Chapter 5 A History of Burning
Chapter five
A History of Burning
Kenji
What could he want?
The question didn't circle.
It clawed.
Scraped against the inside of my skull while Kazimir stood before me, cigar trailing smoke, that predator's smile still curving his lips.
In front of us, the pyre roared.
The flames climbed toward the ash-choked sky, and the heat pressed against my face—aggressive, hungry, pushing into my skin until my eyes watered. Somewhere in the blaze, something popped. Wet and sharp. A skull, maybe. Or a joint finally surrendering to the fire.
I didn't flinch.
Neither did the Lion.
He stood close enough to burn. Close enough that the heat should have driven him back, should have made him sweat, should have done something to that massive body.
But Kazimir didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Just watched the flames with the stillness of a man who had long ago made peace with fire. That stillness unsettled me more than his presence.
Deep in my chest, the dragon stirred.
Not rage.
The movement was primal and said: This one is dangerous in ways we haven't mapped yet.
I kept my hands loose at my sides.
Kept my breathing even.
Watched him the way a predator watched another predator—with respect, with caution, with the understanding that a single wrong move could turn this conversation into carnage.
I looked at him. “How can I help you, Kazimir?”
The Lion took a long drag of his cigar and exhaled smoke toward the blazing dead. "Do you know who first burned men?"
The question caught me off guard.
I'd expected demands.
Threats.
Some declaration of intent that would tell me why the leader of the Russian Bratva had landed a helicopter on my island without my permission.
Instead, he was asking me about history.
Here we go.
The wind shifted, carrying a fresh wave of smoke across the compound. I breathed through my mouth and tasted ash on my tongue. "No, Kazimir. I don’t know who was the first to start burning men."
Kazimir nodded slowly, still watching the flames. His dark hair stirred in the breeze—three, maybe four inches long—lifting and falling like something alive. The firelight caught the sharp planes of his face. "I believe it was the Greeks."
I frowned.
"But it wasn't for punishment. It was for honor. They believed fire released the soul. Freed it." The Lion lifted his cigar, and ash fell from the tip. "The Greeks burned their heroes on great pyres so their spirits could rise with the smoke and join the gods."
He's not here to teach me history. He's building toward something. The question is what.
The flames roared, hungry and vicious.
I turned my attention back to the pyre and spotted a body shifting deep within it. The corpse's ribcage collapsed next with a sickening crack that shot a violent storm of sparks skyward.
"The Vikings," Kazimir continued, "burned their dead on ships. Great wooden vessels pushed out to sea, set ablaze so the souls of warriors could sail to Valhalla."
He took another pull of his cigar. "Can you imagine? Watching the ship drift into the darkness, flames climbing the mast, knowing your father or your brother or even your king was inside. Knowing the fire was carrying them somewhere you couldn't follow."
I said nothing.
Just listened.
Watched.
Counted his men in my peripheral vision.
Noted how Reo had shifted two steps closer.
Calculated how fast I could get a blade into the Lion's throat if this shifted to violence.
"The Romans burned their emperors." He turned his head slightly, glancing at me. "Pyres so tall they could be seen from every corner of the city. They believed the fire transformed them. That when the flames finally died, the man who had ruled them was no longer mortal."
His smile sharpened. "He had become a god."
Interesting.
Kazimir wanted me impressed. Wanted me to see him as an equal—a fellow scholar of death. That need told me more than his entire historical speech.
Okay. You’re smart. We knew that. One can’t grab the Bratva’s throne with just muscle alone. But what could you want from me, while I’m at war?
The Lion didn't need allies. He had the entire Russian Bratva at his command. Thousands upon thousands of men. Billions in resources. Influence that stretched across continents. And he damn sure had control of all those Russian nukes.
So why was he here?
Why land on my island uninvited during a war that had nothing to do with him?
Why stand beside my pyre and recite history like a professor seeking approval from a student?
Within me, the dragon stirred again, and then suddenly. . .understanding began to crystallize.
Hold on. Perhaps. . .he wants something he can't take by force. Something only I can give him.
That realization shifted everything.
My pulse hummed.
What do you need, Lion, that only I can give?
I kept my face neutral.
Kept watching.
And waited for him to finally show his hand.
The smoke thickened in front of us, caught by another shift in the wind, and I had to turn my face away to breathe.
When I looked back, Kazimir had turned fully toward me, those deadly eyes studying me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "Every civilization. Every empire. Every corner of the world, from the beginning of time until now."
Civilization? Empires? Hmmm.
He spread his arms, cigar in one hand, the pyre blazing behind him like a throne of fire. "Men have always burned men."
He let those words hang in the air between us.
The flames crackled.
The ash fell.
And I understood, suddenly, what he was doing.
He was testing me.
Watching to see how I reacted.
Whether I flinched.
Whether I looked away.
Whether the Dragon who had ordered the pyre could stand in its heat and meet the Lion's eyes without shame, fear, or disgust.
Bored with his posturing, I stared at him. “You said we had much to discuss. What is it?”
The line in his jaw twitched, showing me his displeasure. "Why did you decide to burn these traitors?"
The question landed hard.
No one said these were traitors, and I knew Kazimir had not made an educated guess. Misha had clearly discovered it all and told him everything, but did Misha know about my Tiger.
Now I get why they call Misha, the Mosquito behind his back. He is absolutely annoying. Fucking buzzing little blood-sucking insect.
If I ever had an opportunity to get rid of the goddamn Mosquito I would seize it fast.
But more important. . .what else does Kazimir know?
I buried the unease beneath the mask I'd worn my entire life. “I burned them because fire is honest.”
Kazimir's eyebrows rose slightly. "Honest?"
"It doesn't pretend. Plus, fire requires proximity.
You can drop a bomb from the sky and never see the faces of the people you kill.
You can pull a trigger from across a room and pretend it wasn't personal.
But fire." I bobbed my head. "Fire makes you stay. Makes you watch. Makes you smell it. Makes you feel the heat of what you’ve done. "
“Hmmm.” Kazimir assessed me. "If these were my traitors. . ."
He stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell his cologne beneath the smoke. "I would have hung them by their necks, slit their bellies open, stabbed out their eyes, and let their intestines hang out for all to see."
His smile shifted to ice cold and terrible. "Their families would have been forced to watch. To see what happens when one betrays the Brotherhood. To understand that there is no mercy, no forgiveness, no escape. And then their families would die too. Women. Kids. It would not matter."
I tensed.
“Then I’d put the bodies where my streets breathe. Outside the butcher shops. Outside the schools. A message that forces even the innocent to repeat it for you. Fear isn’t an emotion in the Brotherhood—it’s an infrastructure.”
The words painted pictures I didn't want to see. I thought of the traitors in the fire—the men and women who had sold information to my father, who had endangered everyone I loved—and tried to imagine them strung up like that.
Gutted.
Blinded.
Left to rot while their children screamed and then were killed.
My stomach turned.
"This is how the Brotherhood handles traitors. This is what I would have done." Kazimir took another hit from his cigar.
The smoke swirled between us.
More heat pressed against my skin.
When Kazimir spoke again, his voice changed. It came out softer, almost thoughtful. “But I like what you’ve done today.”
I quirked my brows.
"Fire doesn't just kill, it transforms. A body becomes ash.
A person becomes nothing. Everything they were, everything they knew, everything they did.
. .gone." Kazimir's smile returned, but it was different now.
Less predatory. Almost. . .approving. "Reduced to dust. Scattered by the wind. This is good."
The Lion’s approval of my pyre made my skin crawl.
This man was a monster. An insane, egotistical, psychopathic bully who had built his empire on blood and fear. He had done things that would make my worst nightmares look like children's stories.
He was everything I had sworn never to become.
And he thought we had just found common ground.
For some reason that made me think of Nyomi, and the way she'd looked at me this morning, trembling. The way she'd pulled away when I tried to touch her. The way she'd demanded to be part of these decisions because she couldn't bear to be protected from the truth anymore.
Kazimir turned back toward the fire and watched the flames with that same contemplative expression.
The breeze caught his hair, lifting it away from his face, and for a moment he looked almost peaceful.
Like a man watching a sunset instead of a mass grave.
"Yes. I am quite impressed. I had little obedient dogs in your organization.
Decent spies. Ones that whispered everything. "
Rage rose within my chest.
He didn't look at me. "Now my little dogs have stopped barking. They’ve gone deaf and blind. I have not been able to get in contact with them."
My heart stopped for a second.