Chapter Seven - Akim
“Did you think we wouldn’t notice our shipment being taken? I saw you on camera stealing our shipment of guns. And I tracked you to your filthy warehouse. Care to explain?” I demand quietly to a shaken-up Kevin. One of my men removes the gag of thick, braided rope from Kevin’s mouth, but leaves his hands tied behind the back of the flimsy chair.
We’re on the South Side of Chicago in one of our hidden warehouses, locked in a basement. Nobody’s going to come looking for Kevin in this neighborhood; it’s known as a crime-infested block and even the cops don’t want anything to do with reported 911 calls from here. It pays to have an insider like Jeff to keep us in the know.
My associates are fully equipped to handle any nosy people from the outside regardless.
I’m getting tired of these pop-up raids. We’ve been dealing with a few nasty Mafia factions working against us in Chicago, but what’s new? Most of them fizzle out after some time. They don’t have the manpower, resources and cunning of the Bratva to take hold of this city. We’ve got a chokehold on the city and always will.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this. I swear, please,” Kevin begs. I despise beggars more than I despise thieves. That I can respect. The Bratva is built on thievery, but this dummy was stupid enough to steal from me and get caught. Snot runs down his nose as I snicker, the bright lights of the old warehouse shining brightly on him. I’ve purposely changed the bulb to a megawatt, so it heats up the room. Beads of sweat trickle down his face, and he’s already peed himself. This is Kevin’s time to shine, and I plan on giving him the star treatment.
Moving closer, I bend until I’m inches from his mottled, disgraced face. “Don’t you work for the Genoveses?”
“Yeah, yeah, and what about it?” Kevin sniffs as I play a game with him, his body trembling so much the chair is shaking. Finding a tissue, I hold it in front of his face with a grin. I want to pretend to give the man enough dignity to wipe his nose, enjoying my little joke.
“Hmm. What about it?” I hiss down his ear, knowing full well he can’t grab the tissue. I confuse him by untying his hands and giving it to him. Baffled, he takes the tissue not understanding what’s behind its meaning. I’ve already stowed his gun away, and he would be a fool to try and run.
The warehouse is hard to find, the neighborhood won’t care about his screams, and he has no vehicle to escape in. I might as well give the man his last glimpse of freedom before I shut the light of his life down completely.
“So what?” Standing up, I pace around his chair as he swipes at his nose, guns pointed from multiple directions at him. Scoffing, I cross my arms, studying him. He’s a solider, probably a captain by the looks of it. “I tell you what it means…. Your boss is shortchanging you. He doesn’t have the capacity to source his own guns. No connections,” I explain calmly, planting seeds of despair and doubt in his measly head.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We don’t do those types of dealings. You stay on your side, and we stay on our side. We’ve never had any problems with the Russians before,” he lies, his foot tapping on the ground.
“That’s funny you should mention staying on your side when the footage clearly shows you stealing my guns, directly from my motherfucking warehouse, Kevin,” I reply, the rageful monster taking me over. Kevin’s face becomes redder as he holds his ground. He can’t worm his way out of this one.
“I told you; I had nothing to do with that. It’s dark, and it might look like me, but you’ve got the wrong guy. Don’t do this, Akim. We can all get along in the city. Can’t we?” His plea falls on deaf ears as I sigh.
“I’ve got the right guy, and I don’t get along with men who take from me. You see, I’m possessive, Kevin. And you’re a shit liar. If you would have admitted your sins, you might have stood a better chance,” I lie. I would kill him even if he did give up the Genoveses. Based on principle, and the Bratva would never condone my actions if I let a known enemy loose. “You’re only making it worse for yourself. Did the Genoveses think they could take from me and get away with it? Is that what this is about?” A drip from the tap behind us sounds off, leaving it to be the only sound in the building.
“Come on. I can work it out with the guys, and we can cut a deal. You’re not going to miss the shipment of these guns. You know you aren’t,” he has the audacity to propose, but it’s my fault—or rather a setup. I’ve let him think he can speak freely. He probably has some warped hope that he’s getting out of this basement alive. I laugh so hard, the corners of my eyes crinkle.
“Did you hear this?” I slap the arm of my armed associate next to me as he sneers with Boris on the other side of me. I raise my right hand, flinging a solid backhand across his face so it knocks him clean to the floor. “You’re even more stupid than I think you are, Kevin.” I stoop down to his level as he tries to crawl away, blood dripping from his mouth. “It has nothing to do with what you stole from me. It has more to do with why you did. I’m a man of principle, and I stand with the Bratva. You should have come to me like a man first to cut the deal, but you didn’t. You chose your death wish.”
“Man of principle! Fuck off, Akim. You shoot Marvin in cold blood! Where was the principle in that?” he shrieks referring to me shooting one of his foot soldiers for being too close to my delivery.
“Get up.” Kevin’s fear and astonishment at my request leads him to stay still as I rise to my feet. When he doesn’t flip his chair up, I stand with my polished black boots next to his head, the imminent threat of kicking his head in enough of a warning for him to listen to what I say. “I said get up.”
“Okay, okay, I heard you.” Kevin struggles to his feet, a large red imprint on his cheek as he upturns the chair I sent him flying from. Grinning, I shake my head, winding down the game while he wipes the blood from his mouth, glaring at me. “This isn’t going to end well,” he informs me, still running his mouth. “The Genoveses are out to get you, and shit’s going down in this city.” He spits up blood, and my hand stinging from the backhand, but it was sure worth it. “The Bratva can’t last in this town. You weren’t the first here in Chicago, and you won’t be the last,” he remarks in bitterness.
Sliding my hands in my pockets, a wave of cool calm washes over me. It’s always this way before I murder a man. And it’s likely from seeing my father murder a man in cold blood at the full age of nine. That was my first initiation into a less ordinary life, nothing like the small, delightful village my mother raised me in.
“I don’t think you’re in the best position to tell me what’s going to end well, Kevin. And the Bratva doesn’t do too well with threats. These factions don’t stand a chance. Don’t you know who I fucking am?” I scold him like the dummy he is.
“You can’t prove I took your stuff so why did you bring me in here?” he whines.
Dragging my phone out of my pocket, I shove the video footage of him with his ski mask on, breaking into our warehouse in front of his face. “Tell me. This isn’t you.”
He squints pretending to play dumb as I drag out his death. This is the fun part, but only when I’m in the mood for it. Tonight, I happen to be in the mood. “Nah, you can’t tell that’s me or my crew. We didn’t do this. You’ve got this wrong, big guy.”
I feel sorry for Kevin. If I were in his position, I would probably do the same, denying everything to my dying breath, and it’s in the code of the Bratva. You don’t tell. You shut up.
“Are you sure? Because this guy looks a lot like you.” I speed up the footage to the section where he takes his mask off, and his dumb ass stares right into the hidden camera I had installed years ago. Smart decision on my part.
Shocked, Kevin reels at the footage as my associates snicker, and the end of Kevin’s life draws to a closing curtain. “Nah, nah, you still can’t think that was me. There’s a lot of guys in the city that have my features,” he fumbles, but the fear of death lingers in his eyes.
Arching an eyebrow, I pick up the heavy weight of the diamond cross he wears around his neck. “It’s a shame you forget to tuck your chain in. It was a dead giveaway. Lights out, Kevin.” I’m done playing with him but don’t want the blowback of blood splatter on my freshly polished shoes. I walk forward twenty paces or so, turning to shoot before he can defend himself.
Lights out. Night. The shot rings out clean, the bullet carving a neat, round hole in the middle of his chest.
Kevin attempts to flee, getting up from his chair, but I shake my head, finishing him off with a follow-up bullet to the head. He tumbles to the floor, falling flat on his face. Coldly, I pivot, signaling to my cleanup crew to get him out of here. In a matter of hours, it will be as if the man never existed, and we were never here.
It’s later than I wanted it to be once I’m done, but the sun still wants to provide daylight, despite being overcast. I drive back to the office, switching to my favorite tunes—orchestra music. I find Beethoven soothing to the soul, especially when I’ve cleansed my palate, and it’s a distinct change from the music I listen to in my clubs and bars. I want to smile, but troubling thoughts and sleepless nights about the mystery woman from Sky Lever are keeping me from sanity. It’s unusual that my team haven’t located her yet.
Parking in the underground of my penthouse, I carry on to my home office, partially satisfied with my work for the evening. I have paperwork to catch up on before I go for a walk through all of my clubs and bars for the night. It’s a good thing I have explementary management in all of them, and I follow the same rules I trained Ryurik to follow—this being to have all the names of their children, friends, and acquaintances in case anybody falls out of line.
As I wade through the emails, eating a sandwich, Boris enters. “Boss. We’ve got a problem.” I’ve learned not to panic over the years when I’ve been told that. Another lesson passed down to me by my stoic, cunning father. Slowly, I keep chewing, wiping my mouth with a napkin.
“What’s the so-called problem?” I inquire.
“Your computer was hacked, and the database. We don’t have intel on the hacker yet, but the entire system has been shut down and rebooted. Cybersecurity has passed on the message just now. We should get ready. It’s hard to tell what could be retrieved in such a short span of time, but hey, who knows.”
Placing my sandwich down. I immediately know who did it. The young woman. The fragile little seductress virgin who tricked me into dropping my guard and bringing her back to my penthouse. It had to be her, but how?
“My computer only? No others? I ask, wanting to be certain.
“Yes. You got ideas on who?”
“Yes.” Narrowing my eyes at Boris, I nod. “And you know who she is as well.”
“The girl from Sky Lever,” he replies in doubt, catching on to my line of thinking. “Her?”
Twisted intentions are normally my game, but she beat me to the punch this time. Well played. Well fucking played. “Yes. Her.”
It all makes sense now. The heavy head, and me losing track of time. She must have drugged me and tapped into my phone, or something else.
“Okay. I’ll make a start on finding her. But why would she be stupid enough to do that?”
“I’m sure there’s a valid reason, and that’s up to us to find out.” Simmering with rage, I do my best to keep my cool.
“You betcha. Explains that funny headache you had, doesn’t it?” Boris bringing up my incompetence only fuels my desire to find the courageous little she-devil, and part of me wants to be impressed, but she couldn’t have gotten much in such a short period of time.
If she would have been in the system for longer, it could have been devastating for us, and it would be a shame that I would have to kill a woman as pretty as her.
“It does,” I reply, the catastrophic probabilities hurtling towards me quicker than I want. “Find her, Boris, and do it quick. This one’s too cunning for her own good.”