Chapter 11 - Ivan
IVAN
I stare down into Sergei’s bloodshot eye.
At least he can still see with this one.
Red rivulets run from several cuts down his body where he sits naked, tied to a chair.
We gave him a few days to recover from his ‘transportation’ from the shipyards to the barracks, creating a false sense of security.
He’s caught on. Death by a thousand cuts isn’t just a saying.
I meet Yuri’s gaze where he is standing behind Sergei, blade ready.
“I ask you again, who gave the final order?” I know who the men on the ground were, and their whole operation to take me out got flayed open on the Fourth of July, but I want to know who the puppet master was.
Sergei drops his head forward, and a sigh leaves his body as if it’s his life. He’s shared nothing new, nothing we haven’t dragged out of the men who came before him. It’s been hours now, and it’s fucking late. He could become delirious at any second and then we’d be forced to stop.
Fuck. I want this done. I need some shut-eye tonight. Tomorrow is a big day.
I give him another ten seconds then I place my blade under his chin, lifting his head slowly.
“We can patch you up, carry on next week. Again and again.” A science we’ve perfected, but he knows this.
He came with Dimitri six years ago and has seen how the Petrov Bratva works. It’s heinous, but effective.
“Just a name, Sergei, and all of this will be over.” This man was more than a foot soldier, mere shestyorka; he was part of the coup’s inner circle.
He meets my gaze and blinks. A bloody tear runs down the side of his nose and he licks at it, revealing bloodstained teeth through a grimace that tells me all. He’s about to cave in.
“All of them, from your wife to your sis—”
I press the blade deeper and its sharp point pierces into the soft, willing flesh, through the floor of his mouth, stopping him short.
Yuri fists Sergei’s hair so he can’t ram his chin into the blade and kill himself before I’m done.
He should know better than to drag Milana’s name in here just to cause discord between us, as if she hasn’t suffered enough, caught in the web of this mess.
She wasn’t even here during the coup—left months before it on my instruction—and thank fuck for that.
Thank fuck, too, that she’s back from Russia.
These fuckers. “For you, women are just collateral damage,” I hiss, twisting the blade a bit. “I want the man from Russia.”
He drags in a shattered breath.
“You can tell me now, or we come back tomorrow. We’ve barely started, as you know.”
He blinks a few times, my words and meaning registering.
“Ch-Chert…Chertnikov,” he manages as blood seeps from his mouth. “Been behind it…from the start… Petrov became too powerful…threatened to…to override his authority in Russia…put you…in your place…his own man your next Pakhan—”
And we know who that was meant to be.
I quietly inhale a slow breath. Finally.
“And what does Chertnikov know about what happened here? How it ended?”
Sergei swallows, more blood that spit. “Dimitri…he still hopes…alive…”
Good. Nothing like using uncertainty as leverage. Nobody saw Dimitri’s demise. We’ll keep them guessing.
I’m tempted to kill him right there, gut him with my blade from chin to chest, but he’s talking now. I pluck my blade out. Check the time.
Igor, standing on standby, watching, hands me a cloth.
“See if he talks some more now that he’s got going,” I say to Yuri, nodding at Igor as I wipe the blood off my blade and flick it back into the sheath.
Yuri nods but doesn’t let go of Sergei’s hair.
“Pakhan,” Igor says, acknowledging he’s now Yuri’s assistant.
“You know what to do when you’re done with him.”
Both nod.
Good. Dog food.
I walk out. I need my fucking beauty sleep and a massive mind shift before I meet my potential bride in the morning.