3. Vasiliy
I’ve barely had time to crack open a fresh bottle and settle in with my liquid dinner when my phone finally rings with the call I’ve been dreading all day.
I let it ring twice. Let the fucker wait.
“Hello, Uncle.”
His response is immediate. Pleasantries are unnecessary, after all.
“I’ve been waiting for an update since your plane landed hours ago. Did you meet with Solokov?”
Unfortunately.
“Yes. He sends his regards.”
He most definitely did not.
“And you were respectable?”
I sigh, lifting my glass to my lips. The vodka burns a track down my throat.
Shittier than what I’m used to, because the apartment I’m renting is shittier than what I’m used to, along with everything else about this situation.
Three rooms, a window that faces a brick wall, and a radiator that groans like it’s dying a slow, miserable death in the wall and wants company.
I can afford better, but wasting money on a fancy apartment I never get to actually enjoy seems pointless.
“Best behavior. Didn’t even blow anything up this time.”
“Vasiliy.” His tone crystallizes, emphasizing the syllables of my name the same way he used to whenever I spoke out of turn as a child.
I guess sarcasm wasn’t a trait that passed through the family gene pool.
Once, as a child, I rolled my eyes at the dinner table in front of his second-in-command.
My thumb brushes the lifted scar on my palm, stretched into my adult skin.
“Don’t forget the reason you’ve been selected for this assignment. You’ve practically dragged the Morozov name through the dust and spat on its honor. Your blood is the only reason I haven’t bothered to press a barrel to your skull.”
“You said to complete the assignment by any means necessary. And that’s exactly what I did.”
I know it isn’t wise to argue with the Morozov Pakhan, even if he is my own flesh and blood, but I can’t stop the excuse from spilling free.
It never does any good. He’s been batting it back across the net for decades, and his backhand hasn’t weakened.
Still, it’s difficult to find a single thread of resentment for my actions in Druzhaba.
I suppose the only string leads to my voyage here.
“What you did, boy, is turn our stable hold of power into a volatile playpen our enemies think they can topple at any moment.” He pauses, no doubt to take a sip of his drink before continuing his barrage.
“Those people you killed were my allies. Do you understand how much it costs to settle up your failures?”
Allies my ass.
The Abelevs were assholes. My only regret is not waiting for more of them to show up to their shitty little club before tossing the grenade. The contract it destroyed had been worth more than my entire decade of service, or so my old Pakhan made sure I understood in the hours after.
“You are twenty-seven years old. It’s time to stop acting like a child, and that starts with your diplomatic presence in Solokov’s Bratva.”
Child. It’s not surprising to hear the condescending term.
Back in Russia, my role was to walk around like a good little soldier, interrogating and exterminating whoever my uncle condemned in the cool dead of night.
To the public, I was a clueless playboy haunting clubs and gambling halls in search of short-term pleasure.
In the harsh hours before dawn, after the city went quiet, I assumed my primary function.
Obliteration.
I was good at it. I am good at it. In my field, they say the best victims make the best interrogators.
My uncle started my education early, tossing me into the basement with his enforcers before I was old enough to understand what I was being shaped into.
It made me stronger. I’ve never managed to decide if that’s the objective or the tragedy.
“Well, Uncle, this specific assignment appears a bit more permanent than the others.” I move to refill my glass, realize I’ve been gripping the bottle for the last two minutes, and put it down. “Maybe you won’t have to deal with my volatile choices any longer.”
I can practically feel the back of his knuckles itching to connect with my cheek.
“You are a Morozov first. Don’t forget your loyalties, boy. You’ll stay with Solokov as long as he’ll have you. A show of good faith for our alliance.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“But I expect regular updates on his plans going forward. And if you even think of draining that offshore stockpile of yours and dropping off the face of the Earth, I hope you remember the asset you left behind.”
As if I could ever forget.
Screams echo against the low ceiling as I slice my scalpel through a new patch of flesh, working my way systematically across the most sensitive parts of the chest below me.
My ears ring from the proximity to the shrieks.
I’m growing tempted to put the gag back in, but that would make it considerably more difficult for him to give me what I’m after. So we endure each other.
Then there’s the judgmental presence heating up my back like a campfire.
Solokov sicced his second-in-command on me, and having a babysitter observe my process is pissing me off more by the minute. I’m not self-conscious. I just work better alone, without someone peeking over my shoulder and wondering if I’m absolutely sure about that incision.
I’m always sure about the incision.
“Would you take a step back?” I finally snap at the massive blond man hovering behind my shoulder. “I don’t swing that way.”
Blood wells against the silver of my knife as I open another cut, precise and unhurried.
The resulting scream vibrates through the empty warehouse.
There’s an art to this that most people miss entirely.
Patterns of nerves beneath the skin that react more strongly to stimuli.
You have to give them just enough to understand what’s coming.
Let the dangling threat of more do half the work.
Ivan’s chuckle trickles through the echoing room. “You don’t, little Morozov? That certainly doesn’t align with the rumors I’ve heard.”
“Please,” the man whispers below me. The sharp scent of piss cuts through the copper in the air.
I pull back, tilting my head. “And what rumors would that be?”
Ivan’s lip tugs up as he scratches his jaw. “I heard you either fuck or stab everything that touches you. Not that I particularly care.” His face folds with consideration. “I remember being young and angry all the time. I think I had slightly higher standards, but…”
The guy tied to my chair releases a dramatic sob. Sweat and tears have turned his face into something almost unrecognizable. I always find that fascinating—how quickly the body abandons its basic composure under sufficient duress.
I can’t help but lean down to play with my food. “Is that how the Nolov family sounded in their final moments?”
“I didn’t want to,” he sobs, his head dropping forward. “I was only following orders—”
“Mm.” I crouch to his eye level, waiting until he looks at me. He tries not to. They always try not to, as if avoiding my gaze will make this any less real. “And who gave them?”
“I can’t.” Another sob. “Please.”
I straighten up and return to my needles.
There’s a particular sound a man makes when metal slides under a fingernail, distinct from every other sound pain produces.
I’ve studied and memorized most of them by now, the way a musician studies notes.
Not because I enjoy it, exactly, but because understanding the instrument makes you better at playing it.
I repeat the process until enough blood is tracking down the drain beneath his chair that I start to consider the logistics of him losing consciousness again.
Having to use the smelling salts a third time is genuinely annoying.
“Okay, p-please…s-s-stop!”
I halt. We do our dance. I raise my brow. He doesn’t answer. I reach for the next needle.
He breaks in the fourth round. They always do eventually. Loyalty is nothing in the face of pain, and I am an expert at pain.
“Federov,” he breathes. “Please. Stop this! I-I can’t take m-more.”
Ivan’s footsteps cross the floor behind me, deliberate and slow.
“Federov sent you?” His voice is all business this time, no doubt filing the information away for later use.
I don’t know who this Federov guy is, and honestly, I couldn’t care less. The man broke; my function here is complete, and I have absolutely no interest in the organizational politics that come after.
“Well, if that’ll be all,” I say, stripping off my soiled gloves and thumping Ivan on the shoulder, “I’m starving. Mind if I head out?” I reach into my pocket, pulling out the pack of cigarettes I picked up from the bodega on my street.
“That shit’s bad for you,” Ivan says with a chuckle, picking up a soiled blade from the table and wiping it clean on his shirt. Disgusting.
My lighter clicks open, flaring as it comes into contact with the tip. The first inhale of smoke fills my lungs, soothing something restless within.
“Don’t smoke in front of the boss or his wife,” Ivan mutters, sliding the blade back into its case and drawing his gun. “They don’t want their kid breathing it in.”
I glance up at the mention of a kid, nodding earnestly as I snuff out the flame.
Fair enough. I don’t want Anya near that shit either.
That’s the main reason I’d never indulged in Russia.
I never wanted her to smell the smoke clinging to my clothes the way it burrowed into Uncle’s Armani suits.
That scent still wraps around me in the dead of the night, five thousand miles away.
“Good work today,” Ivan says, methodically cleaning the barrel of his gun in the same fashion as his knife. I have no idea why he bothers cleaning something, all to get it bloody again. “Check in with the Pakhan later. He has something new for you.”
I’m already moving toward the door.