Chapter 26
The passenger doorof my car swings open and then slams shut with a definitive thud as Pavel slides into the seat next to me.
“Fuck, it’s cold.” He blows into his hands while rubbing them together.
Outside the windshield, snow continues to fall, blanketing the neglected industrial area in a pristine white blanket.
“That’s what gloves are for.” I spare him a quick look, noticing his fleece checkered bottoms. “Are you wearing pajamas?”
Pavel reaches forward and jacks the heat in my G-Class Benz. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I would have gladly waited the extra five minutes for you to change,” I say.
I keep watch on the silent building. About an hour ago, we got a call from the man Pavel had assigned to keep an eye on Anatoly. The Petroviches have plenty of other clients, but they’re all respectable business people for the most part, so a meeting like this—under the cover of night and in a derelict warehouse on the wrong side of town—raised a red flag.
“So, what did I miss?” Pavel jacks the temperature once again.
My patience already thin, I swat his hand away, lowering the temperature back to where it was. “Anatoly is still in the building. I can’t tell how many are in there with him, but there’s a few vehicles parked around the side.” I pick up the binoculars from the middle console and scan the building once again, but there’s still no hint of movement.
Pavel takes the binoculars from me and does his own visual sweep. “Seems pretty quiet.” He gives me a look that I don’t know how to interpret. “Did Liza say anything else about that dinner he dragged Sofiya to?”
My jaw clenches. “We didn’t talk about it, to be honest.” Because we had other matters to keep us busy.
In my bones, I know there’s something deeply fucking wrong with Anatoly, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it one way or another. Preferably, before he marries Liza.
It’s been less than a week since we came back from London, and Liza has been on my mind way too fucking much. I keep replaying the night—her tied up and spread wide, just for me. How she tasted, and the way she fell apart under my touch. It took everything in me not to surge forward and fuck her like my life depended on it. She wanted it, too.
So what stopped me?
I needed to be sure she was spreading her legs because she wanted to, and not for money or because she thought it was the best way to keep me from spilling her dirty little secret.
“So, how was London-town?” Pavel tries to put on a casual tone and fails. “We never did get to talk about your time playing bodyguard.”
I roll my eyes. “Nothing to report.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that’s true.” Amusement colors Pavel’s tone.
I have to restrain myself from pulling a gun on him. “Nothing that concerns you,” I say, irritated.
Pavel’s lips twist. “Really? Because I’m gonna be honest; you’ve been a cranky bastard since you came home from London.”
I grind my molars together, well aware he”s right. I just hoped it wasn”t so damn obvious that my head was a mess.
Liza can tell herself that she’s perfectly happy marrying Anatoly, but I know what I’ve seen—the way her hands shake when she speaks to him, the bruise on her face, or how she had to fight back tears when she told me that Anatoly is her choice.
She has reasons for going through with the marriage, but they are rooted in fear and desperation. If she wanted my help, I’d give it to her, but I’m not a man who begs. And she’s made her choice.
Beside me, Pavel releases a harsh breath, forcing my mind back to the present. “You’re really keeping your quiet about this, huh?”
I release a heavy sigh. “Trust me. It’s not that interesting.”
I’d also rather not be lectured on why getting involved with Liza is such a shitty idea. I know it is. Even if both Pavel and I suspect Anatoly is crooked, we’re still locked into a multimillion-dollar business deal with him.
“If you say so.”
“Shouldn’t you be focused on finding Hope King rather than worrying about who I’m lusting after?”
That shuts him up for a good second or two.
Hope King is the daughter of Lai King, the leader of the Black Company, a Triad we recently went to war with. During the attack on King’s hideout in Switzerland, Pavel was stabbed by the young beauty. He could have easily taken her down, but he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to shoot her.
Lai King offed himself before he could face our wrath, but Hope vanished without a trace after the attack. She’s a loose end that we need tied up because, as the heir to the Black Company, she could rise to power and mobilize against us. Who wouldn’t want revenge after we took down her father?
Which is why Pavel is tasked with finding her and dealing with her—whatever dealing entails.
He runs his tongue over his front teeth. “Trust me, I haven’t forgotten. She must be laying really fucking low because she’s vanished like smoke. I have all of our best people tracking her, but so far, not even a sighting.” His mouth falls into a hard line. “She’ll make a mistake eventually, and when she does, I’ll be waiting.”
“You better be. We don’t need a second coming of the Black Company.” Warring with them once was enough.
Pavel fiddles with the radio a bit. Checks his phone. Picks up the binoculars, looks around, and then puts them down again. “God, this is fucking boring,” he announces. “Think this meeting has to do with the delayed shipment?”
I sit back in my seat, itching for a cigarette, but the glow would draw attention and that’s the last thing I need. “Doubt it. This looks like something else entirely.”
In the end, our shipment was delayed a few days because of bad weather. Not unusual, but Anatoly had committed to a strict schedule. He was sure his team had secured the best shipping routes and could make up time if needed. I’d like to believe he oversold and underdelivered, but my gut tells me there”s something more.
The doors of the warehouse swing open, and one by one, men exit into the dimly lit parking area. I recognize a few of Anatoly’s guards, but the rest of the men are unfamiliar.
Pavel releases a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned. It’s a party.”
He reaches for the binoculars, but I shoo him away.
“Use your camera,” I tell him. “Get a few pictures while you’re at it.”
My focus sharpens as Anatoly steps out of the building, his presence commanding even from this distance. He clasps hands with a man I don”t recognize. The guy is tall, with dark hair, and well-dressed in a suit and a finely tailored trench coat.
“Who the fuck is that?” Pavel murmurs, focused on his phone.
“Beats me. We have connections with everyone worth knowing in this town, but I’ve never seen that guy before.”
The hair on my neck rises. I don’t have a good feeling about this.
Anatoly and the other man exchange a few words and shake hands before they each turn and slip into separate chauffeured cars. Only two men remain, seemingly unfazed by the chill as they light up cigarettes. The orange tips flare in the darkness, puffs of smoke mixing with the steam from their mouth. They share a joke, their laughter reaching us despite the distance.
“What are these two up to?” Pavel squints into the dark.
“Not sure.” I slip my gun from the middle console into the back of my jeans. “But I’m thinking we should introduce ourselves.”
Pavel lowers his phone and smirks. “It would be inhospitable to do anything else.”
I pressthe drill head tighter against the blond mudak’s knee as beads of sweat pour down his face. Usually, I’d build up to the drill—it’s more of a mid-negotiation kind of tool—but fuck it, I’m not feeling charitable at the moment.
“Cut the shit,” I say. “Just tell us who the fuck you are and what that meeting was about, and we can all save ourselves some time.”
“I-I don’t know anything,” he sputters. “I’m just the runner—I swear on my mother’s grave. They don’t tell me anything.”
I grunt, irritated. “It’s better if you don’t assume I’m an idiot. A reminder: it didn’t go so well for your friend over here.”
His eyes dart nervously towards his counterpart, who’s lying face-first on the hard concrete floor of the warehouse. The asshole pulled a knife on me, which resulted in a shot to the head. Fucking novice.
The man pales to a sickly green. I sigh, moving the drill from his knee to over his dick. I don’t think I’ve ever drilled into someone’s dick before, but hey, there’s always a first.
“Are you fucking crazy?! Get away from me,” he screams and struggles against the ropes binding him tightly to the chair.
From a few feet away, Pavel scrunches his face in distaste as the guy starts to whimper.
“You’re young to lose your dick,” I tell him, even though he won’t be walking out of here alive. “You probably haven’t used it much in your short life. I don’t know who you’re protecting, but it’s not worth losing genitalia over.”
“You don’t fucking understand.” He’s trying to keep his shit together, but he’s shaking like a leaf, his bravado long gone. “They’ll do way worse if they find out I talked. You might as well just kill me.”
Pavel and I exchange a look. Well, this just got a hell of a lot more interesting.
“What’s your name?” I demand.
His eyes dart down to the drill and then back up to meet my hard stare. He swallows thickly, sweat pouring from his forehead. “Artem,” he rasps.
“Nice name.” Pavel nods. “This guy over here is Roman Vasiliev. Surely, you’ve heard of him.”
Artem’s eyes bug out, and he looks like he’s about to piss himself.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. He’s a little off on the best of days, but he’s really lost his shit recently. You see, there’s this girl he can’t have, who he really, really wants?—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mumble.
Pavel only glances up at me with dry amusement. “As I was saying, he’s got a really persistent case of blue balls, and it’s making him pretty mean. So, if I can make a suggestion”—Pavel pauses, his light hair glinting under the fluorescents—“it would be not to worry about your future; worry about the here and now.”
With that, my friend slips a pair of brass knuckles onto his right hand and lands a powerful punch to Artem’s solar plexus, causing him to double over and wretch.
Good. Let him puke his guts out and rethink his stance on keeping quiet.
“My balls are fine,” I whisper-hiss at Pavel. “So how about you mind your own fucking business.”
I wish it was only a case of blue balls—that’s easy enough to relieve. Getting laid isn’t the issue; the issue is that my dick will accept one person, and one person only.
Artem has stopped retching and is looking between us, head swinging side to side like he has no fucking clue what’s happening but is happy that our attention is off of him.
“Since it seems you need a little motivation…” When I turn on the drill to get started, he really loses his shit.
“Fuck no!” Artem explodes. “You savage motherfuckers.”
“That’s exactly what we are.” Pavel decks him again.
I take two steps back, the noxious smell of puke invading my nose. I much prefer the metallic tang of blood. “Get talking. Who do you work for?”
He spits blood onto the ground, but he won’t raise his head to look at us when he mumbles a name.
“Speak up.” I kick him.
“The Zhukov Bratva. I work for the fucking Zhukovs.”
Pavel and I exchange glances. It’s impossible that we’ve never heard of a bratva operating in our territory. We reign supreme here, and all the bratvas answer to Maxim and the Belov Syndicate.
“Who the fuck are they?” I pace on the spot.
“A gang out of St. Petersburg. Two brothers, Nikolai and Sergey. They’re smart. Like, street smart. And vicious. Sergey has been running things for the last few years while Nikolai has been in jail, but they’re expanding, taking over more territory.”
“Why’d they meet with Anatoly Petrovich?” I snap, a bad feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.
“It was just Sergey tonight—no Nikolai—but I don’t fuckin’ know any of the details. All I do is stand guard outside and run errands for them.” He gestures to his dead colleague on the floor. “Dymtro knew more.”
Well, fuck.
I turn the drill on and make a big show of finding the right place to start my dirty work. “You know more than you think.” I smile at him, letting him take me in in all my unhinged glory. “Maybe you just need a reminder.”
Artem’s shrill screams echo off the walls. He’ll be talking in no time—no one wants to lose their cock to a drill.