20. DANTE #2
"Seven," I say. "He was still blinking when we decapitated him. The head was last. And you're telling me you snitched because of a fucking picture ?"
He sobs.
"Almost twenty years under our protection, Sal. And all the Malakovs needed was to show you a picture for you to forget all that."
He stutters, makes a choked sound of crying and panic. I'm barely able to understand what he's saying. "D-Dante, please... I've always been loyal..."
And he calls me Dante . The intimacy he thinks he has the right to use makes me nauseous.
I grip his jaw tightly. He lets out a terrified grunt, trying to merge with the wall, and his skin reddens. I feel his bones at my fingertips.
"You don't call me Dante, you pathetic little shit," I say through clenched teeth, forcing him to look at me.
"You traded a boy who would do your job with his eyes closed and one hand behind his back to protect yourself.
He's worth ten of you. Look at the fucking time you're making me waste, Sal. You have no way to repay that, huh?"
He tries to move his head. I hold it so it hurts. He cries like a bastard.
Sal has been under our protection for so long that Svetlana placed him as one of the last items on a list of suspects—people with internal access to our systems. He knew my father, for fuck's sake, had a degree from the best university in the United States paid for by my family.
A poor skinny kid from Brighton Beach making a living because of us .
We always knew Sal was a coward. He doesn't participate in violence, he cowers in heavy meetings, and he's never carried a weapon. But this was seen as a quality for his job. No one needed him to be a killer, just to be loyal.
I let go of him with a shove, but I don't step away.
"You're going to tell me where they took him," I say.
I pull one of his wrists close—thin, pale, and weak.
He trembles, tempted to pull his hand away.
I squeeze it. "The address. The security details.
Everything." I slide my hand to his pinky finger.
I hold it between the joints. The bones are thin.
"Or I'll break this finger. And then the next.
And the next. Until you can no longer type a single line of code for the rest of your useless life. "
His hand shakes. I hold it firmly, pressing his pinky upward, listening to him breathe fast and heavy.
I lean in. "Where is he?"
"A warehouse!" he screams immediately. His voice breaks with intensity, and he continues, choked, "Newark! Near the shipyard! I'll give you the address! I know the security flaws, I know how it works!"
He spits out the address, the coordinates, the details about camera positions, all in a desperate torrent of information. I let him speak.
When he finally falls silent, gasping, looking at me with miserable hope, I squeeze his finger a little more.
"Good boy, Sal."
I press. The sound of the bone breaking is dry.
He only screams when I move away. I straighten up, smooth the lapels of my suit—this time, not covered in blood.
"That was for wasting my time."
I leave Sal writhing on the floor, holding a crooked finger against his chest, pressing it as if it would help somehow. I turn to Luca. I nod at him, and he walks to the sobbing wretch on the floor.
"Please... Dante... please..." Sal groans.
I open the door. Luca pulls him up by his shirt and carries him like a sack of potatoes behind me.
"Let's go for a walk, Sal," I say before lighting a cigarette.
I lean into the front seat. The leather creaks. Sal flinches, even though I haven't touched him. I ignore his pathetic fear and press the cold barrel of my Vektor against the base of his skull. He lets out a low whimper.
"I'm going to tell you what happens now, Sal," I whisper.
"In one minute, you're getting out of this car.
You will walk, not run, to that security booth you see.
You will go inside and use your master code to put the system into maintenance mode.
That will shut down the perimeter sensors and put the external cameras on a five-minute loop.
Five minutes, Sal." I press the barrel harder.
"My snipers are already in position. They are aiming at you right now.
If you hesitate, if you mistype the code, if you even think about triggering the silent alarm…
the first bullet won't go through your head.
It will go through your knee. The second, through the other one.
We will leave you crippled in the middle of that yard for your Malakov friends to find. Am I clear?"
He tries to nod, a jerky, spastic movement. "Y-yes, Mr. Volkov."
"Good." I lean back. "Luca."
Luca unlocks the doors. He opens the passenger side and pulls Sal out of the car without any ceremony, tossing him into the light rain.
"Go," Luca growls.
Sal stumbles and begins his lonely walk toward the security booth, pulling a sleeve down to cover a crooked, swollen finger.
Sal's panic in the interrogation room was productive.
He gave us everything, thinking it would buy him a forged pardon.
The warehouse is a nearly legitimate front facility in the territory of the Malakovs' second-in-command, Alexei Malakov.
Discreet on purpose. Few guards on the perimeter so as not to draw attention, but with a robust internal formation.
Dmitry confirmed it with satellite imagery.
All we needed was the human key to unlock the door. And there he goes.
I pick up a tablet that mirrors the feed from one of my snipers. The green crosshairs rest on the back of Sal's head.
I have two snipers on opposing rooftops, with clear sightlines to all entrances and exits. With me and Luca is the assault team, ready for infiltration. A third containment team is waiting for the signal two blocks away, ready to block the streets and cover our exit if shit hits the fan.
In my ear, Dmitry's voice, our eye in the sky back at the base, is calm. " East rooftop sentry identified and eliminated. But there's atypical movement in the back lot. An unmarked transport van just arrived. "
A van. In the middle of the night. In the middle of a war.
Alexei wouldn't risk a valuable shipment now. A changing of the guard would use passenger cars.
I watch Sal through the window. The pathetic figure walking too slowly, eating up precious seconds.
"I want eyes on that van," I say into the comm. "If the back door opens, snipers have a green light to shoot the tires. Immobilize the vehicle."
" Understood ."
Sal finally reaches the booth. His hands are shaking so badly he can barely hit the keypad. The sniper's green crosshairs remain fixed on his neck. A single command from me and his mediocre existence would be over.
" He's in ," Dmitry says.
The wait is torture. Ten seconds. Twenty.
" System status is maintenance ," Dmitry's voice finally announces. " Service door is open. You are clear for entry. "
I don't wait another second.
"Luca. Let's go," I order, already pushing the Escalade's door open.
We step out into the rain. The distance between our blind spot and the back service door is a hundred meters of gravel and open yard.
Sal exits the booth with the stupid relief of having survived his pathetic walk. The relief is short-lived. Luca reaches him first. One hand clamps over his mouth, while the other spins him around and shoves him against the wall of the booth.
"You make a sound, I'll open your throat right here," Luca whispers to him.
My focus is on the door. Sal is just baggage now. We drag him with us like a reluctant guide, the barrel of a gun pressed against his back.
We reach the door. One of my men, Marco, picks the lock with a tension tool. The click is almost inaudible. The door opens with a low creak.
We push Sal inside first. If there's a trap, he'll trigger it. There isn't.
The warehouse interior is cavernous. It smells of metal, dampness, and diesel oil.
It's quiet, with a distant hum from a generator and dripping from a puddle somewhere.
We move in formation, using the stacks of crates and old machinery as cover.
We can't alert them or we risk them executing Nyx before we get to him.
Sal is trembling so hard his teeth are chattering. Luca holds him tightly enough that he's forced to stay quiet.
We reach a fork in the corridor. Two identical metal doors. I press the blade of my knife against Sal's throat. He freezes.
"Which one?" I whisper.
He raises a trembling hand and points to the left door.
"Are you sure, Sal? If you're wrong, I'll cut out your tongue and leave you to bleed out here."
"I'm sure. It leads to the secondary storage wing," he stammers.
Two guards at the end of that hall, near the next junction. Stationary. Talking.
I make a hand signal to the team. Two targets. Me and Luca.
We move. Their discipline is a joke. Their backs are to the corridor, one of them laughing at something. Complacent.
I make no sound. I approach my target from behind.
I clamp my hand over his mouth, muffling any sound of surprise as I sink a combat knife into his kidney, once, and then into the side of his neck.
I let his body convulse for a second before it goes limp.
I lay him on the ground without a sound. The blood stains my fingers.
Beside me, Luca does the same to the other. Two dull thuds on the floor. It's over.
Sal, who was forced to watch, gags into his hand. Luca pulls him along by the collar, not caring about his obvious struggle not to vomit.
We keep moving forward. Sal points us to the final room: a reinforced metal door in the middle of a hallway. Four guards.