Prologue #2
Shrugging her hands off my shoulders I stand to my full height.
That doesn’t deter her though. Quinn simply adjusts herself to my side as if it’s her right to be there, as if it’s her place to be next to me.
She’s been making herself a nuisance since my wife’s death.
She calls it consoling, I call it exhausting.
“Sergei,” I say, still looking at Helana’s grave.
“Yes, Niko,” he responds from behind me
“Tell me about the suspects.” Turning around, I walk toward my SUV where my driver is already waiting in the driver’s seat. I don’t bother to acknowledge anyone here as I leave. Not even my father, my family or hers.
I don’t want their repeated condolences.
I want my fucking wife and none of them can bring her back to me.
Sergei and Quinn walk briskly beside me, trying to keep up with my long strides.
“We have three that we think are good—”
“Think?”
“Know,” he clears his throat. “We know that they are good leads. They are a small Irish mob, but I don’t think they are the big fish.”
“I will find out today, that’s for damn sure.” It’s a fucking promise. Sergei holds open the back door, I climb in and Quinn tries to get in after me. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Her face turns red as she start to stumbles over her words, “I just thought you would need company.”
“I don’t,” I say roughly.
Quinn has been trying to stick to my side like glue for days now.
I’ve known Quinn just as long as I have Helana, but we are, by no means, friends.
We all grew up together since all of our fathers are prominent men in the Bratva.
Only Helana and I are considered royalty in our world, while Quinn’s father is a self-made man.
Her father has been overseeing the relationship with the Japanese Yakuza for the past three hundred years.
Yielding the Bratva immense profits consistently year after year.
This has allowed the Bratva to expand our business across country lines and has since been recognized as one of the Bratva’s leaders.
We were all twelve years old when we met at Sergei’s father’s— my Uncle Igor’s— wedding to Sylvia.
If I’m being honest with myself, that’s probably when I first fell in love with Helana.
Even then, she shone brighter than the sun.
She and Quinn were instant friends because their fathers were great friends.
If I wanted to hang out with Helana, Quinn had to be there too, and that’s how we became the dreadful trio.
Lately, Quinn has been crossing lines. Imposing herself in spaces she has no business in.
Like now.
“She was my best friend, Nikolai, I deserve to be included,” she argues from outside of the car, the sound of her voice grating against my eardrums.
I scoff. “Keyword, best friend. I’m her fucking husband. And if you can’t understand what that means, I’ll explain it to you. It means I determine who is included and I have decided you are not important enough. Close my door, Sergei.”
He does.
***
We pull into the abandoned warehouse that’s located in an old pocket of a long forgotten Russian village.
It and the village have been abandoned since the mid nineteenth century, when we transitioned from the Industrial Age.
The village is destitute and so is the warehouse that was once used to house grains.
I take a deep breath before my driver lets me out of the car.
The warehouse’s basement smells putrid, but I continue my descent down the stairs. Already I can smell their fear and can hear the chattering of their teeth from here. Sergei must have them in an ice bath since the temperature in the hall is warm.
Sergei opens the door to the large room and as suspected, the three assailants are in large barrels filled with temperature controlled water.
They all sit there with their eyes closed.
There are silver rolling trays lining the walls with different torturing tools, but I won’t be needing those for today’s session.
I walk up to the first guy and notice his lips are chapped and tinted blue. “How long have they been down here?”
“For two days.”
“How long in the water?” I ask, as I walk over to the next one.
“A few hours.”
“Hm.”
I stand in front of the last one assessing him while I put on my black gloves before I pull out my nine millimeter Crossover and unclip the magazine. The sound makes him open his light green eyes.
Human.
All of them are.
With widening eyes, he watches me closely as I create shadow bullets and load them into the magazine with steady hands. I feel nothing. I haven’t felt much of anything since I watched her die. Since I watched her eyes stare into nothingness.
Since I became nothingness.
Click.
Pop.
The bullet lodges between his eyes. Four seconds later, his head explodes. The other two men squirm in their water baths at the turn of events. Good. Information should flow out without much prompting now.
I move to the guy that’s to my left. “Do you need any more motivation?” I ask, tilting my head down to him.
With chattering teeth, he shakes his head no.
Excellent. “Tell me what I want to know.”
“What do you want… to know?” He asks with a thick Irish accent.
“Who ordered my wife to be killed?”
“It was—,” he cuts himself off, licking his lips. I motion Sergei to turn up the barrel’s temperature. If this guy’s chattering gets any worse, I might kill him by accident out of annoyance. “It wasn’t personal.”
“But it was, wasn’t it?” I place the Crossover to his head and he splutters.
“I-I owed some Italians from a shipment gone wrong. They said if my guys took care of this hit, we would be even,” he says as his teeth chatters less now, but his deep blue eyes stare down the barrel of my gun.
“I was told to kill the driver and shoot up the café. I promise we didn’t know who was inside that café. ”
“Who was the Italian who gave the order,” I turn the Crossover sideways.
“Emilio, Emilio Rocci. Please I didn’t know your wife—”
Pop.
Like before, his head explodes after four seconds. This time it lands on my face and my black suit.
I flick some of the loose flesh from my jacket. “Any last words?” I ask the last guy, not bothering to wipe my face.
He mutters a chant, maybe a prayer. It goes unanswered as the last shot rings out and more brain matter sprays across the floor.
“Sergei, give me everything about Emilio within the next two hours. And I do mean everything. It better be so detailed that I have the times and places when he took a piss and a shit. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Niko.”
Solnyshko, I will paint this world red for you. Make sure you watch me do it.