Chapter 14 RideDie
Ride or Die
Blood ran down the length of his fingers before slowing along the flesh of his palm.
The sticky liquid soaked into the knees of his pants as he knelt there, dumbfounded.
It was the first time he’d had to follow through with his father’s threats.
It was the first time such a color stained his hands.
This violence was abhorrent, a gritty means to an end that Mikko didn’t understand.
Why not strategize in other ways? Why crush people in hopes they’d fear you enough to respect you?
None of it made sense. Only the loud thrum of blood rushing in his ears and the racing of his heart kept him grounded.
And even then, his body felt light. He wasn’t sure he was really here.
Black spots crept into the corners of his vision, the adrenaline taking over and shutting down his organs in an attempt to survive.
“It had to be this way son,” his father murmured, standing nearby with the gun still clutched in his hand. Truthfully, he’d forgotten Alek was there, his brain tired and overwhelmed. “This is the only way for you to learn.”
Dead eyes stared back at Mikko, a single hole framed between the eyebrows of the man before him. Only a few moments ago he’d seen his father interrogating him, and now…
Now his life had been snuffed out without a second thought. Heartlessly.
“I don’t understand why I’m here,” was all Mikko could manage, his tongue thick with emotion.
He was trying and failing to not show weakness even as acid bubbled up in the back of his throat.
Alek hated it when he cried, blamed it on his mom for raising him to be weak.
But Mikko knew his father didn’t mean it—remembered a time where Alek was also gentler. Now those days were long gone.
Alek spoke. “Mutts that disobey get put down. No exceptions.”
Squeezing the blood-soaked rag in frustration, Mikko finally looked up. “This is your mess, not mine. Why should I—”
Smack!
Alek’s palm struck the back of Mikkos’ head, clipping him in a manner that wasn’t meant to be painful. It was a warning. “Everything I do in the name of this company is for you too. We went over this already.”
“We did.”
“And are you deaf?”
“No.”
“Dense then? Your brain too stuffed full with pretty things and the sweet nothings your mother whispered to you as a child for you to realize life isn’t like that? Look at what it did to her. After all she gave—all the good deeds she did—cancer still sucked everything away.”
A tear formed in Mikko’s eye. His father was right.
His mom had embodied life, what it meant to be unique and unapologetically yourself, and it’d only sent her to an early grave.
“You drained her, took everything from her.” It was the wrong thing to say, but it slipped from Mikko’s mouth regardless.
“And this is why we’re here,” Alek gritted. “You say the stupidest shit and expect people to go along with you.”
Mikko’s resolve hardened. “Learning from the best, you could say—”
Before the last of his sentence had left his mouth, Alek was on him.
Gripping the short hair at the nape of Mikko’s neck, his father pushed him to the dirty floor.
The dead man’s ring of blood seeped out, the uneven surface letting it pool nearby.
Alek’s heavy weight landed on his back, his hot breath at his ear.
Blood and cooling crimson splattered across Mikko’s face.
His cheek agonizingly ground against the hard floor until his jaw ached, droplets of copper and grime slipping into his mouth as his father pressed harder.
Sputtering, Mikko bucked and thrashed, desperate to be let up.
This was too much—
And in a twisted moment of fate, Mikko’s eyes locked with the dead man’s across the mirrored pool of his cooling life source. There they were, two people who were not so dissimilar. Faces pressed to the floor, eyes wide with fear, and Alek—a man who reigned over the city—looming above them.
The tears in Mikko’s eyes fell, the salt mixing in with red.
“This was supposed to be a simple day,” Alek chided.
“A moment where I could’ve shown you the ropes, made you into a real man, but you’re too squeamish.
I can’t believe you’re my son.” His fingers gripped tighter at the back of Mikko’s neck.
Cool wetness was absorbed into Mikko’s clothing, the entire front of his shirt and pants ruined from the blood.
“I’ll beat this weakness, this disease, from you if I have to. ”
Mikko cried out as his father put more pressure on his head, the floor beneath him unforgiving.
His nerve endings felt like they were on fire, hairline cracks seemingly racing across his stained face, his skull moments from shattering.
The other man’s bodily fluids coated Mikko’s lashes, clumping the short hairs together.
Each blink fragmented the picture unfolding before him, the blood marring his vision.
The pressure behind his eyes became unbearable, his gasps loud and muffled all at once. Time slowed until—
“I’m starting to think you’re a bastard. No son of mine would act this pathetic—this feeble. Ty mne protiven.” You disgust me.
And in that moment, something shattered in Mikko.
* * *
Present Day
The scent of blood clung to Mikko’s skin even though he’d showered and changed his clothes as soon as he’d returned to his residence. After watching his men damn near decimate another loose-lipped employee, he couldn’t get the smell out of his nose. It brought back with it unbearable memories.
Between him and Cristiano, they’d interrogated a dozen men today, their efforts revealing little.
No one seemed to know why or how or who would kill Ivan.
Most responses boiled down to his cheating habits during games or his wife being fed up with his behavior and hiring a hit man.
All plausible, which meant nothing could necessarily be eliminated.
His head fucking hurt, and his eyes ached inside his own skull. The lick of vodka tempted him once again, but a new idea had unfurled in his brain.
Standing in front of his full-length mirror, its size ostentatious even for his tastes, he adjusted the long sleeve compression shirt fitted to his body.
It was slightly uncomfortable, but it would protect his skin from the body armor he needed to slip on.
He wasn’t one to forgo his motorcycle gear.
My tattoos cost too damn much, he thought.
Once his armor was strapped on and secure, he pulled a thick, black hoodie over it, the size large and able to conceal his gear and figure. And for tonight, that was important. Remaining unknown in the shadows was imperative.
A dark balaclava covered his face, only his vibrant eyes visible.
Grabbing his gloves and helmet on the way out of his penthouse, Mikko took note of the space.
Ever since Anika had found him, she’d plagued his thoughts, but it was more than that.
Everywhere he went, there was always the telltale prickle on the back of his neck as if he was being watched.
Perhaps I’m just as paranoid as my father.
That notion stung, but it allowed him to move on, flicking the lights off and locking his door behind him.
On the elevator ride down he studied his reflection mirrored in the glass lining the car while his mind recited the encounter at Bubblegum again—the way Anika found him, approached him, and talked to him. The way he found her undressing in front of her home’s windows…
He thought having a name to know her by would suffice—would curb the growing curiosity in his gut—but it didn’t. Instead, he’d snuck around to see her interaction with Levi, had driven by her house, and knew her basic information like the back of his hand.
Cristiano would’ve called him crazy and stupid and other words the English dictionary probably didn’t even know of.
Which was fair. Mikko was all those things.
That was why he’d kept this all a secret, a nasty little piece of himself he hid from the light.
Anika was his to figure out and solve. His to torment once he discovered her motives.
With a tired sigh, even though his evening was just beginning, Mikko stepped out into the lobby of the lower level of the parking garage connected to his building. Gloomy concrete walls surrounded him as he strode across the empty parking spots toward his reserved corner.
There, under the sterile lights, his Audi RS 6 and motorcycle glinted—both dark as night. While the color appealed to him for many reasons, tonight’s activities would showcase his preferences.
Stealth.
With his smug smirk hidden beneath his balaclava, he pulled his helmet on and swung a leg over his bike.
Time to forget about his troubles for a moment and pay his latest obsession another visit.
* * *
AFTER SPENDING WAY too much time combing through Anika’s digital footprint—a pastime quickly forming into a habit abusing all of the power at his fingertips—Mikko knew exactly where she was tonight.
He knew she got off work around five-thirty or six depending on her work load before grabbing a quick dinner.
Her meals were small, a prequel to her actual dinner hours later, consisting of fruit, a protein shake, and a granola bar.
It was then that she headed to a stylish gym a couple blocks away from her office building. Once there, she’d spend exactly two hours training cardio and lifting weights. And if he timed it right, he’d be pulling into the small parking lot just as she would be finishing up.
With the loud roar of his engine and music playing softly in his ears from the Bluetooth device connected to his helmet, Mikko wove through the city streets.
With his identity hidden, he could be whoever he wanted. And after the day he’d had, anonymity and shedding the Romanov name sounded heavenly. Who he’d be when he got there, he wasn’t sure, but he knew she was smart enough to most likely recognize him from the warehouse showing a couple nights ago.