Chapter 12 Ilya
ILYA
Officer Michael Brown meets me in the parking garage, just as instructed at eleven PM, when the building is mostly empty.
The security guard has been paid to ignore anything he sees or hears.
Money, I discovered long ago, often opens more doors than even violence does.
Information does, as well. I’ve never been averse to violence, but I am well versed in the ways it can be avoided when I want things to be clean, rather than messy.
Here, especially, I need things to remain as clean as possible. I’m not in my territory, and I’m well aware of the trouble this could stir up if Sergei Kima decides my presence is intrusive.
Officer Brown is already waiting when I arrive, leaning against his unmarked sedan.
Like most cops, he has a price, and his was fairly high—enough money to pay off his daughter’s student loans from law school.
I’m sure deep down, he thinks this was a noble reason to take filthy money, but I could care less about his motives. I care about results.
And now, if he tries to back out of our deal, I can remind him that his daughter’s law school loans were paid by a crime boss. I’m sure that would go over excellently with the bar.
"Mr. Sorokov." He straightens when he sees me, and I note the deference in his posture. Good. He understands the hierarchy here.
"Officer." I don't offer my hand. This isn't a friendly meeting. "The Maxwell case."
“It’s closed. Detective Wilshire handled it personally. No suspects, no leads, case gone cold." He shifts his weight, uncomfortable. "The girl—Ms. Winslow—she's been calling. Asking questions."
I shrug. "And? What has she been told?”
"Wilshire told her to move on. Said she's not in danger, that the matter's been handled. She pushed back, but..." He swallows. "We stonewalled her. She'll give up eventually."
I pull an envelope from my jacket and hand it to him. He doesn't open it—he knows better than to count money in a parking garage—but I can see him estimating the weight. Thirty thousand in hundreds. More than enough to ensure his continued cooperation.
"Make sure it stays closed," I say flatly, holding his gaze. "If anyone else starts asking questions—federal agents, other departments, journalists—I want to know immediately."
"Understood." He pockets the envelope. "What about Maxwell himself? If he decides to talk—"
"He won't."
Reeves looks at me, and I can see him deciding whether to ask for details. He chooses wisely and doesn't. "And if someone connects this to you? The initials on the card—"
"There was no card." I let the words hang in the air between us. "Ms. Winslow was traumatized. She imagined details that weren't there. That's what your report says, isn't it?"
"Yes. That's what it says."
"Good." I turn to leave, then pause. "How is your daughter, by the way? Still enjoying her internship at that law firm?"
The threat is subtle but unmistakable. He pales slightly. "She's doing well. Thank you for asking."
"I'm glad to hear it. It would be unfortunate if anything disrupted her career. False accusations, evidence of a payoff her father took surfacing..." I let the sentence trail off. "You understand."
He swallows harder this time, his face taking on a waxy hue. "I understand."
I leave him there in the garage, knowing he'll do exactly what I've paid him to do. I’m used to paying off law enforcement by now, and I know he’ll toe the line like every other dirty cop I’ve paid for over the years.They all think they’re above it until they’re not.
Richard Maxwell was easier to handle than the police.
One visit to his hospital room and a quiet conversation about what would happen to his wife and children if he identified anyone, and that problem has been solved.
He'll tell the police he never saw his attacker, that it was dark, that he can't remember anything useful.
By the time I reach my car, I’m eager to go home and watch Mara, to soothe the restlessness in my soul with the only balm that works these days.
A familiar tension is worming through my blood, and I find myself hoping that she’ll touch herself for me tonight, that we’ll come together as I watch her through glass and steel.
Soon, I’ll make this a reality. The circumstances are making it so that I can’t wait much longer.
The perfect moment will present itself soon, I’m sure of it.
I just need to be patient a little while more.
—
Hours later, I’m seeing red.
As I follow the man who’s leaving Mara’s building, I can feel every muscle in my body twitching, the same rage that I felt toward Maxwell throbbing through my veins with the intensity of violent arousal, but amplified by one simple fact.
Maxwell touched her against her will. That was vengeance. He deserved punishment.
She wanted this man to touch her.
Clearly she needs a reminder of who it is that she belongs to.
Clearly I can’t wait any longer to make it apparent to her that everything has changed.
I pace after him through the shadows, my nerves frayed and my control on the verge of snapping completely.
I don’t know exactly what it was that pushed me over the edge—Was it when she invited him inside?
When they sat on the couch? When his hand touched her face?
—but I know this is a line that can’t be crossed again.
A man touching her against her will deserves punishment. A man being invited to touch her who isn’t me can’t be allowed.
I watched them sit on the couch. Watched him lean in. Watched them kiss.
The rage that floods through me is primal and unstoppable.
I've killed men in cold blood without feeling a fraction of this fury.
I've ordered executions, burned buildings, destroyed lives, all coldly and without feeling anything except the analytical assurance that it was necessary for whatever purpose it served.
But watching another man touch Mara made me want to burn down the entire city.
I can practically feel the confusion and frustration wafting off of him as he strides down the frozen concrete sidewalk, his hands shoved in the pockets of his peacoat.
Mara sent him away, which eased any anger I might have felt toward her, but it doesn’t matter.
He touched her. He kissed her. He was inside her apartment, on her couch, in her space.
He crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed.
I followed him on foot, keeping a block behind, watching as he walked toward the subway station on Houston. He was texting someone—probably a friend, probably complaining about the girl who invited him home and then changed her mind.
It’s not her fault, I remind myself. It’s mine. I’ve waited too long to make my presence known. The gifts haven’t been enough. She needs flesh and blood. Touch.
She’s not materialistic, clearly, and that isn’t a bad thing. But if she needs the physicality of her lover to be secure that she’s taken, then I’ll give her that.
After I deal with this asshole, and make sure he never touches her again.
He turns down a street that leads into a quieter neighborhood, and when I see a dark alleyway just ahead, I quicken my pace, getting closer step by step until I’m close enough to grab him.
He doesn’t see it coming. One gloved hand over his mouth, the other around his arm, pulling him into the darkness. He struggles and tries to scream, but I’m a professional, and I’ve been doing this for a long time.
With one smooth movement, I swing him around and pin him against the wall, one arm across his throat. His eyes are wide with terror, but as his mouth opens to try to speak, I don’t give him a chance.
I just hit him.
My fist connects with his jaw, and I feel something crack. The pain in my knuckles is distant, irrelevant. I hit him again. And again.
I've beaten men before. It's part of the business,. But I've always done it with purpose. It’s always been cold and calculated. Even when I’ve tortured men, it’s only been enough to send a message, not enough to lose control.
This is different.
This is personal.
Every strike feels like a release, rage flowing out through my fists as I turn his face into nothing more than meat. I hit him until my knuckles are bloody, and his face is unrecognizable, until he stops struggling and slumps against the alley wall, still breathing, but barely.
I know I need to stop. But it doesn’t feel like enough. It doesn’t feel like it could ever be enough. Like I could reduce every man who ever touched her to nothing more than pulp and I would still want more.
I grab his jaw, forcing his swollen eyes to focus on me. Blood is pouring from his nose, his mouth, the lacerations around his eyes and on his face. He makes a helpless, pleading, choked sound, and I feel disgust squirm through me, joining the pulsing anger.
"Say her name," I snarl.
He stares at me as if he doesn’t understand. His eyes are unfocused, the whites red, his mind probably scrambling to figure out what is happening to him and why.
I squeeze his jaw harder. "Say. Her. Name."
Understanding dawns on his formerly handsome face. "M-Mara," he manages, the word slurred through broken lips.
"Good." I lean closer, making sure he can see my face, that he’ll remember this moment for the rest of his life.
"You will never see her again. Never speak to her.
Never think about her. If I find out you've tried to contact her, if I find out you've even said her name to anyone else, I will come back and finish what I started. Do you understand?"
He nods, or tries to. It’s hard to tell with his head lolling like that.
I pull out my burner phone and take a photo. The flash illuminates his destroyed face, and I feel a dark satisfaction seeing the evidence of what I've done. What I’ll do to anyone who touches her.
I let him go then, letting him slump into the trash and piss littering the edge of the alleyway. He makes a low, helpless sound, but I don’t bother looking back as I walk away.