We will not be silenced
SSS unite!
Men can’t rape if their dicks are cut off
The building’s lone security guard is shouting into his phone. “I told you already, the doors are locked. But I need back-up. This crowd is out of control.”
As if on cue, something thuds against the glass. Cameron steps closer, almost blocking my view of a soggy sandwich sliding down the outside of the door.
The guard continues to argue. “Ican’tturn off the screens.” He glares at the four monitors behind his desk. Each one shows a different feed of Tarasov’s confession, glowing with the FBI logo. “It’s some government thing,” the guard shouts. “You’ve got to hurry! I need help down here.”
A bell rings behind us, barely audible above the chaos of the crowd. Cole and I turn as the elevator door opens. Our trusty Sawgrass guards march Tarasov into the white marble lobby. They’ve sponged blood from his face, but his hands are still a mess. The hems of his soaked trousers drag against the floor.
The mob ignites like it’s been firebombed.
Tarasov cringes from the scrum, coming face-to-face with the videos. He staggers one step forward, his jaw literally dropping. His face flushes crimson, then drains to the color of a rotting fish’s belly.
“Tarasov,” Cole says, the deadly chill in his voice cutting through the madness. The pakhan whirls toward us like he’s been slapped.
“W— Wolf!” he says. He shakes his head, looking lost. “You did this?”
“Both of us,” Cole says, taking a half-step back to include me.
“But MAJAT—” Tarasov says.
“A false front,” Cole says.
“The FBI…” Tarasov groans.
“Nowhere near this place.”
“WITSEC,” Tarasov whispers.
“In your fucking dreams.”
Tarasov crumples in the arms of his guards. I step close enough to make out the crimson spiderwebs of all the broken veins in his eyes. “Years ago,” I say. “Pyotr gave me choices. And you get to choose now. You can take your chances with the crowd outside.” I take my mobile out of my pocket. “Or you can call one your men to come fetch you.”
“I— I do not understand…”
“Choose, Nikolai.”
“I…”
“Choose!”
He looks at the seething crowd. He cranes his neck toward the videos playing at the security desk. “Not the bratva,” he finally says. “I leave here alone.”
At Cole’s decisive nod, the Sawgrass men march him to the door. Tarasov’s toes scrape the marble floor as the mob surges closer.
One guard trips the dead-man’s switch that opens the locked door. Dozens of hands yank the glass from outside. As the crowd surges forward, I raise my voice, determined to be heard. “Make. It. Hurt,” I call out over the rage of the throng.
I don’t know if the protesters hear me, but Tarasov does. He whirls back to face me, even as a can of soda strikes the back of his head. “You deserved everything you got, you goddamn fucking cunt!”
The crowd drags him out the door. My last sight of Nikolai Tarasov is his fighting to get free. He punches and he kicks and he bites at least one outstretched hand. The enraged swarm follows him down the street as he makes a break toward the subway.
Before I can decide if I want to follow, my mobile vibrates in my hand. The sound is loud in the almost-empty lobby, like a helicopter landing beside us. Surprised, I look down at the screen.
Mam.
