11. Adam
Eleven
Adam
I leave Lisa sleeping. Wrecked, her curls messily spread on the pillow, hand curled around my arm. I peel myself out from under her lush, warm body one fucking inch at a time, like I did this morning, only slower because today I’ve fucked her into a coma and she’s not waking for hours.
I tuck the comforter over her soft, round shoulder, kiss her temple, taking my fill of her scent, and stand at the side of the bed for a beat to stare at my woman.
So fucking beautiful, my heart hurts. Mine.
All of her. This strong, smart, sexy woman is mine and mine only.
And soon she’ll be sharing my name… Fuck, she said yes.
I feel myself smiling like a bloody fool. My cock twitches at the sight of her full curves under the covers, my hands balling into fists… if I stand here one more second… I shake myself and go get ready for work.
I find my phone where I left it on the kitchen counter. One text from Kostya. All set, boss.
I send back: On my way.
* * *
The warehouse is on the south side of the docks, an old freight depot we rented under a name nobody can trace. He’s at the door when I pull in, nods, and steps aside.
He hands me a folder. I dinnae open it. I dinnae need to. I know which of the men I’m about to see walked first, which one of them came back to steal, and who’s been chatting about what was left in the house.
I take my jacket off and hand it to Kostya.
He takes it without a word and hangs it on a hook by the door.
I roll my sleeves to the elbow, making a show of it, building tension.
My tattoos come out into the dim light of the warehouse.
I crack my knuckles, one hand at a time, then twist my rings around my fingers…
The warehouse is cold. Concrete floor. One bare bulb.
Three men in chairs in the middle, tied at the wrists and ankles.
Tomas Santo on the left, fat, fifty, sweating through a polo shirt.
Ray’s second-in-command, who disappeared and left my girls to fend for themselves the second Venn’s body went cold.
Johnny Cortana. Him and his brother, Mikey, came back to the Venn estate twice to fill their trunks like fucking vultures.
They look up when I walk in. Tomas makes a strangled noise. The older Cortana starts straight away: “Mr. Maksimov, listen, listen, we didn’t know, we didn’t know it was you, we’d never have.”
I walk a slow circle around the chairs. They turn their heads to follow me. I dinnae speak. My boots on concrete and their terrified breathing, the only sounds in the room. The cold of the warehouse is the only thing in the charged air.
I let my eyes go from one to the next and back. The pale blue. The flat. The thing. I let them see it.
The younger Cortana starts crying.
Aye, good. Save us all some time.
I speak. Quiet. My brogue, thicker than it’s been for days because there’s no Lisa or Jasmine in the room to soften it for.
“Ye walked out on two women in a house with an open contract. That on its own would’ve earned ye a conversation with me.” I crack my knuckles. “But ye’d have lived.”
I crouch at their eye level. One of the brothers is openly sobbing now. Pathetic piece of shite.
“But ye came back.”
The older Cortana is frantically shaking his head. “No, no, no, Mr. Maksimov…”
I stand back up, take my folding knife out of my back pocket, and slowly open it.
I have carried this blade for ten years, and it has done a lot of work.
I look at Tomas.
“Ye first.”
He pisses himself.
I cross the concrete in three steps. First, Tomas Santo. The cunt who walked. I dinnae bother with a speech. I’m behind him in a second, knife in my right hand, take a fistful of his greasy hair with my left, and yank his head back, baring his throat.
He starts babbling: “Mr. Maksimov, please, please, I have a wife, I have…”.
I dinnae hear the rest because I’m not listening.
The blade goes in clean. One pass from side to side.
The sound is wet and short. Tomas’s words become gurgles, then nothing.
His big, sweaty body convulses against the chair and then sags.
The blood pools down the front of his polo shirt and on the concrete between his boots.
I let go of his hair, and his head drops forward against his chest. I wipe the blade on his shoulder in two quick passes.
The Cortana brothers are screaming. Mikey is fucking howling . Johnny is roaring the word no over and over like that’s ever stopped me from doing a single fucking thing in my life. The vast, empty space of the warehouse makes their voices loud , bouncing off the concrete walls back at us.
I move to Johnny, the older brother, the one who tried to talk first. The one who, when his brother was crying, looked annoyed instead of protective.
I noted that and I’ve been holding it. I crouch in front of him and let him see me up close.
My eyes, inches from his face. His are wide.
His mouth is moving, but I cannae make sense of what he’s trying to say. I dinnae try.
“Ye know what ye did.”
“I… I… please… "
I straighten up and step behind him. He gets the same as Tomas, but slower…
he has a half-second to feel the cold of the blade against his throat before I move.
And he makes a sound that is not human. Then the sound stops, and Johnny stops with it.
Two down. I let go of his head, wipe the blade, and step into Mikey’s eyeline.
The cunt is fucking broken . He stopped howling and started something quieter and worse… much worse. A keening sound coming from deep down his throat, the kind a child makes when it’s run out of breath from crying. His face is wet. There’s snot down his chin. His shoulders are shaking.
I crouch in front of him and growl in his face, “Look at me.” He cannae.
His eyes are squeezed shut. “Mikey. Open yer fucking eyes.” He opens them.
Just barely. And they’re bloodshot. “Ye took from my girls.” He makes another pathetic, strangled sound.
“Everything that was left in the safe. Whatever little money was there. Aye?” Another sound. “Even her fuckin’ wedding band.”
“…it was just… I needed… "
“It was hers, Mikey.”
“…”
“It was theirs, and ye walked into that house while my woman was alone with her kid and ye took from them.”
Mikey is shaking so hard that the chair is rattling under him.
I stand up, close the knife, and put it back in my pocket.
Then I take my time because the knife is not what Mikey is getting.
I pull my gloves out of my pocket, black leather, and pull them on, slowly, working each finger into place, watching Mikey watch me do it.
His eyes are bloody huge. I crack my knuckles.
“Mr. Mak… Mr. Maksimov, please…”
“I dinnae want to hear it.”
“Please… please …”
“Mikey, I dinnae want to hear it.”
I cross to him.
The first blow lands on his ribs. The cunt makes a noise like a punctured tire and tries to fold, but the ropes hold him upright. I let him breathe. I want him present.
“That’s for the money, cunt.”
The second one hits the same spot. Harder. I feel a rib go under the leather. He fucking screams.
“This one’s for the wedding band.”
The third punch is to his face. His nose breaks, blood pours down his chin onto his shirt and his jeans, on the concrete. He’s still screaming, but the sound has gone wet, choked, the cries of a man trying to breathe through a broken nose and not managing very well.
I crouch down again and put a hand on his knee.
“Mikey.”
“…”
“Mikey, look at me.”
He cannae. His head is hanging.
I take his chin in my gloved hand and lift it. His eyes roll, find mien, and focus with effort. There is blood and snot mixed on his upper lip.
“Ye took from my girls, cunt.” A wet cough. “Ye walked into Lisa’s bedroom, opened her jewellery box, and took her fucking ring. While she was alone in that house. While she was scared. While she was bloody grievin’ a man she didnae even fucking love.”
“…m’sorry…” he mumbles.
I nod. “I know ye are.” I straighten up, let go of his chin, and his head drops. “Ye’ll be sorrier in a second.”
Then I work him for ten minutes. Not with the knife.
The knife is for clean kills. Mikey doesnae get clean.
Mikey gets fists and boots and the handheld I keep in my jacket for moments like this one.
I work his ribs and his hands… the hands that opened her door…
and his knees and his face, fucking thorough .
He stops screaming about halfway through it. The whimpers after that are barely audible. By the end, he’s quiet.
I check his pulse with two fingers at his throat.
Still there. Faint.
“Aye.”
I pull my knife back out and do it across his throat in one pass. Clean.
I look at the three chairs. Three bodies. One slumped forward, one sideways, one against its restraints in a way that does not look like the man it used to be.
My breathing is even, my hands steady. Aye. That’s done.
* * *
By the time I’m at the sink in the office at the back, rinsing my forearms in cold water, watching blood swirl down the drain, Kostya’s already started with the hose and bleach.
The water runs pink. I rinse till it doesnae, dry my hands on a clean towel folded on the counter. There’s a fresh white shirt hanging on the back of the office door.
I strip off my bloody shirt, ball it up, and drop it in a trash bag that’s going into the incinerator with whatever’s left of Ray’s men.
Kostya comes in.
“Let’s roll.”
“Aye.”
* * *
The office on Maddox is the entire third floor of a building I’m going to own by Friday.
We already had it gutted. The room I walk into has one long table, fourteen chairs around it, and twelve men sitting in the chairs.
They stand when I come in. I dinnae tell them to sit back down.
I just walk to the head of the table and stand there.
Kostya stands at the door behind me, hands folded in front of him.
I look around the room. The captains from the four crews Ray used to deal with are spread around the table, not sitting next to each other because none of them trust each other. There’s a rep from one of the smaller families. A couple of cops.
I put my hands flat on the table.
“Halo City is Maksimov now.” I let that sit. “As of this morning, every line of business Ray Venn ran is mine. The routes, the territory, the percentages, the protection. All of it.” Nods and hums. “The men who came back to take from his house after he was in the ground are no longer reachable.”
A choked sound escapes the man two seats down from one of the dirty cops. I look at him. He lowers his gaze.
“I’ll meet with each one of you individually. Ye will come when ye are called. Ye bring your books. Ye tell me the truth. If I find ye lying, I dinnae have to tell ye what happens then.”
Silence.
“This is not a negotiation. Anyone who has a problem with that, speak up now.”
Silence.
“Good.”
I straighten up, button my jacket.
“Kostya. Take it from here.”
My man steps to the head of the table as I walk out. I dinnae look back. The room stays standing as I go.
I take the stairs two at a time, get back in my car, and drive home to my woman.