Page 12 of Fractured Ties

It took a quick pull of his hands against Ivan’s button-down shirt for it to rip open, and buttons flew everywhere. Not that the goddamn floor would notice the mess, really.

It seemed like only then that Ivan really understood what was about to happen to him. “No—nyet. Don’t you fucking dare take my—”

“Zatknis,” Kolya said coldly. “You’re under some kind of impression that you get a choice, Ivan. You don’t—at all. Lower men than you have taken this punishment and died for it without whispering a word. You think just because you were given the stars that they can’t be taken from you? You continue to earn the right to keep them through your miserable existence, and nothing else.”

Kolya laughed, and then spit his disgust to the floor. “Nepravil’no. Try again.”

“You won’t take my stars, you cock—”

“You’ve got a son, no?” Konstantin asked. “One trying to earn his stars?”

Kolya shot his brother a look and wondered where in the fuck he was going with this. Konstantin didn’t pay Kolya any mind, but that wasn’t entirely unusual, either. Maybe his brother wasn’t in the mood for this tonight, or maybe it was something else altogether. Kolya didn’t really have the time, patience, or give-a-fuck to figure it out.

Either way, Ivan’s fight fled for a second as he did his best to lift his head and stare at Konstantin still holding down his legs. The two men stayed quiet as they gaged one another before Konstantin was the first to speak up between the two. Kolya decided to let his brother have his moment, if he apparently needed it.

“You’ve got a son,” Konstantin repeated, “so you shut up, and you do it for him. You do it so he doesn’t have to say that even in punishment and death, his father left him with stains that he’s unable to remove or outgrow. Ponimayu?”

Kolya did a quiet inventory of his younger brother, then—two years younger, but fuck if Konstantin didn’t have the mind of a man twice his age, and the right words to use when the time called for it. He never understood why Vadim looked to him as the man to take over when someone else had a far better temperament and the reasoning for the job.

Not the time.

Kolya didn’t give Ivan a chance to respond to Konstantin before he laid his cooling blade flat to the man’s eight-pointed star below his right clavicle. Ivan roared his pain as he practically lifted himself from the table, but Kolya pressed harder, listened for the sound of burning flesh, and then pulled the blade up.

It took a sizeable chunk of burnt flesh with it. And the smell that accompanied the fresh burn and sizzling skin was unlike anything else.

Damn.

“Fuck you,” Ivan spat.

Kolya was already heating up the blade to do the man’s remaining star as he turned to his brother. “Don’t ruin my fun, Konstantin. I like it when they scream.”

A ghost of a smile played at the edges of his brother’s lips. “Of course, you do.”

Kaz just looked bored and as though maybe he needed a drink. Kolya suspected they all would by the time this was over, frankly.

So was the nature of this business.

Death was a bit messy.

Ivan, on the other hand, spat and sobbed his way through Russian curses, and occasionally a few English words slipped through, too. Kolya wasn’t even listening to the stupid cocksucker anymore. It wasn’t like his pleading or cursing would do him any good, and Kolya wasn’t here to offer atonement or redemption.

Unless, of course, the man found that in death.

So be it.

“I was told to do just the stars,” Kolya said, leaning over Ivan once more with the red-hot blade, “but I’ll strip you of all your markings, Ivan, and then you can beg me for death. You’ve earned it.”

And really, so had Kolya.

Then, to Konstantin, he said, “Let him go, and light me a smoke. This is going to take a while.”

• • •

Kolya flexed his fingers and watched the dried blood in his knuckles make fissure cracks from the strain. Sitting on the barstool, he took the small roll of medical tape Konstantin had found somewhere beneath Ivan’s bar, and began wrapping the small nicks and cuts on his fingers. Usually, he would wait until he was home in private to do this, but he had a moment to spare.

And Konstantin would pester him until he did something about the cuts.

Working with a knife could be tricky sometimes.