Chapter 4 Kirill
KIRILL
My body responds to her in a way I’ve never felt in this situation. To chasing her. To holding her. I’m hardly out of breath from running, but I can’t control my lungs as I hold her to me. Tight.
My cock is twitching with interest as I breathe in her rose scent.
It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t. Even though the last time I was spontaneously aroused by a woman I was in my twenties.
What the fuck am I going to do with her? The options scroll through my mind as I carry her to my car, hand clamped firmly over her mouth, her legs bashing against my shins as she tries to squirm free. She barely weighs anything.
I should pay her off, threaten her. Many in my position would kill her. She’s seen my face, the mask, and what I was doing.
The street is silent and empty. My discreet grey SUV with armour plating on the inside obediently blips unlocked as I near. A nudge with my knee, and the back opens revealing a big clear space, with plastic laid down. I didn’t expect blood, but I don’t want DNA in my vehicle.
She spots the sheet and begins to sob and twist in my arms, and she’s right to be scared. Bad things happen to people who go to second locations.
I should know. I’m the one who does those bad things.
“Stop it,” I say in a dark undertone as she fights me. “If I wanted to hurt you, you’d already be in no position to prevent it.”
She stills at that.
My heart twangs.
The logical thing to do is secure her mouth shut, bind her wrists, and put her in the back. I trap her between my legs and the edge of the car, and reach for the tape I left for the purpose of securing my victim.
She vibrates with fear as, with one hand, I draw a length of tape. Just a bit smaller than I’d use for my usual victims. And I nearly do it, almost out of instinct.
I look down at the tape in my hands. Putting it over her soft little mouth and that beautiful silky hair is unthinkable. Like drowning a kitten.
She’s far too lovely to hurt that way.
Before I can think better of it, I reach up and grab the sleeve of my T-shirt. It rips along the seam. A second tug and it’s hanging on my forearm.
I stuff it into her mouth and do the same with the other arm. The loop fits perfectly over her head, fixing the make-shift gag in place.
Her ankles I secure together with tape, and the same with her forearms. Then, against my better judgement, I put her into the passenger seat and clip her in, taking her phone and pocketing it for later.
I take a deep breath as I look down into her eyes. Blue. Wide. Terrified.
Compelling.
I force myself to step away and do what’s needed. The corpse of my victim has bled, which is inconvenient, but I chuck him in the back.
My second-in-command answers on the first ring, sounding a bit shocked.
Usually I email, managing my mafia territory remotely.
Hacking into accounts and stealing millions from those who can afford it, slipping through digital cracks and leaving unseen.
Technology makes this shit easy. I have men to maintain the order in Blackfen and ensure no-one deludes themselves that a geek working alone is vulnerable.
Power comes in lines of computer code, these days. But my hobby—vigilante killing of people who hurt children—spreads far beyond my territory of Blackfen, and I prefer to deal with it in person.
“There’s blood on the ground where I’ve sent you a pin. Bring some men and clean it up. Let me know when it’s completed.”
“Yes, Pakhan.” His reply is prompt and includes the honorific of a bratva leader. I can’t remember when someone last called me by my name—Kirill—rather than Pakhan, or Blackfen.
I hang up, and pause before I return to the front of the car, and the girl.
I’ve done terrible things. I’ve been the police, judge, jury, and executioner. But I’ve never been responsible for an innocent girl with a curvy body, shiny brown hair that smells like roses, and wide blue eyes.
I spend far too much time online for this sort of real-world problem. I’m attracted to her, but she’ll be a loose end. A liability. At the very least, I should drug her.
I don’t do either of those things. I get into the driver’s seat, and instead of going to Blackfen, within London, I find myself heading out of London to my estate.
I tell myself that’s an easier place to dispose of my prematurely acquired corpse, but honestly, I know it’s because if I took this girl to my house in Blackfen—my London territory and the centre of my operations—I’d have to decide where to put her.
The basement would be logical, since that’s where all “guests” stay. But my instincts say it’s wrong.
At my country house, she can sleep in a spare room and scream all she likes without being heard. There’s no one around for miles.
She’s given up struggling, which is smart, and since usually my victims are unconscious at this point, there’s no reason for me to be discomforted that she can’t talk.
And I should focus on driving.
I reach over, and tug her gag out of her mouth, and her sound of relief is like a wash of sweet, cool water.
“What am I going to do with you?” I grumble aloud.
It’s odd, the anger I often feel towards humanity for being capable of the cruelties and stupidities large and small isn’t in the pit of my stomach where I expect it.
Instead, there’s the lightness that only comes after I kill a victim.
Weird.
“I didn’t see your face!” she blurts out.
“Oh lapochka.” Why am I calling her that? It seems right. “You just revealed to me that you saw my face.” I tap the steering wheel. “Now I really can’t let you go.”
I’m gleeful. Elated. My heart lifts in anticipation.
“I haven’t!” she insists.
I glance across at her. She’s exceptionally pretty, even when scared and tearful.
“What’s your name?” Not knowing anything about my captive makes me itch. She’s a puzzle, and I love solving puzzles far too much for my own good.
“What’s yours?” she shoots back mulishly, defiant despite her fear.
“That’s a terrible idea.” The less she knows about me, the safer she is.
“Well, I’m not telling you mine, either.”
I shake my head. “Lapochka it is then.”
“What does that mean?” she asks in a small voice.
Darling. Sweetheart. Cutie. It’s an endearment for a loved one. A girlfriend.
I go for the literal translation, though I’m not sure whether that’s better or worse. “Little paw.”
“Oh.” She’s clearly baffled. As am I. Why I’ve chosen to give her a sentimental nickname is beyond me right now.
“What were you doing out so late?” I demand instead.
“I work at a pub,” she says in a small voice. “I have to clean up before I can leave.”
Relief that she’s old enough to work in a pub wars with irritation that she took such a risk. I scowl.
“It’s not safe walking around London in the dark.” Anything could have happened to her, and that doesn’t sit right with me.
“It’s perfectly safe when there’s no murderous man in a mask,” she says under her breath. “I haven’t got the money to pay for a cab every night. And someone’s waiting for me,” she adds, too loudly and like she’s only just thought of it. “They’ll know I’m late and will call the police.”
She can’t lie at all. Interesting.
“There’s no one waiting for you.”
She tugs at her taped hands, mouth set in a line, and my heart squeezes.
“Why did you kill that man?”
“Because he deserved it.” He actually deserved to die much more slowly and painfully, and normally I’d be furious that I was denied that. Strangely, I’m pretty calm about this turn of events, like this girl is a balm to the dark creature in my soul.
“Why?” she asks cautiously.
“He hurt children.” I’ve never directly told anyone the reasons I do this, and I have a sense of weightlessness as I admit it.
“Why kill him rather than—”
“I didn’t plan to,” I interrupt her.
“You looked like you knew him, and you came prepared.” She gestures at the tape holding her.
“I was going to kill him later. You forced my hand.” I don’t know why I’m justifying myself.
“This is my fault that you murdered someone and kidnapped me?!” She sniffs. “Way to victim-blame.”
I grin. “The victim was to blame, yes. By pulling off my mask he hastened his demise. But he got off lightly.”
There’s a silence, just the sound of the car and her wriggling in her seat, subtly trying to get herself free.
“What were you going to do with him?” she asks eventually, as though she’s been rolling the question around in her head.
“Keep him in the basement and persuade him to tell me about all his friends and victims.”
The whites of her eyes flash and it’s clear she understands that means torture.
Mostly people seem to imagine me skinning or dismembering, which isn’t my style.
I don’t want to have more than the minimum physical contact with them.
I prefer the use of tasers, pepper spray, and other hands-off techniques.
“You keep bad company.” She shakes her head thoughtfully. “Why not just take him to the police?”
“Well, you could call it a hobby,” I say.
“Killing people is your hobby?” There’s disbelief in her tone. “Stamp collecting too exciting for you?”
“I’d describe it more as part of my hobby.” We’re leaving London now and the sky is blacker and less yellow from streetlights.
“Sky diving is available. Very stimulating and with a risk of…” She circles her hand awkwardly.
“I’m not into throwing myself out of planes. I prefer other people to be afraid.”
“You could get a really tough-looking dog?” And despite the genuineness in her question, I have the oddest feeling that we’re bantering. Maybe even… Flirting?
“Admittedly similar to my hobby in some ways.” I smile humourlessly. “But dogs don’t deserve me.”
“I guess not. So you keep people captive, torture them, and then kill them.” Her voice is remarkably level. She’s controlling herself impressively.
“It beats train spotting,” I quip.
“Do you enjoy hurting people?” She sounds almost afraid to ask the question.