Chapter 2
Viktor~
The smell of death wasn’t pleasant, but I was used to it.
In fact, there wasn’t much about it that bothered me anymore.
Having been raised in the Korolev Bratva, I’d been desensitized to the horrors of death early on, and torture didn’t bother me any, something that the asshole currently tied to the metal chair was learning firsthand.
Now, normally, I didn’t care about pussy one way or the other, but a lot of what I did was to prove a point more than it was to avenge some imagined slight. After all, not many people were stupid enough to mess with the Korolevs, and those who did cross the line, they were made examples of.
Like now.
I also didn’t blame the whore that was crying uncontrollably in the corner.
Like most women with little choice, she was just a pawn in life, and while a decent man would feel sorry for her, I didn’t.
Her pimp had ordered her to try to rob me, and for whatever reason, she had agreed to try.
So, now she was here as a witness to what happened when people crossed me, and if she didn’t go insane by the end of all this, then she could spread the word to the other whores who littered our streets at night.
Now, the only issue with how I was carving Emich Krous into pieces was that it might kick off some static with the Germans, though I wasn’t too worried about it.
I also hadn’t had any idea that the woman who had approached me at Ice Mountain earlier had been a working German whore.
Oh, it’d been obvious that she’d been looking for a good time, and if I hadn’t been going through such a dry spell, I might have chosen better.
No matter what could be said about me, I never fucked our whores as it was beyond the height of stupidity to shit where you ate.
At any rate, as the Sovietnik to my father’s position as the Korolev Pakhan, I was first in line to take over the bratva one day, which was a good thing since the only other son in line to inherit was my brother, Kasimir, and he was, simply put, a psychopath who didn’t have the discipline to be in charge of a multi-million dollar criminal enterprise.
Of course, our structure mirrored that of the Italian Mafia to some extent, and if you compared my position to their hierarchy, I’d be the Consigliere.
As for my brother, he was our Obshchak, which was our bookmaker and was in charge of all the books for all our financial endeavors.
Next in line were the Brigadiers, which were likened to Capos, then Boyeyiks, which were our warriors, then our Shestyorkas, which were our associates.
One of the rare differences between us and the Italians was that I was still single at thirty-five, and I had no heirs to speak of.
Now, while I had nothing against getting married or having a family, I just didn’t trust people enough to form any kind of attachment to them.
Apart from my parents and brother, I trusted no one, and I only cared to know what I needed to know about the many businesses that we ran.
However, with my father, Aleksei Korolev, being sixty-five, he was quickly losing patience with me and Kasimir setting up our nurseries.
However, I suspected that his annoyance had more to do with my mother, Irina Korolev, being fifty-eight and wanting grandchildren before she was too old to be able to enjoy them.
Now, while my father didn’t adore my mother enough to force his hand for her, he also didn’t appreciate how she nagged when she was fixated on something.
Plus, it wasn’t lost on either of my parents that my brother was out of his mind, and so I suspected that they wanted to help in raising his children since I could only imagine how they’d end up if left to Kasimir on his own.
Granted, I loved my brother, and looking at him was like looking into a mirror that was two years younger, but the man was insane, plain and simple.
It also didn’t help that, unlike my father and I, instead of having brown hair and blue eyes, Kasimir had brown hair with one blue eye and one white one, and it was hard not to argue that his psychopathy might have been inherited honestly.
Nevertheless, whether a genuine psychopath or not, Kasimir was great with numbers, and he was very good at his job, which helped tremendously.
While we had large enough numbers for the Chinese, Romanians, and Germans not to be a problem, the Italians would be able to give us a run for our money if a war were to ever pop off.
Unlike us, they procreated like rabbits, and they were also dedicated to keeping their legacy alive.
In fact, if only by a few numbers, the Marchettis had the biggest criminal enterprise in the entire state.
There were also whispers about a mercenary on their payroll called Astaroth, Star for short.
It was rumored that the guy was a ghost and left no trace of evidence at all.
Of course, that was impossible, but my guess was that Santino Marchetti was the elusive Astaroth, and that he simply paid the cops to find no evidence left behind.
“P...please...no, no more,” “Melody” pleaded, but anything worth doing was worth doing well, and I was a craftsman at my job.
I also wasn’t a total monster, so I could understand how traumatizing this might be for her.
After all, since Emich Krous was her pimp, I imagined that, like most whores and their pimps, he had brainwashed her to feel something for him, a most misguided relationship if ever there was one.
Hell, she might even feel like she loved him, what with all the times that he probably saved her from some creep.
Nevertheless, trying to steal from me hadn’t been wise.
“I’m beg...begging you,” she went on, and I preferred her sobbing over her voice cutting through Emich’s moans of pain.
“Ah, milyy,” I chuckled. “What fun would it be to stop now?”
Now, while I wouldn’t expect a German whore to understand Russian, I called all women by darling, so even if she could understand me, she’d make a mistake in thinking that she was special.
It just wasn’t worth my time to remember their names, and while that might sound cold and callous, most men felt that way when partaking in the fairer sex.
At any rate, as demented as it sounded, I was enjoying myself.
I loved making an example out of my enemies, and the Germans were definitely our enemies.
Of course, for everyone to prosper to some degree, there was an unspoken civility among criminals, and for the most part, we all stayed within our territories to keep the state police from needing to interfere with our businesses.
No matter how much we might hate one another, no one wanted to risk their legacies by bumping dicks.
Nonetheless, that didn’t stop us from continuously doing our homework, and so that’s how I knew that Emich Krous was nothing but a street punk, and he was no way connected to the Schmidts of St. Moran.
In fact, the Marchettis, Schmidts, Aldeas, and Zhangs were the only last names that mattered in the state, and we kept a very close eye on them to make sure that their power never extended beyond the borders of Illinois.
Oh, we knew that the syndicates had their alliances in other states, but as long as no one was teaming up for something big, we didn’t get involved.
“P...plea...please...”
Now, while Emich’s pleas were a gurgling mess, I could still understand him all the same. I also wasn’t surprised that he was begging. I mean, they always started begging after the first hour of hanging out with me, but I was just as desensitized to it as I was with most things in my world.
I leaned down to look into what was left of Emich’s face. “Well, see...the problem here is that someone needs to pay for how you two tried to roll me,” I informed him. “Would you rather that she take your spot? Because I can make that happen.”
Melody’s-or whatever her real name was-whimpers turned into screams at the very possibility, but what she didn’t know was that she was safe from such a thing.
While I had no problem killing a woman if I had to, I wasn’t big on torturing them.
Chauvinistic or not, a woman would have to be soulless before I’d ever even entertain the idea of torturing her.
Besides, like I’d said earlier, in this particular instance, she was just a puppet with Emich pulling her strings, so he was the one that needed to pay for what they’d tried to do.
To his credit, Emich had chosen to spare Melody, or else he was still aware enough to recognize that he was going to die, no matter his choice.
Even if he’d wanted to trade places with the woman, his injuries were to the point that his body was just waiting to finally quit on him.
No doctor on earth would be able to bring him back from the brink of death, and maybe Emich Krous wasn’t as stupid as I had pegged him for.
“N...no...” he sputtered. “No...leave...leave her a...alone...”
If possible, Melody began to wail louder, but it was easy to block out the noise, a skill that I had developed early on in life.
Since birth, I’d known nothing but the bratva way, and while some would call us sociopaths for how detached we were to a lot of normal emotional functions, we weren’t sociopaths.
We understood and felt emotions just like the next guy, but our ability to compartmentalize was what made all the difference.
I couldn’t remember a time when emotions had ever complicated any business decisions, and my brother and I really had learned from the best.
Three hours later, I’d given direction to dispose of Emich Krous’ body, and I’d been decent enough to drop Melody off at her apartment building, reminding her of what happened when someone crossed any Korolev.
As I drove home, I had to wonder if celibacy was such a bad thing. I had ended up with Melody because Dushenka had begun to act expectantly, and that was the last thing that I needed.