8. Lukas
Fyodor’s Rules #12 - You’re only as good as the tools you use.
Iwas in two minds about what to do with the information we’d gotten from the crack den. I definitely wanted to act on it, that wasn’t up for debate. Whoever was bringing these mercenaries into town was putting my family in danger, and I had promised myself long ago that I would do whatever it took to keep them safe. No one else would be lost on my watch.
However, I didn’t have Alexei’s love of wanton violence. I was certainly capable of it—we all were, even Pasha—but I didn’t revel in it the way Alexei did. It was just a part of the job, a necessity.
A chase though, now that got my blood pumping. I lived for the chase. And so that was how I was treating the search for information—I was chasing it down. That took finesse, dedication, and patience. While I knew Alexei was a patient man, he could also get a little lost in the bloodlust sometimes.
I was certain that the best way to get information from the Aces was by talking to them calmly. Sure, you could get anyone to talk with violence and torture. But one thing Fyodor had instilled in Alexei, and I was the knowledge that sometimes not only wasn’t it necessary, but sometimes it was detrimental to the cause. There were plenty of people out there with a very small pain tolerance. And while you would think they’d be the easiest to extract information from, the opposite was true. They are the very people who would say anything to make the pain stop. They would speak whatever they thought you wanted to hear, and it made their information unreliable.
It was very frustrating.
The Aces weren’t hardened criminals, in fact, most of them were white-collar workers. If they had been the ones hired to engage the mercenaries, it was for their skills in accountancy. I had told Alexei that I didn’t think bursting into the clubhouse was going to be the best way to get information, but that wasn’t entirely true. Stabbing and shooting our way in wasn’t the best idea, and it would cause a mess. But I had no objection to sending a message. If we did this right, we could do so without alerting whoever was pulling the strings that we were on to them. Sometimes subtlety was more important than making a statement.
One option was to send in Pasha or Nikolai. Unfortunately, their flavor of talking took time, negotiations back and forth, and yielding concessions to get what we wanted. We had already given these people more than they deserved.
Which meant going with the second option. It was still talking, but it was going to be me, threatening them. It was a role I felt comfortable in, the hunter. Not the man who dished out pain, the one who ran them down, and then dragged them back to where the pain was going to happen. The one who instilled fear.
And Alexei was a very effective threat.
After dropping Alexei back at the hotel, I changed into my riding gear. The clubhouse I was riding to wasn’t far, but you never knew what the drivers surrounding you were going to do, and I liked my skin attached to my body. I’d spent far too many hours under a tattoo needle to let the road take a cheese grater to it. I didn’t expect to come off my bike, but I didn’t like to take the chance.
The all-black leather and dark helmet with a voice modulator and a matt-black visor also helped with intimidation. Hiding your face was a useful tool. When people couldn’t see you, or your expression, their mind filled in the blanks. Reality was rarely as terrifying as people let their anxiety lead them to believe. And I liked to use that to my advantage.
Looking over my bikes, I decided on the Kawasaki Ninja H2R. I didn’t think I was going off-road, but if I ended up in a chase, it would get me both into and out of any trouble. And I was vain enough to admit that I liked the sharp black angles of the bike, it made me feel intimidating and added to my overall badass aura.
The ride across town was an easy twenty minutes, and I weaved in and out of the early evening traffic. I used the ride to sort out my thoughts and put aside my anger. The Aces may have helped to recruit the mercenaries who were attacking us and get them into the city, but as far as I knew, they had only handled the money. Did I want to see them punished? Absolutely. But not as much as I wanted to find and obliterate the people that were ordering these attacks. Priorities were important.
I didn’t pull up outside their clubhouse. This would not be like the crack den where we just kicked in the door and strolled inside. Motorcycle clubs, even one like the Shadow Aces who kept their criminal activity minimal, were notoriously territorial about their space.
Besides, that way wouldn’t be as fun.
I parked my bike about half a block away, and around a corner. It looked out of place here, but I didn’t care, as I wouldn’t be leaving it for long. Besides, if someone touched it, well, that would just give me another chase for the night. And what better way to wash down the first one?
There were a few different paths I could take to get into the clubhouse. The Spectral Realm would be the easiest. This neighborhood was mostly industrial, there were bound to be a few ghosts, but nothing that would be much bother. Another option was to go through either the Shadow Realm or one of the Hells, and both would let me drag part of the realm with me when I stepped back. Not enough to cause trouble or to put me on the radar of anyone I didn’t want to be, but enough to make most hardened grown men piss themselves. It was always a good foot to start negotiations on.
Deciding on the last option, I whistled, prompting Ghost and Demon to step out of thin air. The two dogs looked out of place standing on the deserted street, but we would not be here for long.
“We’re just going to scare them, boys, so put on your game faces.” I didn’t need to talk to them out loud, but sometimes it comforted me to do so. They both growled and stepping up to flank me. Perfect.
Sliding through the realms was always a strange feeling. Some realms were more comfortable than others. The Summerlands was pleasant, but I rarely had a reason to go there. The Shadow Realm and the Spectral Realm were the ones I use most often, and those were like stepping through water. There was a slight resistance on entering, but then I came out on the other side. None of the Hells were a pleasant place to visit, some were frozen wastelands, but I had chosen one that was full of fire. I ignored the sounds of screaming, and the intense burn on my skin through my gear. We didn’t need to move far to get to the house. I was going to have to do two jumps, but moving around inside a building was always a fussy process. It would be easier to come out first into one of the main rooms, then reappear in the office once I knew where it was exactly. I could feel the heat against my leathers as we clambered over a rock to where I knew the house would be on the other side. I knew the dogs would be ready without having to look. And as I transported the three of us back, I pulled as much of the sulfur and heat with us as I could.
I had been more accurate than I planned, it could be tricky stepping between the realms, and accuracy was often difficult. The Spectral Realm was the easiest to see back and forth between, but some, like the Hells, had much firmer boundaries.
I was in the middle of what appeared to be a large rec room. People were standing around, some with beers halfway to their mouths, some staring in shock at the pool table I was standing near. A pool table which was now on fire. Others stared in fear at the two demon dogs who snarled and growled at them, fangs on display. You could tell these were amateurs and not hardened criminals, no one had reached for a weapon, in fact, no one had even moved.
They were lucky I hadn’t bought Alexei, or half of them would already be dead.
“Your fucking president, where is he?”
I got a couple of fear-filled stares, but in the end, it was a woman who was standing behind the bar who pointed to the stairway that went up.
“Th . . . th . . . third door.”
That was all I needed—I pulled myself and the hounds back across the boundary between the realms—upstairs, toward the third door. Once we were standing in Hell again, I didn’t have to physically move, just mentally focus on the point where I wanted to land. This time when I pulled us across, I was more forceful, tearing a hole between the realms rather than just stepping through.
Hellfire and brimstone spilled out into the office as we appeared in front of a desk. The man sitting behind it looked more like an accountant than a biker. Some Aces were Scions, but not all of them, and I hadn’t run a background check on this man. I probably should have had Pasha investigate him before I came barreling in here, but it was too late for that now. He could chew me out for it later.
Hellfire had definitely been the way to go. The man was cowering, his chair tipped over in his haste as he hid behind his desk, trying to stay out of sight. Like a desk was going to protect him from me. The two dogs jumped onto the wooden desk, claws digging in, growling and snarling. The man tried to crawl further under the desk, but I wasn’t sure how he thought that was going to help him. Some people truly had terrible survival instincts.
“Unless you want me to drag you out of there by your fucking hair, get the fuck out here and face me.”
I gave him a minute to pull himself together, and was just about to walk around the desk when I saw the top of his head emerge, followed by his wide eyes peeking over the top of the wood. I pointed to his chair and waited for him to drag his sorry ass out.
While I could have made good on my threat, pulling him out by his hair, that would be counterproductive. I needed him scared enough that he would tell me what I needed without thinking, unconsciously acting on his instincts. But if I let him get too scared, he’d cry or get incoherent, and that would make everything much more difficult. I wasn’t one for conversation as it was.
I didn’t need him crying as well.
Once he was cowering in his now righted seat, the dogs jumped down from the desk and penned him in. We moved as a team, fluid, each knowing exactly where the other was going and when. I stayed on the other side of the desk, giving the cringing biker the illusion of some semblance of safety or protection from me.
“You’ve been moving money for someone recently,” I didn’t pose it as a question, and yet he still opened his mouth and stammered.
I sighed, and the dogs stepped forward, snarling. Thankfully, it had the effect I intended, and the man shut his fucking mouth.
“I wasn’t asking. We know you’re moving money. I’m sure you handle money for a lot of people, but recently you’ve been paying some mercenaries. I want to know who you’ve been doing it for.”
The stammering started again, and luckily, he couldn’t see me roll my eyes. They always faltered and tried to provide some excuse for why they could not tell me. Like I had come all this way, and I was just going to turn around and give up because they refused to reveal anything. I let him continue, offering excuse after excuse, as I waited for him to tire himself out.
Pressing my hands to the desk, I leaned forward, my riding leathers creaking. “I can promise you that whatever they have threatened you with is nothing—NOTHING—compared to what Alexei will put you through if I have to drag you to see him. And I will drag you. In front of your men, kicking and screaming and begging me for mercy. I am telling you right now that your only chance for mercy is to tell me what I want. Now!”
He had shrunk back in his seat, like he could move out of my reach. It was incredible how predictable these interactions were. Almost every time, it was the same. He was going to do one of two things next. He was going to beg and try to offer me things, basically do anything he could to get out of telling me the information I wanted to hear. Or he was going to threaten me. If I was a betting man, and I was, he was going to go the first option, he wasn’t the sort to fight when backed into a corner. Everything about him screamed flight.
“I can’t . . . they’ll kill me.”
I sighed, and the dogs stepped forward, growling. “Do you know which organs a person can live without, and for how long? Because I do. I’ve watched Alexei pull people apart, slowly, piece by piece, keeping them alive for months. Months. Is that what you want?”
He was shaking his head, but he still wasn’t answering the question that I wanted. Pushing off from the desk, I moved around it, but kept my pace slow, measured. I was giving him time to let his mind run wild. Time for him to scramble out of his chair, to tip it over backward again and become tangled. It’s not like he could actually reach the door, Ghost was in the way, snarling at him and snapping his jaws.
“You’re running out of time . . .” I let the words hang in the air as I rounded the table. This wasn’t much of a chase, but as I stood over him, I still felt the satisfaction of my prey hunted down.
“The account doesn’t have a name. The contact is all done over the phone. He’s Russian. Talk to the Bratva!” The words were practically screamed at me. As though, if he yelled them loudly enough, it would throw some sort of wall up between us.
But his words had slammed into me, and my brow furrowed. Again, it was lucky he couldn’t see my expression through the helmet. The Bratva was the crime family we’d had the least trouble with. We weren’t exactly family, but Fyodor had been, and Alexei was too. We weren’t one of them, but we weren’t exactly enemies either.
Or at least we’d thought we weren’t.
Turning my attention to the man sniveling on the floor, I briefly imagined putting my boot through his face. It would make me feel better at this moment, but it would not help in the long run.
“If they contact you again, you are going to tell me what they want. Don’t make me come back here.” Taking one of my cards, I flicked it so that it landed on his chest.
I needed to report this to the others. Ghost and Demon stepped in close to me, and I pulled the three of us into the Spectral Realm and headed for my bike. The clubhouse was firmly behind me now, almost out of my thoughts. If the Bratva were coming for us, things were going to get a lot worse before they got better.