Chapter 20
TWENTY
IGOR
PRESENT DAY
Iwake up racked with shivers and the taste of dirt in my mouth.
Night has fallen and a fresh layer of snow covers the ground and myself.
With a groan and tremendous effort, I push onto my hands to shift to my knees, the drug making each movement laboured and sluggish.
No light illuminates the few steps between where my brother’s goons left me and the shed.
No sound but my boots on the snow breaks the complete silence around me.
Yet, my mind is loud. Reeling.
Misha and his empire take yet another soul. One more I couldn’t save.
I can’t help but think it’s my fault for calling Julian. The selfish desire to hear his voice, to talk to him that often plagues me got so strong in the face of someone who looked like him, I couldn’t resist. Someone’s life and dignity will be the price for my mistake.
I drag myself to my tiny bathroom, just outside of the shed.
It barely contains my frame. I scrub my skin until the hot water turns ice cold and my heart goes on overdrive.
Despite how many times I pass the brush over my flesh, I still feel dirty.
Skin raw and naked, I brave the cold and step into my space.
The hinges of the door creak as I close the door behind me.
It barely seals, a little off after that soldier kicked it open.
That’s a problem for another day. I get into bed under the thread-bare blanket, and retract into my mind.
Every time I leave the confines of the black void that serves as my protection system, someone dies.
I’ll be more careful next time. I’ll stay in the void where nothing can touch me and others.
“You called?” I ask my brother who doesn’t glance up from the papers on his desk.
I don’t even register the two young women collared and kneeling at his feet. Misha loves submission more than money or any other vice humans might indulge in.
“Have a seat, bratishka.”
The chair creeks under my weight.
Finally, my brother lifts up his face to meet my eyes. His features have turned hard over the years. Granted, I don’t know what I look like anymore. I don’t have a mirror. And I don’t want one.
“We can’t have a repeat of what happened last week,” he declares, and I nod. “Do you even know what I’m referring to?”
“The boy.”
“Yes, the boy.”
“You let me take him.”
“I did, but he was spoken for.” He goes back to perusing the documents, never acknowledging his mistake. He could never do anything wrong. He’s a God after all. “There’s plenty of other choice at the main house.”
“So Arkadi gets to decide now?”
That has his attention back on me. I wish I could read any trace of emotions on his neutral expression. But there’s nothing. Not even contempt.
“Arkadi is a tool, just like everyone else. Choose another boy, or girl. I don’t care, just vet it first.”
“Yes, Pakhan.”
I stand and shuffle back towards the door, never showing him my back as a sign of respect I do not feel.
“I’m not done.
The words echo in the lavish space and even one of the girls at his feet trembles. Misha hisses and slaps her. She doesn’t make a sound. The other girl hasn’t moved at all.
“Things will be escalating soon. I’m scaling our business. I need to know you have your head screwed on, Igor, and that you’re not about to shoot Arkadi or any of my men for stealing one of your toys if I put a gun in your hand.”
I link my hands behind my back, standing at attention like a soldier. It’s only a distraction. A practiced movement so that man I thought was my brother sees me for what he thinks I am rather than the broken and disgusting soul he’s made of me.
Misha sighs and stands, closing the distance between us. His heavy hand lands on my shoulder. We’re evenly matched in height, eye to eye. Two monsters, in different ways. Him the instigator of people’s pain. Me, the bystander.
“We’re about to become untouchable.”
His smile is almost sincere, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Then he frames my face with both hands and brings our foreheads together.
“Everything I built, I built for us. We’ll never have to fear anyone. No one can separate us. No one can come between us. Our family is the most powerful in the world. Nothing can stop us. And we will make the rules.”
The word ‘family’ sends a fresh wave of images into my brain. Lush Mediterranean landscape, azure sea. Blue eyes. Blond strands. The laughter of an old woman. The taste of lemon and coffee in the dead of night.
I try to block them out. Inhale and hold my breath. Blackness and that familiar tiredness replaces the images.
Good.
But soon, they come back. Misha’s plans mean war, and on the board of chess that is the underworld, his main enemies are the Morettis and their coalition of allies.
Julian will be in danger.
After hearing his voice the other day, his name has been on repeat in my brain.
The powerlessness is an all-consuming feeling but for once, I want to fight it.
I can’t let anyone hurt him. Hurt my friends on Kalliste.
Hurt more lives. Something I thought I buried with the bodies of people I tried to save unfurls inside me, vicious and screaming.
I nod to Misha.
He slaps my cheek playfully before returning to his desk, petting one of the girls’ hair absentmindedly.
“Get to the training ring. And Igor? Try not to kill Arkadi. He’s my most loyal and useful man. He’s excellent at procurement.”
I do as I’m told and train with the man I dream of killing with my bare hands.
The asshole knows exactly what he did and that I’ve been forbidden to end his miserable life.
His seedy smirk has me seeing red. I pummel him to the ground until two soldiers have to pry me off him.
And still, through a bleeding mouth, he smirks.
Later that evening, we’re out to the docks to check a shipment—of weapons this time.
It seems my brother is determined to have Arkadi and I work hand in hand for the foreseeable future.
Fine by me. It will be easier to make it look like an accident when I wrap my hands around his throat and crush his windpipe.
“There’s a crate missing,” Arkadi yells behind me. I join him as he gesticulates to the soldiers gathered here and the clueless Harbour officers under Misha’s payroll.
One of them shifts his gaze to another. I don’t hesitate.
I stride to the group, breaking their rank and seizing the thief by the throat.
“I didn’t do it,” he says between strangled breaths.
His friend darts to the side and starts to run.
A gunshot resounds in the large hangar. The officials shuffle on their feet but remain silent otherwise. The rest of the men are used to it and turn their gazes forward after satiating their morbid curiosity and watching the blood pool form underneath the man’s prone form on the floor.
I release the man in my grasp who stumbles on his ass. I’ll spare him.
Faster than I anticipated, Arkadi’s already at my side and shoots him in the head. His skull snaps back, mouth open in shock.
I whirl and take my nemesis to the ground, wrestling the hot gun out of his hand. I manage to turn him on his front and land my knee on his lower back, my other foot on his neck.
“Is that how you like to fuck, Igor?” he taunts. “You only had to ask.”
Everyone laughs around us until I cock my gun to the back of Arkadi’s head. “Next time you kill someone without my express command, you’ll be the one in a pool of blood. Got it?”
He doesn’t answer so I shoot him in the shoulder. He howls and the group of men looking on finally shut their mouths, unease spreading from them, tangible and reeking of fear. They snap back at attention, their faces grave.
I make eye contact with all of them. Many try to avoid the violence blooming behind my irises, I can see the sweat bead on their foreheads and the erratic drum of their pulses at their necks. Let them be reminded why I’ve been called the Undertaker for three years.
“Help him clean up,” I command two soldiers who jump at the order.
Then, I finish reviewing the shipment in peace.
I already know Misha will fucking love the drama. Arkadi is too valuable for him, but violence is my brother’s currency and I just paid my tithe.
Despite the crates being full of unregistered weapons, the paperwork takes me another forty-five minutes in the small cubicle office made of plastic, installed by the entrance of the hangar.
I’ve seen the two officials before. Their greed keeps them silent as I take my time to review all the forms and make sure all is filed properly.
When I’m done and I step out, I signal for the men to transfer all the crates to a truck waiting outside.
I supervise while they work, a prickling sensation at the base of my neck keeping me on edge.
Arkadi is sulking in the front seat, sending daggers at me with his hateful eyes, his shoulder wrapped in a bloody rag.
I’m the one smirking now. His rage could almost make me feel alive if I cared enough.
I know he wants to kill me. He’ll never get that privilege. It’s reserved to me and me alone.
One day.
At least today’s about weapons and not people.
I watch the soldiers pile the goods onto the waiting truck. Their eyes are trained on their task, working diligently. I’m used to them not making eye contact, but something’s not right. I narrow my eyes, trying to recognise the features of the men in front of me.
Misha has quite a few people working for him, but his shipments are precious, no matter the cargo.
“You,” I point to one of the men and signal with my fingers for him to come to me. He glances at his comrade by his side, and now I know for sure they’re not supposed to be here.
“Yes, Igor?”
No one calls me by my name.
To anyone in my brother’s Bratva, I’m ‘Grobovshchik’.
“Who’s your brigadier?”
Even the best trained soldiers have tells. The slight tightening of his lips tells me he doesn’t know. I whip my gun out of its holster at my back.