Give Me What You Won’t
Give Me What You Won't
He slid the finely aged cigar out of his mouth, letting the white smoke billow around his face.
His sharp eyes took in the two monitors on his desk.
One screen was a list. A short, rather boring list in his opinion.
Politicians, lawyers, journalists, a couple of dignitaries, and some members of Congress.
No one on the Kyross list stood out this year, which was rather disappointing.
Kyross, like the World Cup, only happened once every four years, making it a rare occurrence and getting a coveted invitation even rarer. Lucky for him, the Kozlovs always got an invitation. Except his Uncle Kirill Kozlov would attend only if someone truly spectacular were on the list for Kyross.
Thaddeus cracked his neck irritably, sliding back into the plush leather chair behind his vintage mahogany desk that used to be his father's. Just like the Zakone syndicate on the East Coast was once his father’s.
An empire he had spent years building and establishing.
And ever since his father’s death last year, his uncle’s greed and negligence were destroying it.
They specialized in guns, cocaine, gambling halls, and brothels.
But Kirill wanted more. So, he partnered with the Cartels this year, and their drugs were getting dirty, laced with fentanyl.
Thaddeus’s jaw clenched. He could tolerate a lot, but that crossed the line.
Innocent people were dying from a product that they were selling, which his father would’ve never condoned.
If the product was bad, he’d pull it. No questions asked.
They had once taken pride in providing clean drugs, guns, and drop bars.
Now, ever since the Cartel, everything was spinning out of control.
They were losing dealers to DEA raids. Local SWAT teams were busting up drop bars.
And they recently lost an entire shipment of drugs at the Charles River port due to an FBI sting operation.
Kirill’s leadership was failing, and the empire was suffering for it.
Kyross was the only solution.
But Thaddeus had to find someone who would tempt Kirill enough to attend, and then he would make his move.
His gaze returned to the second screen on his desk and the all-too-familiar sight of the man in black, and his pulse, as it always did when watching him, skipped.
It was a security feed from their warehouse by the Charles River. Each split screen showed a different night from when the man in black had been there, sabotaging their supply chain.
The man in black always wore the same outfit: a fully hooded black mask and jacket. He appeared large on the screen, with his bulky muscles built up on a lean, tall frame that moved with surprising elegance. And he fought really fucking well.
The brutality of the man’s fists was visceral, something Thaddeus could feel through the very screen. He had seen plenty of men in deadly fights over his career. Yet this man, this masked man, fought like he was having fun with the guns pointed in his face. That it was somehow all just a game.
He was insane, clearly. Or maybe he simply didn’t care about his life. Either way, it didn’t make watching him any less mesmerizing.
One of his favorite moments captured on camera was when the man in black was stopped by a security guard, gun pointed directly at him, and the man in black, unarmed, strode forward with an audacity that bordered on insanity.
Without hesitation, he had swiped the gun out of the guard's hands and twisted it back into his own.
He leveled the barrel directly into the guard's temple, and he watched in amazement as the man in black didn’t shoot him.
He didn’t kill any of the guards he encountered.
He did, however, beat them into a bloody pulp, with either his fists or anything in his near vicinity. In this case, he pistol-whipped the guard unconscious and then escaped.
Thaddeus sighed, turning his wrist and glancing at his watch, realizing it was too late to do anything but finish his drink and go to bed.
He shouldn’t be watching this video footage again.
It was distracting him from his duties. And he couldn’t afford to be distracted with Kyross only a few months away.
There was a light but firm knock on his office door.
“Enter,” he instructed, taking another puff of his cigar.
It was one of his bodyguards and night assistant, Bob.
He liked Bob. He was old-school, with a military background that led him to the private sector for better pay and better clients than the US government.
They shared that in common. Thaddeus was once a Recon Marine and fell in love with it.
The problem was that it didn’t love him back.
But his father did, and offered him a place in his empire, but not as a legacy.
His father had a strict code when it came to earning one's place. It didn’t matter if they were family, father and son, Thaddeus had to prove himself worthy to hold the crown.
And, after years of service, he thought he was there.
But then his father died unexpectedly, and his Uncle Kirill took over, pushing him aside and bringing in his idiot son to become his legacy.
His uncle did not have the same code as his father.
So, Thaddeus had to make himself crucial to his uncle, demonstrate that he knew this business from the inside out, and in essence become his right-hand man.
Luckily for him, it had worked. Kirill relied on him more than his son, Alec, who was a fucking wrecking ball of a human being and couldn’t be trusted with a credit card, let alone a multifaceted business spanning two continents.
And damn, did it feel good to see the peak of the mountain again.
To feel the rush of the wind on his face and hear the echoing call of his father’s empire.
He was close. After years of toil and perseverance, it would all be his, and his reward would be…
His freedom.
Freedom from his sick, deranged uncle and his simpering fuck up of a son.
“Sir,” Bob said with a slight urgency in his tone. “We have a situation.”
Thaddeus leaned forward, reaching for his glasses on his desk as Bob held out his phone, showing a digital security feed from the warehouse. His pulse, which had been barely fluttering, jumped to life at the sight of—him.
The man in black.
He was at the warehouse—right now. No longer just a former image captured on the screen, but moving like a panther through the labyrinth of shipping containers and into the warehouse.
The man in black had caused considerable damage to the Zakone distribution center over the past month.
Knocking out security guards, burning over two million dollars’ worth of drugs in a shipping container, and even sinking an entire truck into the Charles River that had been loaded with guns.
He was sabotaging their supply, and to Thaddues’s frustration and awe, it was working.
He had been pulled into Kirill’s office this afternoon to discuss the vigilante who was hemorrhaging them money and trust with their buyers.
Thaddeus had doubled, then tripled the security detail on the warehouse, and yet it didn’t seem to faze this man in black at all.
His gaze was riveted to the screen. The man in black wore his usual mask, which covered his head and face. Only his eyes were revealed as one of the extra security guards held a gun at him.
Thaddeus, not realizing he’d been holding his breath, watched as the man in black spun and kicked with such precision and lightness of foot that he hadn’t even seen it happen.
He only saw the gun kicking away. The man in black lunged forward, giving the security guard a one-two-three punch, knocking him unconscious.
“Should we alert Kirill?” Bob asked.
He would rather handle this himself than let his shark of an uncle smell blood in the water and send his entire arsenal of foot soldiers to the warehouse to kill this man.
“I can handle this.” Thaddeus stood, slipping on his suit jacket.
Bob indicated with a slight nod to the gun in Thaddeus’s top drawer. He hesitated before tucking it into his waistband, leaving his secure townhouse with Bob and two other security guards in tow.
The cool autumn air rushed to greet him as the black nondescript SUV parked on the edge of the warehouse and he stepped out, hearing the soft lapping sounds of the dark river beyond.
A thrilling rush edged through his veins as gunfire alerted him to the vigilante's location. It had been a long time since he’d been in a fight, and he hadn’t realized how much he missed the rush of it until now.
“Sir,” Bob said warningly, nodding toward the secure office, which was practically a bunker inside the massive warehouse.
He pursed his lips in a frown and, hearing his uncle’s voice in his head about safety, gritted his teeth. Bob didn’t report to him. He reported to Kirill. And until the day Thaddeus was in charge, he had no other option but to obey. A slow anger burned in his chest, snapping his gaze to Bob.
“Bring him to my office. Alive. Please,” he added as though an afterthought and went into the bunker.
He flicked on the light and a tall, yellow-tinted lamp in the corner illuminated the bleak space.
There was a desk shoved into the corner with dusty boxes layered on top of it, two metal chairs, and a large two-door metal cabinet stuffed with more boxes.
On the far side of the room was a towering wall of fogged, white-tinted windows with a security gate behind it.
It smelled like stale coffee and cigarettes.
He paused, eyes scrutinizing the layout.