyebrow. His brute clenches his fists, surely seeing my question as proof of narcissistic insubordination.
The boss forces a rehearsed smile. "Alexei. Alexei Malakov."
Alexei Malakov. One of the heads of the family's operations. As I recall from past investigations, he's the weight of gold safely kept in a vault.
I know the Malakovs' structure. I've worked for them before, through layers of encryption and anonymous servers.
Never in person. They're different from the Volkovs.
The Volkovs are a trinity. Three points of a spear, where power is concentrated and decisions are swift and usually unanimous, ever since the heart attack that put Kazimir Volkov in a coffin.
Underworld legend says that old Mikhail Malakov and the Volkovs' father, Kazimir Volkov, arrived in New York on the same ship, fleeing the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Partners, at first. Until old man Volkov proved to be the stronger predator and took the bigger slice of the pie.
The history of the Bratva is always the same: Cain and Abel with more vodka and less forgiveness.
Since then, the Malakovs have been waiting for a chance to rebalance the scales: they are a litter.
A sprawling family, full of cousins, uncles, and nephews, all gnawing on the same piece of rotten cheese.
More numerous, but with diluted power. More people means more egos, more betrayals, more incompetence.
At the top of it all, invisible, is the old czar Mikhail Malakov, the patriarch who hasn't been seen in public for years, but whose word is still law.
Below him, the family splits into two heads who hate each other.
The first head is brute force: Ivan Malakov.
Alexei's cousin. The Malakov of the docks, of the containers, of street brawls.
He's the public face of their violence. Primitive, loud, and effective in his own way, with no finesse.
The kidnapping of an asset like me has the look of one of his plays. Direct and stupid.