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The bathroom reeks of a blocked drain and overflowing excrement. Brown water covers the floor. Vadim curses me to hell as they drop him face down in the water.
Turning his face to the side, he spits. “Go fuck yourself, you motherfucking fuck.”
I go down on my haunches, studying his face with the passive curiosity of someone who’s about to dissect an insect. He’s red with fury, about to blow a gasket.
My voice is cold, collected. “You know why you’re here, tied up like a dog and lying in shit and piss, don’t you?”
His upper lip curls. “Because you’re frightened.”
I chuckle. “Do I look frightened to you?”
“You’re scared of what’s going to happen to you, Volkov. Admit it. I’m here, lying in piss and shit because you’re a coward.”
“Wrong answer.” My manner is calm, not betraying the cold fury inside. “You’re here, about to die, because you laid your filthy hands on my woman.”
“The American chick?” He gives a taunting laugh. “If I were in charge, I would’ve used her up nicely before delivering her.”
My vision goes hazy. The urge to rip out his windpipe is so strong I have to curl my fingers in a fist to prevent myself from acting on a whim. That will be too merciful for the piece of scum.
“Deliver her to whom?” I ask coldly.
He laughs. “If you think I’ll tell you that, think again.”
Straightening, I say to Leonid, “Let’s get on with it.”
“What are you doing?” Vadim shouts as my men drag him to the toilet stall.
He squirms like a worm, wriggling and spewing gibberish as they lay a metal pole over the stall and throw the rope tied to Vadim’s feet over the pole. It takes two men pulling on the long end of the rope to hoist him up.
Hanging with his head down, he twists from side to side. “You think you’ll break me with torture?”
He’s not worth the time or energy of torture.
When they carefully lower him, he starts to beg. He makes useless promises and offers futile bribes. His voice is an insult to my ears until his head dunks below the brown sludge drifting on the dirty water in the bowl. All that are left of his pleas are gurgles and another spout of indiscernible prattle.
I give it a few seconds before giving the signal. The men hoist him up until only his forehead touches the filth.
“Cut me down,” he says, coughing up brown water.
I walk to his side. “What were you supposed to do with Katherine?”
“Take her to an address and leave her there.” He gags and coughs again. “An apartment in Brooklyn.”
The answer makes me as volatile as a volcano on the verge of erupting. “What’s the address?”
“I don’t know. I was supposed to call a number—a burner, I think—once I had the woman. Instructions with the address were supposed to follow.”
“On whose order?”
He blows a string of snot from his nose. “Cut me loose.”
I raise a hand. The men lower the rope.
“Wait,” Vadim cries out. “It was Stefanov. Vladimir Stefanov.”
My rage is so enormous it takes me a moment to digest the name. Vladimir Stefanov? One of the biggest bratva bosses in St. Petersburg? What the fuck is Stefanov’s problem with me? We’ve never done business. We haven’t even crossed paths.
“Why?” I grit out.
Vadim shakes his head, sending drops of filthy water flying. “I don’t know. It’s not my job to ask questions.”
I believe him. Vladimir Stefanov is too high up in the hierarchy to share his plans or motivations with a lowly cockroach like Vadim.
I flick my fingers.
The men lower the rope. Vadim’s head disappears under the slimy foam again. He makes ugly gargling sounds as he twists his upper body.
Gripping the neck of the piss-stained young man—the last enemy standing—in a fist, I push him closer and to his knees so he can witness what it looks like when a man drowns in shit.
He shakes and whimpers in my hold, slobber running from his mouth.
“You see this?” I say, pressing his face to the rim. “This is what happens to a man who touches my family.”
He gags, trying to turn his face away, but I hold fast.
For such a big man, Vadim has a small lung capacity. Sadly, his fight lasts no more than a few minutes before his bulk goes still. The bubbling stops and the sloshing of the water over the sides of the toilet stills.
I let the fool on the floor go with a shove. The moment he’s free, he scurries away on his knees and uses the wall for support to claw himself to his feet.
“You’re the lucky messenger who gets to live another day,” I say. “Go tell Vladimir Stefanov what happens to people who touch what belongs to me.”
He backs up to the door, watching me like he expects me to say it was a joke, that I’m going to kill him after all.
