12. Alex
ALEX
“Where is he?” I ask Rikki. He and Gedeon are standing by the door of the abandoned building, watching and waiting for me. They called me a little less than thirty minutes ago. Woke me up out of a sound sleep.
Well, maybe not that sound. I haven’t been sleeping right since I’ve been sharing a bed with Nona.
I’ve been trying to position pillows between us to avoid touching her, but it’s just not helping.
The warmth of her body and the naturally sweet scent of her skin still penetrate my sleep.
The dreams I’ve had because of that have been intense and I’ve been waking up with monster hard-ons.
It’s making me think that maybe I should consider sleeping on the couch.
If I did that or if I set up a separate room for her, it’s a risk.
One errant word from Rikki or Yeva to anyone in the Bratva and the rumor mill will be working overtime about how we’re only a week and a half into our marriage and we’ve stopped sleeping together.
My leadership would be questioned. After all, how can I run a Bratva if I can’t even please my woman?
Needless to say, I’m actually happy to be out of the house. I’m even happier knowing that I’ll be able to take out some of this frustration that’s been building up over the last week and a half. I could use a good fight or at least some time to beat the shit out of somebody.
Rikki smirks at me as I walk up and says, “Hello to you, too.”
“Can it.” I’m not smiling. There’s nothing funny to me at this moment.
Rikki glances over at Gedeon. A quick nonverbal exchange flies between them. Gedeon says, “He’s in the basement.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Let’s go.”
Rikki opens the door and the three of us walk in. The dusty stench of the long abandoned apartment building lingers in the air as we walk down the first hallway to the staircase, Gedeon holding his phone up with the flashlight on so we can see.
This is one of at least three buildings in the area that are due to be demolished in a couple of days.
The neighborhood around them has long been abandoned, and there’s nothing here but empty parking lots and fields of overgrown grass and not a soul around to hear the screams of the poor bastard who thought it was a good idea to cross us.
According to Kostya, they found the guy hiding out in the attic of his friend’s house.
His friends were disposed of pretty easily, or at least that’s my understanding, and he was dragged out by the back of his neck and thrown in the trunk of Rikki’s car.
My brother didn’t even give this guy a chance to try and beg for his life.
I’ve always appreciated his efficiency when it comes to things like this.
There’s a big metal door at the bottom of the stairs. Gedeon pushes it open using his shoulder. It scrapes the floor as he gets it all the way open, propping it up with a rock, then standing to one side as Rikki and I walk all the way into the room.
The space is enormous despite the well-placed lanterns sitting around the single chair in the center of the room.
From here, I can see the amber lights flickering off the shadows, pulling them in a little closer than the walls of the room.
In the darkness, there are shapes of shelves and old machinery—pieces of a life that no longer exists in this old building.
And in the very center of the room, sitting in a chair, is our guy.
Rikki’s already had a little time with him.
The tank top he’s wearing is torn at the collar and stained with streaks of dark red and brown.
His head is hanging down, but his short brown hair is soaked with sweat and streaked with red from the clumps of rapidly coagulating blood in his scalp.
I walk up to him and pull his head up by his greasy hair. One eye is swollen shut and his bottom lip is bloody. There are some bruises on his jawline, but overall, he only looks a little roughed up so far. Rikki clearly held back to leave some for me.
He stares up at me with his one good eye. It shakes with fear.
“You know, I was sound asleep when I was told that you’d been caught,” I say to him, “so, I’m a little cranky. I like my sleep. Hopefully, we can keep this short and sweet. Let’s start with the basics. Who are you and who sent you?”
He swallows hard, still staring up at me with that one shaky eye. But he doesn’t say a word. I let go of his head and glance behind me. Rikki is standing to my immediate left and Gedeon’s still by the door.
“Rikki, soften him up some more for me.”
Rikki smiles and cracks his knuckles. He walks right up to him and punches him hard across the jaw.
Blood and sweat fly off in the direction his head jerks.
Rikki gives him a couple more hard punches until I tell him to stop.
He stops, taking a half-step back. My brother glares at him with a sort of fury in his eyes.
The monster in him is awake. If I let him, he’ll beat him to death and hardly break a sweat.
“So, I guess this is your first interrogation,” I say to the poor bastard as he spits blood on the floor.
“The way this goes is simple. I ask you a question and you answer it. Truthfully. Every question you decide not to answer, we get to take turns taking it out on your hide.” I glance back at Rikki, who still has that hungry look in his eye.
“My brother hits hard, but he can hit harder, and you don’t even want to know what I’ll do to you if you get me pissed enough. ”
“You’re not… going to break me…” he says. “You have to let me go. I can’t… you can’t hold me here…”
“Let you…?” I almost laugh at that. “You really think we’re going to let you go? Do you have any idea who the fuck I am?”
He looks up at me again. “You… You’re Alexandr Molotov.”
That sends a chill of confirmation up my spine. “Look at that. You do know me. And if you know who I am, then I’ve gotta assume that you know who my brothers and I represent. That means you have to have some understanding of the shitstorm you just bought yourself. ”
He just stares with his shaky good eye. The stench of fear on him is as thick as pea soup.
“In case you were hit a little too hard in the head,” I growl at him, “let me remind you that this is not a negotiation. We will not bargain with you. We will not call anyone for ransom or get anyone else involved to speak up for what’s left of your pathetic little life.
We will beat and torture you until you answer our questions—all of our questions—to our satisfaction. ”
I stand up and take off my jacket, tossing it across the room.
“Now I know I said that I’d like to keep this short and sweet, but between you and me, friend, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands.
We can all take turns beating the shit out of you if you feel like you need to make this harder for yourself. ”
He sniffles, peering up at me from behind a rapidly swelling forehead. “I… I didn’t take anything.” His words are sounding garbled and wet. He spits again. “I’m not going to tell anyone—”
“Hmm.” I glance back at Rikki and Gedeon. “Did that sound like a name to you?”
“It most certainly did not,” Gedeon says. Rikki just stares, the amber lighting making his eyes look black with rage.
“That is a shame because I thought you understood the rules.” I smile at him, then I take a few steps to the side. “Rikki, if you could jog his memory for me? That would be great.”
“Gladly,” my brother growls. He hits him again and again, punching his face until the sound turns wet and crunchy. Our guest finally starts screaming. “Okay! Okay! I’ll talk! Fuck!”
Rikki stops and walks behind me. Gedeon tosses him a rag to wipe his knuckles.
I watch as this man spits again and a couple of teeth fly out of his mouth and into the dirt. One side of his face looks crushed, the cheekbone caving in on itself. He’s breathing hard. Loud, tortured gasps fill the air.
“I’m waiting,” I say.
He takes another second, then, “My name is Omar. Omar Sta-Stasinsky. I’m Irkutsk. A… a six. Um… uh…”
I cross my arms as he tries to work the words out of his broken jaw.
“A shesh… Uh, ugh, Sheshyorky.”
I hear Rikki snicker behind me. I look “Omar” over. Nearly bare arms save a couple of tattoos. A faded bird on his shoulder and what looks like a playing card on his forearm. “You’re a six. So you say.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Where’s your ink?” I ask him in Russian.
He stares at me, his mouth moving noiselessly. I slap him.
“Your ink,” I say in English. “Where. Is. Your. Ink?”
“I, uh, I don’t… I’m new.”
Both Gedeon and Rikki laugh out loud. “You hear that?” I say. “He said he’s new. He’s so new that he doesn’t even speak Russian. He doesn’t have any Russian ink. And he’s supposed to be Irkutsk. Slavik’s men are slipping if they’re letting little shits like him in.”
Omar’s face goes pale and the red and purple bruises stand out around his eye and around his mouth. “He… He was the one who sent me,” he says. “Sl-Slavik. He just told me to find out… find out what was in the warehouse. He, he never told me… I mean, he never said—”
I pull my gun out of the holster and shoot him in the head. His head jerks back as a single smoking hole appears in the center of his head, then he slumps forward.
“You didn’t have to kill him so soon,” said Rikki. “I was just getting warmed up.”
I holster my gun and shrug. “Lying piece of dogshit. Staring us right in the face and he can’t even tell us who really sent him.” Rikki walks up beside me, looking at Omar’s dead body.
“What if Slavik really sent him?”
I scoff. “This man was not Irkutsk. He probably wasn’t even Russian.”
“Obviously. But what if he sent him, anyway? It’s not exactly a state secret that we’ve got more enemies than just them.”
That gives me pause, then I shake my head slowly. “This man was found sneaking around one of my warehouses. You telling me that Slavik all of a sudden knows where they are?”