Chapter 19 - Viktor
The last time I listened to the radio was sixteen years ago.
I was twenty and had accidentally punched a cop during a street fight. Broke the fucker’s nose and got a free ticket to pass the night in a cell. Mr. Varkov didn’t get me out until two days later. The small price I had to pay for starting the brawl.
But besides everything else that happened that night, the most significant memory was the fucking radio going off and on in the car with the blaring blue and red sirens as we sped to the station. It had been sickening. That was the last time I sat through switching frequencies. Until today.
Giving a glance at the rearview mirror, my grip on the wheel tightened. To keep myself from fleeting back to thoughts about her, I forced myself to sit through the high-pitched commentaries from some popular OAPs on the fucking radio for two hours. I didn’t want to remember; her betrayal, the tears in her eyes...
My fingers squeezed on the wheel and my knuckles turned white. Fuck! Something tightened in my throat and pierced me in the fucking chest.
Why did it matter so much anyway?
I knew why. The reason pricked at the back of my head like a fucking needle on skin. It mattered because it was her. If any other person tried what she did, they would have had bullets in their eyes minutes ago.
But I couldn’t hurt her, despite how much I fucking wanted to.
She’d stabbed me in the thigh and wasn’t hesitant to stab me again in the fucking back. I inhaled deeply. Best to be calm before I become trigger-happy.
Picking up my phone, I scrolled through the text messages to reconfirm the meeting location Benjamin sent.
Downtown. Brooklyn.
Abandoned Vine Water Company by Walter Family Graveyard.
I scoffed. Regardless of the piles of money, he had hidden somewhere, the Hawk had a thing for old places with leaking buildings and rats. But I didn’t argue. The location was convenient—away from the public’s watchful eyes, and could be used to test the weapons, if we needed to.
I checked the side mirrors; a black Mercedes followed closely behind. One of my men, Yuri, sat behind the wheels; Fedor on the passenger’s seat, and Greg at the back. I didn’t bother with more men. The occasion didn’t call for it, and I doubted that we were going to encounter security threats from a graveyard.
One look in the Hawk’s eyes and one could tell that he couldn’t be trusted, but he was good with business, and I had lots of money to gain from him if the deal went through. Shortly, we drove past the abandoned graveyard and pulled up at the littered parking space of the water company building with big holes on its roofs and the “Vine” practically hanging upside down.
I rolled my shoulders to relax the storm that brewed within and stepped down from the car.
The three men lined up behind me, their guns safely held in a tight grip as we walked deeper into the parking lot. Grabbing a pack of smokes from my pocket, I scanned the area. At the horizon, the sun hung above the clouds, shining mercilessly on the rest of creation; and below, the area was deserted.
“Yuri?” A thick cloud of white smoke left my mouth, and the short man with eagle eyes and a buzzcut came forward. “Check the around.”
Yuri nodded and disappeared around the corner, taking cautious steps while craning his neck to search.
“He’s not here, is he?” Fedor appeared behind me; his brows pulled in the deepest crease when he added, “I’m not liking this. Something smells fucking fishy, and I don’t like fucking fish.”
I blew out another puff and dropped the stick to the ground, putting out the cheery glow with my shoes. Sliding my hands into my pockets, I turned around to him. “I don’t like fish either, Fedor, but we have to chill out. He could be running late.”
“Yeah,” A heavy snort passed his lips. “Right.”
Even I knew that shit was a lie. I’d only said it to stay rational. The second I transited to being trigger-happy, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
Benjamin was as punctual as the fucking sunrise during dawn. He always always kept to time. And things didn’t add up. He’d sent the location and said he was already waiting for my arrival. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was leading me straight into a fucking trap.
More footsteps, than just Yuri’s resounded, accompanied by the loud crunching of twigs and dried leaves. It pulled Fedor’s, Greg’s, and my attention to the corner Yuri entered not long ago. I tilted my chin up. Fedor gave me a look and I rolled my eyes. Turned out, I didn’t know better.
More than a dozen men appeared with their guns raised, and one pointed behind Yuri’s head, pushing him forward with hands lifted in surrender. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. From one problem to another. We were fucking outnumbered.
But that was going to come with a price. A price fucking Benjamin Hawk was going to pay dearly with his life. But first, we had to deal with the intruders.
“Surprise, surprise, gentlemen.” Cian swaggered in with a cheesy grin that went all the way up to his cheeks. “Funny seeing you here, Voronin.”
Declan appeared beside him, with a fucking smirk I wanted to wipe off with the butt of my gun. I wanted to hit him for more than one reason; he was the one my wife called, to possibly connive with against me.
It all made sense now. Benjamin’s absence was planned. The fool had, in fact, led me to a fucking trap. He set me up, giving O’Sullivan an advantage— the upper hand. It was obvious that they worked together to achieve this. My anger level spiked up and, without giving another thought, I pulled out my gun from between my belt and aimed at three of his men. Rationality be fucked.
If people wished to die, who was I to hold back their wish? I was ready to grant every last one of their desires.
“Humor never sounds good when it comes out of your fucking mouth, O’Sullivan. Has nobody ever told you that?”
He let out a dark chuckle. “Someone has, and right now, he’s taking a nap with the earth.”
Declan barked out a laugh like the stupid idiot he was, and I cringed.
“Come on now, sonny,” Cian spread his arms, a wicked glimmer in his eyes. “Is this how you say hello to your daddy-in-law?”
“Fuck you, O’Sullivan.” Before either of them could react. I shifted my gun to the man sandwiched between Daddy Dearest and Dicklan and pulled the trigger. He collapsed to the floor, a pool of red quickly forming around their feet. The laughter went stale, and the smile fell off Cian’s face.
I blinked thrice.
A quick signal that almost no one else caught, but Fedor noticed, and lifted his gun in the air, firing rapidly at more of Cian’s mutts. Cian and Declan took cover like fucking chickens, but Yuri went after them. The gun rounds continued, with me joining Fedor while they rushed at us. Two of them cornered me and threw lightning-fast punches. I tried to duck, narrowly avoiding the blow, but one successfully got a fist on my face and forehead.
I patted the surface and felt a light sting when my thumb brushed the grazed skin. A surge of adrenaline boosted me, and I saw red.
More than a dozen men turned to seven. And then to three. I tucked the gun between my belt behind my pants and decided to go physical with one of the three men left.
“Let’s dance, Cinderella.”
He rushed at me with a war cry, eyes blazing, and hands in the air. I swung my arm. One hit to the jaw took him out and I watched him fall like a log right onto a heap of dead men. Arching a brow, I spat at his back. “That was... disappointing.”
A ricochet of bullets resonated almost next to me, and I turned to see two bloodied men fall over themselves. Fedor’s arm bled and he had a nail scratch on his cheek. He glanced over at me and gave a curt nod. He was fine.
We stared distastefully at the bodies of men on the ground. It was barely a fight. I won.
Yuri stepped out from behind the building, bent over with one hand clutching his side, and the other aiming a gun at Cian and Declan’s heads. The kid was bleeding. Fedor rushed to his side, while I took out my gun and pointed at their foreheads.
The blonde had a gunshot wound on his shoulder and looked like he’d rolled around in mud. Considering that he still stood upright, the shoulder wound must have been nothing but a mild graze. On the other hand, Cian appeared untouched. Yet.
My lips curled to the side. “This is how I say hello to my daddy-in-law.”
The older man shot me a dark look. “You can’t do anything to me, Viktor.”
I gritted my teeth. He was right. Because of her. As long as she remained mine, I couldn’t hurt him. She would despise me, loathe me; and the thought of her hating me sank like an anchor, dragging me under, drowning me until I could no longer see the light.
“Maybe not you,” I flashed a cocky grin and, in a flash, moved my arm and fired at the same wound on Declan’s shoulder.
“Fuck!” His screams of agony pierced the air as he fell to his knees, clutching the fresh wound. “What the fuck! Jesus! Ow—shit!”
“But I can hurt his pretty face, can’t I?”
Cian didn’t even flinch.
“Why the fuck did you do that?”
I turned my attention to the blonde. He looked like shit, with twigs and dirt sticking out of his hair and red spreading lower, soiling half of his shirt. When I saw him, I remembered everything; Ava’s special affection for him, and how she preferred to run first to him before me.
I dropped to my haunches and pushed his head backward, meeting him at eye level. “Because I can, Dicklan,” I whispered in his ear. “Because you upset the shit out of me.”
He spat blood on my shoe, grinned, and whispered back. “You’re just fucking jealous, aren’t you? You know, deep down, if you weren’t in the picture, I’d have been the first and only man she’d fuck.”
I smiled, pushed his head back, and launched forward, headbutting him hard enough to hear a sick crunch. I let him go.
“You sick fuck! You broke my fucking nose!” He fell to his face, and I rose to my feet.
“You should be grateful that I’m not putting holes in your head, you fucking piece of shit.” I faced Cian. “Now, I need to know, before I lose my fucking mind, what the fuck is all of this? Where is Benjamin?”
“Hiding?” He shrugged and kicked a twig. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”
My fingers hovered over the trigger. “Don’t mess with me, Cian. I’m not in the mood.”
Sticking his hands in his pockets, he cleared his throat. “He called. Told us he could help; he knew a way to help us get you. At the time, I wanted that more than anything else. So, I paid him, and we had a deal.”
I massaged the spot between my eyes and dropped the gun by my side. I didn’t need another second to figure things out. I paid Benjamin too; we had a similar deal to destroy them.
“He took money from us both, for the same reason,” I said. “It makes sense now; this was his plan; to get us here, have us kill each other, and then...”
“Run things,” Cian added, catching up.
“He’s trying to get rid of us to get himself to the fucking top.”
“Bastard,” the older man cursed. “He’s a fucking snake.”
“Must have been what Ava was trying to tell me about him,” Declan said to Cian, and gave me a dirty glare. Neither of us had noticed him get back up to his feet. I had to give him credit; he was much stronger than the noodle I pegged him to be. “She called earlier today but didn’t get to finish up what she was saying., and I wonder why.”
An uncomfortable feeling crawled up my chest and squeezed. It wasn’t often that I felt regret about things. But this time, I did. She’d tried to tell me about Hawk, but I didn’t listen.
“Any brilliant ideas, son-in-law? You are the man with the gun, aren’t you? Take the lead.” Cian quirked a brow and Declan kept the dirty look on his dirty face like he’d rather eat the mud he rolled in than listen to anything I had to say.
I returned my gun between my belt and folded my arms across my chest. “I have a few that starts with ‘finding him’ and ends with ‘killing the fucking bastard.’”
The older man’s eyes twinkled dangerously, and he smiled. “Sounds like the best plan I’ve ever heard.”