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ARSEN
DAYS LATER
I’m torturing a lot of people these days.
It’s not something I love, though violence has a special place in my heart, much as I’m loath to admit it. I was never so naive as to think that taking over the Bratva from Yevgeniy would be a bloodless venture. But to have to create precise suffering for my enemies is different than a battle for my life.
The upside is I’m quite good at it.
“Did you think that betraying me would end well for you, Mikhail?” I walk around my former brigadier, where Mila has tied him to a chair. The ropes cut across his tan, long-sleeved shirt, digging into his stocky muscles. The constriction is enough to leave his limbs numb without doing permanent damage.
I’d hoped we’d snag one of my defectors, but Mila surprised me by capturing one so quickly. She spotted him when he was ordering a hot dog from one of the many carts downtown and stalked him until he was out of view of anyone who’d care before she knocked him out and carted him back to my place on her motorcycle.
Now we’re back in my wine cellar, the floors barely scrubbed clean of Sergei’s blood, as we reenact the same scene. Mila watches from the shadows, her legs curled to her chest, where she sits on an oak barrel. She looks like a child waiting for her turn to play with a toy.
“I was making a smart choice.” Mikhail glares up at me. “The only choice.”
“By betraying me?” I grab him by the jowls, burying my thumb into his skin until I feel like I’m about to break something.
To his credit, Mikhail holds my gaze and refuses to show any sign of fear at what he knows is inevitable. I knew there was a reason I chose him to be one of my brigadiers.
Which is why his betrayal pains me more than I care to admit.
Releasing him in disgust, I spit on the floor. “You went to Yevgeniy, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Tell me where he is. The roach is hiding somewhere. Shine some light on him for me before I slit your throat.”
“Why bother?” he chuckles dryly. “You’re going to kill me anyway. Why not skip this unnecessary pageantry, Arsen Kirilovich?”
“You talk,” Mila interjects, “and Arsen Kirilovich will make it quick. You don’t, then I get to play with you.” She tosses her knife up, catching it easily by the curved tip as a sharp smile dances across her red lips.
Mikhail’s brow scrunches, the first hint that he’s getting nervous. Putting my hands on either side of the chair, just outside his thick shoulders, I lean close until I’m all he can see.
“Which will it be? Me or her?”
“I don’t know where he is. He’s busy moving around again. Probably has his face buried between the thighs of his new whores.”
“He reopened the brothels?”
“He did.”
Behind me, I hear Mila gasp.
“You didn’t know, devushka?” Mikhail makes a face as he tries to look through me at Mila. When he can’t, he turns his gaze back to me. “Did you forget that I was the one who brought you most of your intel, Arsen Kirilovich?”
I hate the smugness in his voice and the triumph in his eyes. Even now, as he tells me the truth, he mocks me to my face. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I yank his head back, hoping to see fear dance in his eyes. Maddeningly, he continues to smirk through his grimace.
“You should know better than to taunt me like this,” I warn him.
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “But shouldn’t I enjoy myself in my last moments?”
“How many brothels are there?” I inquire.
“Can’t tell you.” He clenches his jaw. “I’m bad with numbers.”
This was a man I drank with, a man whom I trusted with my life. He had an engraved shot glass. He swore an oath to me. He was part of my inner circle. In another life, without the pressure of a brutal war hanging above, I would’ve counted him as a brother.
