21. Laszlo
I’d been looking forward to the date with Lyn all day, and Bodrov had to ruin it the second I stepped into the penthouse. It was something important, and the man obsessed with vengeance should’ve been thrilled. Instead, I was annoyed.
“I have a bad feeling. You shouldn’t go.” Lyn looked up at me, pleading in her wide eyes. She was wearing the most stunning floor-length gown that accentuated the perfect curves of her hips, the slenderness of her torso. She was radiant, her warm scent pulling me closer to her.
“I always have a bad feeling when I have to go with them.” My coat settled heavily onto my shoulders. I hated leaving her alone. “Before I go, c’mere.”
I went to one of the modern paintings in the main hallway and swung it back. Inside was one of my hidden safes, and I tapped in the code, making sure she was watching.
“Rurik is coming with me. I’ll be getting you some of your own guards.
” I was in talks with brothers, Aleksei and Ilya, about being her personal guards.
They were shestyorka that handled odd jobs but weren’t part of the bratskaya.
They could be trusted, were as decent as anyone got in this job.
No records of domestic violence for either of them.
“For now, this is for your protection.” I removed the taser from the safe, and pressed down on the switch on the side, demonstrating to her how to use it. The top sparked to life with an intense electrical surge.
“It’s compact, so you can tuck it most anywhere.
If someone ever tries to make you do anything you don’t want to…
slip it against them, and hit this button,” I explained, as I took her dainty hand and wrapped her fingers around it.
“It won’t kill them, don’t worry about that.
Then leave it on the charging panel when you sleep at night. ”
She tested it, zapping the air, and my heart picked up speed. She’d never seen a taser before, but she wasn’t afraid of it, or of what it meant to use it, and that made all the feelings I was denying stir.
How could a petite woman, barely up to my chest, be so fearless?
“I will not let anyone hurt you. That’s my promise. And the best way to do that is to teach you how to defend yourself,” I said.
She set it down on the console table next to the door, her troubles not easily set aside.
“Will you text me to let me know you’re okay? I meant it today, Laszlo. I miss you. Even when you’re here with me, I miss you.”
She was right. Ever since her little confession, I’ve pulled away from her, tried to find some way to purge her from my mind.
Driving used to help me clear my mind, but now I just remembered how she’d change the music every time something aggressive came on, or how she’d intentionally get lost just to see if she could navigate her way back to the penthouse.
She accepted my offered hands, her skin warm in mine. We were a shocking contrast. She was alive, brimming with energy and warmth.
I was a haunting spectre, living on borrowed time.
For her, I would learn to be something more than just a shell.
“I’ll make it up to you. How about I take you to the farmer’s market and pick up some fresh food this weekend?”
Excitement lit her face, and her radiant beauty was like a divine gift from god.
“I would love that!”
I wanted to kiss her. To have some memory of her body on mine that wasn’t wrapped in pain.
Absent-mindedly, I licked my lips. She watched, her blue eyes tracing along my mouth.
“Lyn…”
“Yes, Laszlo?”
I couldn’t leave her without telling her the truth. As much of it as I could muster.
“I want to kiss you so bad it’s been killing me.
Every moment away from you is pain and the only thing that makes it better is when I find a part of you lingering on me.
A hair. A whiff of your perfume. I look for any reminder I can have of you and that’s not enough.
I need more. But I’ve already taken more than I could ever deserve. ”
She pushed up on her tiptoes, inches away from me. I was frozen in place for a moment, but then my hand lifted.
I stroked her cheek, my thumb caressing her soft skin as the distance between us shrank. She was responsive to my every movement, and then my mouth was on hers, and hers was on mine.
She tasted sweet, like forbidden fruit.
Passion sparked to life between us. Everything we’d denied ourselves and each other over the past month flared bright. My other arm went around her, pulling her into me. She gasped, her body yielding, her hand squeezing my arm.
I kissed her lower lip, my eyes closing as warmth spread between us. She shocked me with the intensity of her hunger, how she pressed into me, arms around my neck. I held her against my chest, kissing her as the world dropped away.
When Rurik knocked at the door, we both startled out of our embrace.
Her lips were swollen, and her eyes twinkled.
She was happy.
I wanted to seize upon that joy, but it would have to wait.
Something important was going down, and I could taste my stars. The higher I rose in the Bratva, the better I could protect her.
“I’ll miss you,” she said, and I planted another bruising kiss on her sweet lips. I didn’t understand why she didn’t hate me, how she didn’t fear me, but I would die before I hurt her again.
Even seeing Rurik couldn’t steal away the heat in my veins. He opened the door of Bodrov’s armoured G-Wagon. He was in the back, and behind him was an unfamiliar blonde man in a bespoke suit. He was refined, and the eccentric pattern was memorable.
That meant he was Bodrov’s Avtoritet. His superior. I recalled his name from my research as Urvan Fortov. I’d never met him, and it wasn’t like they had a member’s directory website. The Bratva did things clean, though, and wouldn’t send anyone else to oversee this. It had to be him.
It was only the lingering taste of Lyn in my mouth that soothed my frayed nerves.
One of Bodrov’s guys was driving, and Rurik joined him in the front seat as I sank into the oversized rear seats.
The SUV was like a massive fortress on wheels but it drove as smooth as silk.
If I were blindfolded, I wouldn’t know we were moving.
The windows were tinted; nobody could see us as we cruised the city streets.
The blonde said nothing. His presence needed no words to be felt.
“Everything okay, boss?” I asked.
Bodrov’s brigade was in deep water. Their earnings had been dwindling. The baklany Bodrov vouched for were all more interested in petty crimes and dick swinging contests than in money. He was sailing a sinking ship, and I was there to pillage it before it hit the ocean floor.
“The guys upstairs are taking an interest in who is earning my brigade so much cash,” Bodrov finally said. His gaudy shirt was too small, bought a decade ago, and as he turned to face me, the buttons strained. It contrasted to the poised man that accompanied us. “I can’t quite vouch for you yet.”
Most of the time, he was all smiles with me. Even when he was dancing around, questioning my sexuality and masculinity, he was pretending to be jovial. He knew how much I was earning him. The serious tone put my teeth on edge.
“What more can I do? Nobody else has earned you seven figures in a week before,” I said, taking on an unaffected air.
“You think it unfair I ask so much, da?” Bodrov said, giving a bit of a smile that was more like a sneer. “You have blood ties to the Bratva, but your Hungarian blood complicates matters.”
That was an excuse.
What set Bodrov off was that he didn’t understand me. I wasn’t some typical boyevik, shaking down old shopkeepers for protection money. If Bodrov had any vision, he’d have sent my names up the ranks to the Obshchaka.
That was why I initially chose Bodrov’s brigade. He was old school, and didn’t understand technology. What I did was computer wizardry to them, and he didn’t trust my spell craft like the superstitious peasant he was.
His greed made him stupid enough to not question my methods, but suspicious about vouching for me. The Avtoritet’s presence was a good sign that the higher-ups had noticed me in spite of Bodrov.
This test would determine if all my years preparing for this infiltration would pay off.
Arkham was large, split in twain by the Miskatonic River. We were drifting over the bridge, into the industrial part of town.
Most of the factories were closed up a decade ago, left to decay. Rust ate away at the buildings, discarded vehicles and personal belongings littering the ground. Tents were pitched in the dark recesses.
It was a playground for those who got hard off violence; they came here to prey on those who had nowhere else to go.
Destitute homeless people. The ones discarded by family, friends. The ones the government ignored until they were a crime statistic. Then they became part of the prison slave labour force, or got ditched in a mortuary until they could ‘lose’ the body without raising any suspicions.
“What do I need to do?” My voice was steady.
The warmth of Lyn’s kiss had dissipated.
All that existed was my mission.
I needed my stars, and this was the next step.
“I am glad you asked,” Bodrov replied.
We pulled over next to an alleyway. A poor man, swaddled in several coats to protect himself from the elements, was the lone inhabitant. Fog clung to him like a miasma, his laboured breathing sending uneven bouts of steam into the air.
“Bratva means more than earning,” Bodrov said. He puffed up with pride, glancing to the blonde for an approval that never came.
He took out a sleek pistol. I suppressed the chill that went down my spine. I knew how this one ended. They wanted leverage on me. My fingerprints on a murder weapon.
The memory of Nikolas’ death still clung to me. The sizzle of his flesh, the relief I felt when he’d gone limp. That was the first time I killed a man, and in that, I had made the world a safer place.
One less monster.
Bodrov didn’t abuse children, but he knew what his brigade was up to. He knew how to control them. He didn’t turn a blind eye; he filed it away as a pressure point to press when he needed it.
That was his problem with me. He knew I was soft on Lyn, but that was benign. I had no vices, nothing he could exploit, and that made me dangerous. A liability. The Avtoritet needed to trust that he could control me, but I was a spectre.
He needed something solid.
Blackmail material.
Something to keep me in line.
It wasn’t time for me to speak, so I didn’t. The anticipation was getting Bodrov excited, and I would not steal it from him.
“We have a bond of blood. Our common blood, yes. Which you have some of.” He took out a silencer and screwed it onto the tip of the pistol. “But a bond of blood spilt too. You have been a good boy. Better than my own sons, even if you are a bit fancy.”
He flipped the gun around and extended it to me, handle first.
“It’s time you became a man and prove that you are one of us. Completely.”
He’d already turned me into a monster when he made me ‘prove myself’ with Lyn.
What I wouldn’t give to take the gun and unload it into him. For putting me in that position in the club, for letting his last moneyman get away with raping children, for the parties with drugged and abused women.
For all the sins he’d committed and will commit.
My phone pinged. Someone was leaving the penthouse. Damn it, Lyn! I couldn’t afford to seem distracted, and instead of my phone, I took the gun, my hand steady.
“It gets easy. But the first time is over fast. Point, and squeeze the trigger, da? No pulling. Be prepared for a kick. Then it’s all done. We leave. And you are one of us.”
It took me over a decade to get to this part of my plan.
I had been patient.
Years of scheming, of laying tedious groundwork.
My reward would be to get access to the Pakhan’s private vault of information. To solve the biggest mystery of my life. To find out what happened to Lilien. To restore the gaping hole in my heart.
She deserved a headstone, a memorial. She deserved to know that one member of our fucked-up family loved her. That even though she was only twelve when she was taken from me, I never stopped looking for her.
And that I would bring down the entire Vasilyev Bratva.
“He is no one. Nobody will miss him. Nobody will know he is gone.”
Is that what they said about Lilien?
Nikolas Alexander was dead, but the men who allowed him to abuse children still breathed. What I’d done was a drop of water in an ocean, but those ripples would spread. When my plan came to fruition, it wouldn’t be ripples, but tidal waves.
One mistake now would mean it was all for shit.
I had to kill another man.