Chapter 32
Killian
The unimpressive blue house sits at the end of a small dirt road with no neighbors in sight.
There’s a black Mercedes sitting outside that looks like it’s worth more than the house it’s outside of, and a steady thump of Russian rap music flows down the street from the open windows of the home.
Floyd has been watching the house throughout the day, and finally let us know when the man we have been waiting for had arrived back inside with a woman alongside him.
Asher pulls our SUV around a set of thick bushes at the front of the long dirt road, and parks behind them. He turns around to look at Malakai behind us, then moves his gaze to study me as I slip on my gloves.
“You good, boss?”
“More than good,” I respond, sliding down my ski mask over my face. I’ve been ready all day to do what we truly do best again.
Malakai leans forward between Asher and I looking out of the windshield towards the house. “Should we use our back up team here?” he asks.
I shake my head. “It won’t be necessary. Keep them on standby for our next location. Asher, tell Floyd to let us know if anyone comes up that street,” I say, motioning behind us. “Let’s go.”
Asher keeps the car idling and Malakai and I get out and make our way up the driveway. We keep our guns down at our sides, and scan our eyes around the open yard surrounding the house.
The heavy beat of the rap music grows louder seeming to vibrate the small house as we approach the bottom of the porch.
I silently signal to Malakai for us to walk around back where I see some lights are on. We keep close as we make our way around the back of the weathered wraparound porch. Adrenaline pumps through me as I tighten the grip on my Glock and slowly ascend the stairs.
We both duck down and I stop outside of a window that is open with light filtering onto the porch from inside. I block out the noise of the music and focus on the other sounds I can hear.
A woman’s laughter. A man saying something to her that I can’t quite piece together between the noise, and my limited comprehension of Russian.
I nod to Malakai then move my head slowly to look into the window.
The man I heard is sitting on the other side of the room on the edge of a bed.
The woman with him is straddling his lap, and pulling off her shirt.
She leans into him, gently pushing him backwards onto the bed as they kiss each other roughly.
I couldn’t have asked for better timing.
This is the one time a man is guaranteed to be distracted and vulnerable.
I give Malakai another signal and he nods, moving under the window to the other side. We wait a few moments until both of them are totally lost in each other to make our move.
I push against the weak screen on the window thankful for the cover of the loud music to hide the sound it makes as it detaches and falls onto the carpet inside. I climb through the window, and Malakai follows in behind me. I keep my eyes focused on the couple on the bed, my gun aimed towards them.
The two of them don’t hear a thing, lost in their own world ravaging each other’s mouths with their eyes closed. We silently stalk closer until I am in front of the bed and Malakai is standing at the side of it.
Malakai keeps his gun raised as I lean forward and snatch the back of the woman’s long hair and pull her backwards off of the man, wrapping my hands around her waist and taking her off of the bed in one swift movement.
Her terrified scream rings out and I press my Glock against the side of her temple.
“Shut. Up,” I warn.
Her screaming cuts off into a choked sob and she goes limp in my arms as the man frantically scrambles to sit up. The blood drains from his face as he sees me holding his woman, and his head whips around to see Malakai’s gun aimed at his head.
His hands dart up in the air in surrender, but his shifty eyes keep glancing over to the dresser in the corner.
“Don’t even fucking consider whatever you’ve got hiding in there,” I growl, shaking my head slowly. “Your foot won’t even touch the floor before a bullet is in your throat.”
“Ok! Ok!” He pleads, swallowing hard. His words sound slurred and I realize he must have a few drinks in him.
Malakai keeps his gun on him and moves over to where the sound system is set up to turn off the shitty music.
“W-what do you two want?” The man asks, his voice panicked.
I regard him silently and press my gun harder against the woman’s temple. She lets out another loud sob, muttering something that I can’t understand.
“Please!” The man begs, holding out his palms in front of him. “Please, leave my girl out of this. Whatever you want I’ll give it to you. I-I got money, pills, whatever man! Come on!”
I tilt my head at him, “You didn’t leave my woman out of your problems. So now your woman is going to be a part of my problem, Ivan.”
His stupid face scrunches up in confusion, and he looks at Malakai like he will give him a clue to what is going on.
“Wh-what? Who?! I swear I have nothing to do with whatever is going on with your woman. Really!” He protests.
I move closer to him and sit the woman down on the floor in front of the bed, keeping my gun aimed on her.
“Zip tie her,” I direct Malakai, not moving my eyes from Ivan. “And you don’t even think about moving while he does it.”
Malakai holsters his gun, taking out the zip ties we brought with us to secure the woman’s hands together. I grab Ivan off of the bed, easily lifting up his scrawny frame with my hand around his arm, before tossing him down next to the woman on the floor.
Malakai ties Ivan’s hands and feet before stepping next to me. The woman is still busy crying, keeping her eyes on the floor and not even acknowledging Ivan next to her.
I want to assure her that we won’t hurt her, because that’s not something we ever do to women unless it’s a life-or-death situation. But right now I need her boyfriend to think that we are capable of anything so he will give me what I need.
I bend down in front of Ivan glaring at him through the slits in my mask.
“Pierce Crowell. You’ve shaken him down to the tune of half a million dollars. Sound familiar?”
A red flush rises up Ivan’s pale neck and for a moment I wonder if he has soiled himself. “Crowell? No, no! We were never going to really go after his girlfriend. I swear man!” He defends loudly, suddenly sounding very sober.
“My boss made me threaten that shit to get Crowell to cough up more money! It wasn’t for real,” he says, chuckling nervously as if this is all just one big funny misunderstanding.
I study his face and wonder how much of an idiot he thinks two masked men who have broken into his home undetected could really be.
“Well, you have two problems, Ivan,” I say, moving to stand back up. “One. I know that you’re lying through your crooked fucking teeth. And two. Crowell’s girlfriend is not his anymore. She’s mine. And I’m not so reasonable about people threatening my woman.”
Ivan blinks at me dumbly, finally speechless, so I continue.
“See, we know you’re just an underling in this whole scam.
Your boss has you and your girl, whore, whatever she is to you, run this scam all over Redland, right?
You find businessmen looking for a good time and give them a hot night before blackmailing them.
Only this time, you really thought you hit the jackpot when you figured out who Crowell was.
Then you had to go run your mouth to your boss hoping that he’d, what? Be proud of you?”
Ivan’s jaw clenches and I know I’ve hit the nail on the head.
“And he was proud, right? So your boss decided to start threatening Crowell with harming his girlfriend. Threating to take her life if Crowell didn’t give up more money. A lot more.”
Ivan lets out a pathetic sob. “But we won’t hurt her! I swear man. My boss will call it off. Just..just let me talk to him. We’ve made enough off of Crowell.”
He squirms on the floor, trying to move and get up somehow. “I can call him right now and-“
Ivan’s words are cut off by Malakai lunging down and wrapping his fingers around his throat.
“Do we look like idiots to you?” Malakai growls, his patience shot. “We already know who your boss is, and we know he’s not a forgiving man.”
“Dimitri Poppov is known for many things from what I hear. Scams, pimping, drugs,” I list calmly, watching Ivan’s eyes bulge. “But he’s not known for being forgiving.”
Malakai releases his grasp and Ivan falls on his side gasping for air.
“Just tell them what they want Ivan!” The woman next to him begs.
Ivan maneuvers his way back to sitting upright and glares over at her, before his angry eyes focus on me.
“If you know who I work for then you should know why I can’t tell you anything else you want to know,” he spits, cutting me a nasty look.
I bend down and swing my fist against his jaw, sending him toppling over sideways again.
“Fuck!” He cries out as I pull him up by the front of his shirt.
“If you understood who we are, then you’d know why you should start talking.
It took us less than 30 minutes this morning to find you and your little girlfriend over there.
Plus the house you have for the other chick you keep on the side,” I seethe, tightening my grip.
“Your boss has been more difficult to locate, and I don’t have very much more time and patience left.
So make yourself useful and tell us how to get to him.
Or the next thing I’m doing is having my driver bring my toolkit up here so I can get creative. Which I wouldn’t really mind.”
The defiance in his face dissolves and he shakes his head. “No. No. I’ll tell you where he lives, just let us go!”
“Give me the address, how many guards he has, and tell me where your phone is,” I respond.
He gives us everything I asked for, and Malakai retrieves his own phone from his back pocket, then sends the address to Davi to verify it. Davi quickly responds letting us know that it’s legit, and I drop Ivan back down on the floor.
“Get the girl out of here,” I instruct Malakai.
He takes her up by the arm and grabs her discarded shirt off of the floor. She glances back at Ivan who is staring at Malakai with pure fear in his eyes.
“Where is she going?!” He demands, as Malakai takes her towards the window.
“She will be safe. I thought I would spare her the trauma of watching you take a bullet,” I inform him, aiming my gun back at his head.
He scrambles backwards on the floor until his back hits the bed. “H-hey! I gave you the information you asked for!”
I exhale a heavy breath, sick of his pitiful whining.
How the hell was Pierce intimidated by this coward?
“You did give me what I wanted. So I’m sparing you the use of my toolkit,” I explain, taking a few steps back from him. “But either way, you were dead the second you threatened the woman I love.”
Ivan begins to tremble and his eyes dart back over to the window, realizing that Malakai has already left with his girlfriend. His pleading eyes fall back on me and I see the moment he realizes he has truly lost the dangerous game he decided to play.
“Don’t do this!” He screams.
He opens his mouth to protest again, and swallows the bullet I send flying towards it.