Chapter 45
Nearly all of the intel we have gathered over the past couple of weeks has been thin.
None of it leads us directly to Vartan. To make up for that, we have been running the streets red, eliminating them one by one, taking backs our territory, and forcing him into hiding.
Tonight, we are going after the man he made his lieutenant.
Hopefully, tonight we find Vartan.
Kiska, a strip club that recently reopened a few months ago, is a greasy stain on the city.
There isn’t a cop within five bureaus who isn’t aware this place is riddled with money laundering, drugs, and prostitution.
It is nearly closing, late enough that the usual crowd should have thinned out by now.
Even the bouncer has left, no longer standing sentry at the front door.
The smell of cheap perfume, stale smoke, and desperation hits me the second we push through the doors.
After passing down a narrow hall, we enter the main room of the club.
The stage lights are dimmed, and as expected, there are only a handful of stragglers inside.
Three men occupy a gathering of chairs near the stage.
One has a young girl between his knees, zealously sucking his cock.
The man beside him has his pants splayed and his small, but rigid, cock in hand, grumbling impatiently that the girl is taking too long to finish sucking off his friend.
Fuck… They don’t even use a back room…
I move like a shadow, without any hesitation.
The man with the girl sucking his cock never sees me coming.
I pull the trigger with my muzzle inches from the back of his head.
It blows out the front of his face, dropping him immediately.
The aftermath of his exit wound splatters across the back of the girl beneath him.
She screams, and the raw sound curdles my blood.
“It could be worse, sweetheart. He could’ve finished,” I grouse as Enzo wraps a hand around her wrist, hauling her away from the mess.
He is gentle with her, as if he fears he might be the one to break what is left of her.
Shepherding her toward the door, he gives her money and a card for our club—access to a very different life.
Two left.
I raise my gun again as Alek steps in front of the two of them.
His jaw is tight, a mask of controlled fury, when he hisses, “Which one of you assholes is Vartan’s right hand?
” He’s still pretty fucking pissed about being left for dead.
He rests his pistol against the now-flaccid cock of the man who was previously fisting himself.
His eyes blow wide, and I can practically smell his fear of losing his tiny cock.
My eyes flicker between the two of them, waiting for any sign of confession.
“Emin?” I add, and Mr. Tiny Cock begins blubbering.
Not because of the gun aimed at his manhood or Cillian cracking his knuckles as he readies to readjust the man’s face, but out of sheer weakness.
His eyes dart to the man on his left for a mere second.
Alek presses the muzzle of his gun a little more firmly between the man’s thighs, and he blurts, “Him. It’s him.
Not me—” The admission is useless, doing nothing to save his life.
Or his manhood. Alek pulls the trigger, and a scream unlike any I have heard fills the room.
As much as he probably deserves to bleed out, I put a bullet in the back of his head just to shut him up.
Grabbing an empty chair, I pull it up next to the last man standing and croon, “Hello, Emin.” He’s a small, portly, beady-eyed little man. Not at all what I was expecting. Desperation and anxiety radiate from him, even though he tries to maintain a stoic demeanor. “We’ve been looking for you.”
“I don’t know where to find Vartan,” he blurts, his Armenian accent thick.
A laugh rattles from behind me, and Cillian scoffs, “You really fucking suck at this. We didn’t say shit about Vartan.”
With his friends slumped dead in the chairs beside him, we decide this is as good a place as any to get the information we need. Cillian uses his body like a punching bag, leaving him with at least a few broken ribs, but he doesn’t give up so much as a word about Vartan’s location.
Sometimes old-school methods work best…
Untying his shoe, I slide it off and toss it behind me.
His sock follows next. Holding his ankle firmly, I press his foot firmly to the floor and place the muzzle of my gun flush with his pinky toe.
“How does it go? This little piggy went to market?” I fire without warning, the tiny digit practically exploding from his foot.
“You have nine more reasons to start fucking talking.”
Emin finally breaks, screaming his surrender right before I take his fourth toe. “He left the city days ago.” The words spew from him like vomit. “When you started getting close.”
“Where do we find him?” Enzo snarls.
Wincing through the pain, he continues, “He’s running everything from a cabin in Orange County.” I watch for lies—his pupils twitch and sweat beads along his hairline—but the coward in him is honest. “You’ll never get near him. He’s too fucking paranoid. He only lets his closest men near him.”
“That’s you, isn’t it?” Cillian leans forward, a devious smirk pulling at his lips. “Then I guess you’d better get cleaned up, because we’re going for a fucking ride.”
Enzo tosses a tiny first-aid kit at him from behind the bar.
He opens it and does what he can to wrap up Emin’s foot with the two tiny rolls of gauze and Band-Aids he finds within it as we quickly formulate a plan.
It’s a haphazard one, based solely on questionable intel from a man trying to save his life.
And his toes. But… better than losing a cock.
I pull my phone from my pocket and fire off a text to Hawk.
We are heading out of the city. All of us.
Please keep an eye on Madison and Eavan too until we get back.
HAWK
Of course. Anything you need.
When we haul Emin from the chair, he groans in agony as we shuffle him toward the door.
The neon lights spill onto the wet concrete as we drag him to Enzo’s G-Class.
We shove him into the backseat, between me and Cillian, both of us keeping our guns fixed on him while Enzo grabs zip ties from the trunk.
Once Emin’s hands are secure, I tuck my gun into my waistband and pull my phone back out of my pocket. It is going to take us a few hours just to drive back and forth from Orange County, and I don’t want Ani to be worried when she wakes up and I haven’t made it home yet.
Sorry for not being there when you wake up. I’ll be home as soon as I can.
I love you.
The three words feel final. Like I need to say them just in case it is the last time I get the chance to.