Chapter 6 Victor
VICTOR
The light from the bank of screens around me glows, casting shadows in my otherwise dark room.
My eyes dart back and forth between the computer monitors, narrowed in concentration while I work on my task.
I have various security feeds from nearby the whorehouse up, and I meticulously scan through every bit of footage, scrubbing any hint of me and my brothers and that girl we didn’t kill from a wide perimeter around the place.
I’m the most comfortable like this—in front of my computers, laser focused on a task. No chatter in my ears, no one asking questions. My fingers fly across the keys, and anytime I pick up a sign of that girl or one of us, I make sure it’s gone.
Ransom always calls it ‘boring as hell, with maybe one or two exciting parts thrown in,’ but there’s something comforting about the repetitiveness of scrubbing data.
I have to be thorough, and that scratches an itch somewhere in my brain.
“If we fucked up, then we fucked up together! As a team!”
Ransom’s voice breaks through the calm in my mind for a second, and I’m dimly aware of him and Malice walking into my room, mid argument.
“It was a mistake,” Malice growls, his tone agitated. “I should’ve just shot her like I planned to.”
I ignore their heated back and forth, tuning them out enough to keep doing what I’m doing. My eyes flick from one screen to another, and I narrow my gaze as I lean forward a little.
It’s hard to tell if the person in the coat hurrying from the bus stop in some footage I picked up from earlier this evening is the girl, but just to be safe, I delete that snippet of the recording and then keep going, tracking through more of it.
“That’s not the fucking point!” Malice explodes, his voice breaking through my concentration again.
“How is it not the point, Mal? She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not her fault.”
“And what if she can’t hold her shit? What then?”
“You already told her what happens then,” Ransom says. “She heard you, Mal. She knows we’re serious. I don’t think she’ll say anything to anyone. And if she does… we’ll deal with it. But she didn’t deserve to die for being in a bad situation outside of her control.”
Tuning them out again, I refocus, getting drawn back into the images on the screens. They continue to argue, but it washes over me like white noise, buzzing in the background. If I couldn’t work through one of Malice and Ransom’s arguments, then I’d never get anything done.
Considering how different their personalities are, they don’t actually butt heads strongly all that often, but the two of them arguing isn’t anything new.
Ransom is more easy-going than I am, but he can be stubborn when he gets his mind set on something, and Malice has a hair trigger temper, so it just happens.
Of the three of us, it’s the two of them who are more likely to not see eye to eye. Malice and I are twins, and maybe that comes with a sort of… link. A bone deep connection that lets us understand each other, even when we disagree.
Ransom is also younger than we are by a couple years, and Malice and I both know that he hasn’t gotten as fucked up and fucked around by life as we have.
There’s a general understanding between the two of us that we want to keep it that way, so we look out for him to keep him from ending up too much like us.
That means more disagreements, though.
It’s part of the reason Ransom was so determined to let that girl go tonight. Killing her in cold blood right after learning that’s why Nikolai killed our mother would have fucked Ransom up emotionally for a long time.
Malice was protecting our brother as much as the girl when he let her go, even though it was definitely a risk to let her leave the brothel. Hopefully, she’ll be scared enough of Malice’s warning to keep her mouth shut. Otherwise, Mal will deal with her, Ransom’s feelings on the subject be damned.
My fingers keep moving across the keys, and I finally work back through enough of the footage that there’s no trace left of any of us.
I nod with satisfaction, and it’s like that itch has gotten scratched even more, knowing that the job was done and done to perfection.
No trail left behind for anyone to find.
I turn around in my chair, cutting my brothers off mid argument.
“It’s done. It’s like we were never there.”
Malice nods, still looking on edge. His arms are folded over his chest, and his jaw is tight.
“Good. That means there’s no digital evidence that we were at the whorehouse,” he says, flicking a glance at Ransom. “But there’s still a witness. She could go to the cops.”
“Why would she talk to the cops?” Ransom shakes his head. “She was in a brothel, about to get dicked down by a Russian criminal. I’m pretty sure the law isn’t her best friend.”
“It’s unlikely,” I say, cutting in before Malice can. “But possible. What we did is a bigger crime than prostitution, so she could decide to report it and make a deal for immunity.”
Malice works a hand over his jaw. “Or she could sell us out to anyone who cares enough about Nikolai to come looking for who killed him.”
Ransom grimaces, worry glinting in his eyes. “Yeah, but we don’t even know enough about him to know who that would be.”
He’s right about that. When Ash O’Donnell from the Kings of Chaos came to tell us who was responsible for our mother’s death, I searched every database and site I could for information about Nikolai.
But it was like he was a ghost, keeping his digital footprint so light that I couldn’t dig much up on him at all.
I tap my fingers together, an old habit.
“Still, it’s possible. And more likely than her going to the cops.
We don’t know who Nikolai had connections with, and if any of them put a bounty out, she might decide it’s worth it to take it.
People don’t tend to work in whorehouses because they have a love for the job. ”
“Meaning she needed the money,” Malice says.
I nod, and Ransom looks between the two of us before sighing heavily.
“Okay fine. You’re right. We can’t just blindly trust her to keep the secret. So what do we do about it?”
Malice shoots me a questioning look, and I take a second to think before I speak.
“I could go set up cameras in her apartment,” I offer. “Her address came up when I ran a search on her earlier. It will let us keep an eye on her.”
“Good. Do it.” Malice scrubs a hand over his jaw. “It’s the best we’ve got right now.”
I glance at Ransom to see if he’s going to have some argument against this plan of action, but he doesn’t say anything, so I nod.
The two of them watch me as I go to my closet and grab one of my cases for my equipment. Everything has a place inside of it, and the case is lined and padded to make sure nothing gets damaged in transit.
I know everything I need is there, but I double check it anyway, making a satisfied noise when I see that it’s all organized.
“I’ll be back,” I tell them. Then I head out, making my way down to the first floor and heading for the modified garage.
One of the benefits of our chop shop is we have room for all the vehicles we like.
Where Ransom and Malice tend to like theirs showy and full of power, I have something more efficient.
My Supra is dark and sleek, and the leather seats are just the right texture when I slide into the car, slinging my case onto the passenger seat.
I type the girl’s address into the GPS and make the drive to her apartment.
It’s late enough that the lights are out in all but a couple of the units in the building, but I move quietly anyway, gripping my small case in one hand. When I reach the front of the run down building, I snort softly at the fact that someone has propped the main door open with a rock.
Saves me having to pick that lock to get in, I guess.
The elevator is out of order, but I wouldn’t have taken it anyway. Instead, I move for the stairwell, keeping my footsteps light as I climb toward her apartment.
The hallway is silent except for the muffled sounds of someone’s TV a little farther down the corridor. It’s late, so that makes sense, and there shouldn’t be any unexpected surprises.
Letting out a soft breath, I squat down in front of Willow’s apartment door, taking out a lock pick and jimmying it into the lock.
A shitty place like this won’t have a delicate or sophisticated system for keeping people out of apartments, and I’ve done this enough times that I know the movements by heart.
I slide the pick in and up, jiggle it twice, and then one more time. Then I press down and…
The lock opens with no sound at all, but I feel it when the handle gives under my hand.
I allow myself a little smile at that, pleased.
Lock picking is a precise thing, and when it works out the way I played it out in my head, it’s very satisfying. There’s a logical order to it, and it should work the same way, every time.
In an otherwise chaotic world, having those little things that work like constant rituals makes me feel calm in a way I can’t quite describe.
I ease the door to Willow’s apartment open, pleased when it doesn’t creak, despite the shitty rusted hinges it’s on. I slip inside like a shadow, closing the door just as silently as I opened it.
My brothers and I run a chop shop now, but we’ve done plenty of breaking and entering too—especially with some of the jobs we’ve had to do for X. No job for him is too small or petty, so all of us have a well-rounded collection of skills to break out when we need them.
Creeping through Willow’s apartment is easy, and practice has me instinctively stepping over places where floorboards usually creak and give intruders away.
I skirt her furniture and put the case on the couch before flipping the lid open, going right for the compartment where I put the tiny cameras I’ll need for this.