Chapter 21 Nadir #2
I slam him into the wall, clenching the knife at my side. Killing him seems too easy, not satisfying enough. It would be an easy escape for Taro. Suffering is short-lived when you stab someone in the chest, a few seconds at most.
I need Taro’s suffering to last forever.
“I always knew you were nosy,” I say, shoving him again into the wall. “You need to be careful sticking your nose into business that doesn’t concern you. One day you might lose it.”
“I might be scared to lose a nose, but what you’re afraid to lose is so much worse,” he says. “You’re afraid to lose Jess and the children, who you just recently found out were yours.” He narrows his eyes. “Jess is good at keeping secrets, isn’t she?”
“You don’t know anything about Jess. All you know how to do is stalk the poor girl, and you haven’t been having much luck with that, have you?”
Taro snorts. “I wouldn’t exactly say that, Nadir. I managed to sneak into the school. I bet you a thousand bucks you couldn’t do that.”
“You don’t even have a thousand bucks to bet.”
“Hm. We’ll see about that,” he says, getting closer.
“Unlike you, I’m good at performing. I can move my face in lots of different ways.
” He raises and crunches his eyebrows in demonstration like a fucking clown, making the lines on his forehead appear more prominent.
“What can you do with your face?” He keeps his eyebrows raised, and another disgusting smile spreads across his face. “You only have one.”
“One is all I need.”
“The power of deception, my friend.”
“We’re not friends,” I growl, shoving him again into the brick wall.
He cackles, clearly more fucked up than I thought if he likes being pressed up against hard surfaces.
I clench my jaw, letting his words sink in. He knows how to perform, goes on and on about the power of deception. All that tells me is that he used Jess. Put on an act to win her over.
“What did you want with Jess before?” I ask, keeping a tight grip on him.
His hair’s receding. According to my sources, the man isn’t even forty yet.
I still have a full head of hair, and I’m not exactly a spring chicken.
I can’t imagine how stressed he’s been over the years.
First he loses Jess. Then a couple years later, he starts begging me to merge businesses with him.
He’s murdering people now, and you risk a lot when you start doing that—it increases your chances significantly of being caught by the cops.
Murder is the riskiest thing a Bratva leader can do when he doesn’t have the money to pay off the charges, or find loopholes.
This is why Taro’s aging fast. Stress. It’ll kill him in a few years time.
If I don’t get there first.
His eyes look hollow, and the shadows hanging under them are darker than the ones closing in on us now as the day grows late.
“I think you know what I wanted with Jess.”
“Spit it out before I fucking make you.” I slam into his groin again. “Tell me.”
“I wanted a pretty face to work with. To use to my advantage. We both know what it’s like when you’re first starting out, wanting to make something of yourself.”
“No,” I tell him. “I don’t know what it’s like.
You already had an established Bratva. You simply stepped up and took over.
I built my empire from nothing and I’m still more fucking successful.
” I have to laugh. It’s embarrassing on his part.
“You do a terrible job of leading, Taro.” Another laugh rumbles out of me.
“Which is you’re brownnosing me everyday, desperate to leech on and take my money. You don’t have any yourself.”
Having enemies means you’re doing something right.
I think about that now as I press Taro harder into the wall.
This right here is the motivation eighteen-year-old Nadir needed when he was working hard through the night, running dry on motivation.
When other people want to take your money, you know you’re the best in your field.
A smug smile toys with my lips, but it fades when Taro opens his mouth again.
“It will be interesting to see if you’re still laughing when I have Jess and the children.”
I go cold to the bone, the memories of living in Mattapan gone. I grip the knife in my hand as I look Taro square in the eye. He never loved Jess. He took one look at the girl, worked out what she was missing in life, and gave it to her.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Jess has been missing her entire life. No one searches for home and safety more than an orphan.
“I get why you’re keeping them under your roof,” Taro says.
“What the fuck are you talking about? They’re not under my—”
“Now’s not the time to play dumb, Nadir. We both know you’re not.”
Playing dumb gets you far sometimes, as I’ve already established.
“I squeezed the truth out of Maureen when she was staying with us. She told me Jess and her kids were staying in your penthouse. She spoke of them fondly, actually. Said the kids were a breath of fresh air.” Taro adjusts himself against the wall.
“She was also hoping for you to show up. She had faith in you, Nadir. She thought you were coming to save her. Imagine her face when it was getting dark, and you still hadn’t shown?
She was furious with you.” He has the audacity to reach out and flick my chest.
I see red.
And then the knife is cutting off his finger.
I only refocus when I hear him yelping like a wounded dog.
I space out for a second, my mind twenty seconds behind the rest of my body. My vision eventually straightens again, and I see blood.
And it’s going all over my fresh suit.
“Blyat.” I click my teeth and step back, trying to work out where the blood is coming from. That’s when I realize my other hand is closed into a fist, blood trickling down the knuckles.
I peel it open and see Taro’s severed finger in my palm. The one I just chopped off.
Anger makes me dissociate. But that’s not my problem. If Taro wants to aggravate me, he has to face the consequences. And he got off pretty fucking lucky. I could’ve severed something else. Something in his pants which, come to think of it, can’t be much bigger than the finger I’m still holding.
“Give me that.”
I retract the finger and sniff a laugh. “Where are your manners?”
“You’ll pay for this.”
“Give me your worst. You might know where Jess and the children are, but you will never take them away.”
Taro growls, clenching his hand into a fist as blood drops to the ground. A substantial amount. “It will be easier to take them than you think.”
“If I hear another word come out of your mouth, you lose another finger.”
“Hmph,” he says. “I must say, Nadir, I’m with you on wanting to keep the triplets in your apartment where it’s safe. Jess has a bad reputation when it comes to looking after children. Keeping them safe.”
I curl my hand into another fist and prepare to strike.
“She’s very overprotective of them, don’t you think?” he says. “It’s because she almost let her best friend’s child burn down their house.”
“Thanks for telling me the full story, Taro,” I chuff. “Nice of you to leave out the part where you got involved.”
“I got involved for good reason—because I saw a business opportunity,” he says.
“Jess just so happened to be caring for her best friend’s child.
And she chose me over the child at that moment.
She could have shut me out, told me to go.
She even could have called the cops on me—at that point, I had no leverage to use against her.
But Jess didn’t do any of those things. She heard me out.
I told her everything she needed to hear, and she fell right back into the trap I set when we first met in the park.
Because that’s exactly who she is, and who she will always be. Weak.”
My knuckle cracks as I flex my other hand into a fist.
“If you don’t believe me, I’ll email you the video evidence.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Oh yes it will,” Taro says. “It’s one thing to have your business destroyed by enemies. Another to destroy it yourself. We have our differences, Nadir. But I would hope you know better than to self-sabotage.” He turns the other way, heading back onto the main street. “Good day, Nadir.”
I watch him go. He waves a cocky hand at my team in passing as they approach the dead assassin.
My phone buzzes. I slip it from my pocket, and there it is—the video attachment from Taro. I glance up, watching him pocket his own phone.
Son of a bitch.
I can’t let him get hold of Jess.