22. Demin
DEMIN
Octavio sits at the bench when I walk into the lab, which is the first surprise.
Part of me expected to find him sitting stubbornly on his cot, daring me to start in on him again.
But he's hunched over a row of glassware with a beaker in his hand.
He's moving slowly but he's working. The old man knows I'm there but won't lift his eyes to me.
"I see you've finally decided to work," I say, stalking past Mishka to stand next to where Octavio glowers up at me.
"I was under the impression I didn't have a choice." He sets the beaker down and finally lifts his eyes to mine, but all I see is a cold glare. He's still raging mad about being here, but at least he's being compliant.
"How are things going?" I'm intensely curious as to how he works his process, though I'll never venture into this side of the business.
We have cameras covering every angle of everything he does, and we have his formula.
If he rebels and ends up being removed, we will have another chemist trained in less than a week now.
"I could run this batch the way I ran it for Solano.
" He picks up a flask, turns it in his fingers, and sets it back down.
"Or I could take my own time about it…" He's so fucking stubborn, I almost laugh at him.
"Maybe I just forgot how to cook, and maybe these batches are just no good…
" He shrugs nonchalantly, turning back to his work.
So that's the game he's settled on since he can't refuse outright anymore, to cook me garbage.
I pull the stool out from under the bench and sit.
I want him looking down at me for this instead of up, want him to see I'm in no hurry and that I am calm.
Killing him would be a simple thing to do.
I'd prefer not to because Isabela won't like it, but it would be easy.
"So let's say you go and do that," I tell him while I settle onto the stool. "Let's say every batch that comes off this bench is a little weaker than the last, and my buyers start to grumble, and I work out you're doing it on purpose. You following me so far?"
"I am well ahead of you, Mr. Roshin." He glowers out of the corner of his eye, but his hands keep measuring and pouring.
"Then you already know where it goes." I fold my hands in my lap and wait, but he doesn't respond. "It doesn't come back on you, because you've made that part easy for me. You don't care what I do to you, so there's no point doing anything to you at all, which means it comes back on her instead."
His hands rest on the bench as he heaves out a sigh. He knows I'm right and that I won't budge on my threats. The thing he wants to avoid most is the one thing that will happen if he plays games with me.
"Right now, your daughter sleeps in a bed instead of a cell, and she eats what I eat, and nobody in this house lays a hand on her.
I am the boss, and people do what I say.
" I watch his face as he takes all of this in.
"All of that is a choice I make every morning, and it's a choice I can unmake just as easily.
The day I decide your powder's bad on purpose is the day her life gets a great deal harder.
You won't be in the room to see how much harder, which I think will be the worst part for a man like you. "
I watch his entire body shift as he pulls himself up to his full height and squares his shoulders, turning to glare at me.
"You are a coward to do it this way," he snarls. "You can't break me, so you threaten a girl who can't fight back."
"I'm a businessman with a problem, and she's the solution that costs me the least. Come now, Octavio, you know how this works.
Right?" None of what I'm saying is true anymore.
Isabela is far more to me than just leverage.
But using this against him is my only point of access to his buttons.
"If you want her left alone, you cook me product I can sell, every batch strong, every batch the same as the one before it. It's not that complicated, old man."
He scowls at my insult and clenches his hand into a fist, but he's smart enough to know I mean it. He's smart enough to know I'm right about him too, that I can't touch him in any way that would actually motivate him. Isabela's the only door I can walk through to get what I want.
"You speak about my daughter," he says, "like she's an object you own. It's despicable. She has a future, and she should have a life and a husband and children. With you she's nothing but a whore. Why would you do this?"
The idea that Sergei would treat Isabela like a whore made me so angry I could've killed him.
I got so furious and defensive, I almost pulled my weapon.
But when Octavio says this, I'm angry for a different reason.
Because he's right. I speak about her like nothing more than a sex toy, and she's so much more to me now.
But if I soften, even for a second, and let him know that, I lose my position of power over him.
"I speak about her like leverage because that's what she is to the work," I say, rising from the stool to stand over him. "What she is to me past that is none of your concern, old man, and it changes nothing about what happens to her if you cheat me."
"It is every bit my concern, because I am her father.
" He's so angry he slams his fist onto the counter, making beakers rattle and dance.
"You think I do not see what is happening to her under this roof?
She comes to me smelling like you. It's disgusting knowing what you've made her…
A father sees, Roshin. A father always sees. "
"Then you already know I keep her better than Solano…
And I know you want that to continue for her…
" My eyes narrow as his accusations challenge what my mind knows is morally acceptable.
Isabela is mine. I've staked my claim. Still, there is truth to what he is saying which is known to all men.
The problem is he sees it too clearly. My arguments are losing power now.
"Solano gave her comfort too, when it suited him. Right up until the day he wanted what only her body could give him, and then the comfort was the leash he used to pull her in." Octavio turns back to his work with darkness now hovering over him.
He is watching my face for a reaction, but I won't give him more than, "I am nothing like Solano.
" Isabela never told me what happened to her in that compound, mostly that they mistreated her father.
But the fear in her eyes when Sergei cornered her and I caught him makes sense now.
She was terrified, and I almost failed her. I'm not sure how to take that.
"You keep saying this to me, and every man who is exactly Solano says the same to me," he answers, shaking his head.
"Prove it some way other than your word, and maybe I believe you.
Until then you are a better-dressed version of the same predator.
" He grits his teeth but continues. "I will cook your poison because you have left me no other choice, but do not stand here and belittle my understanding of you and your men. "
"Just do the work, old man. Do it and make sure it's done right, and nothing happens to your precious daughter except what she begs me for when I fuck her."
His jaw works as his eyes go wet, and for a second I think he might come at me like he did the first day.
But he doesn't move on me, though. He only turns back to the glassware and picks the beaker up again.
His hands are shaking, but they're moving, and this time, they're moving at the right speed.
"You will rot in the ground for this," he says to me. "Whatever you are building here, it falls down on your head in the end. There is appointed to man once to die and then the judgment… Remember that. Only the just shall prevail, Mr. Roshin."
"That may well be true," I answer, giving Mishka a nod across the room. "But that's tomorrow's problem, and tonight I've got product to sell."
I watch him work a few more seconds to be sure he continues doing what he's supposed to, then turn to test the first batch which he's already finished.
It comes up clean, the powder strong, no weaker than the crates I bought out of Spain, maybe a hair better than those, which tells me the threat did exactly what threats are for.
"This is good work," I tell him absently, amazed at how even his inferior work is pure enough to be untraceable.
"Of course it's good. I'm the best there ever was at it," Octavio answers without turning around from the bench, and I realize his Spanish is becoming more relaxed, like he's settling in.
Whether he likes it or not, he is a gift to this industry.
He may think it a curse on his life that's brought him only sorrow and pain, but I see the value in this. Sebastian will too.
I leave the sample on the table and head for the door, stopping with my hand on it.
"Have Bart keep him working. We have to go to Lichtenberg." My words cause Mishka to straighten up instantly, and he sends a short text as he follows me out the door, locking up behind us.
I haven't been out to see the site since the night it burned.
We had to give fire officials room to work, and rumor has it they are starting to sift through debris today to start clean up.
Once in the car, my mind is consumed with thoughts of Isabela and the things Octavio said.
Mishka drives, but he leaves me to my thoughts, which I appreciate.
I have too much on my mind to small talk or chat about more problems.
When we pull up the site in full daylight, it’s almost devastating.
Half the roof is on the ground. The walls that are still standing are streaked up to the eaves where the heat devoured all but the skeleton, and the crews are still picking through it, lifting beams, sifting the wet ash for whatever the Cartel left us to find.