AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Krystiyan looms up behind me, a pale face floating over my shoulder in the mirror. With his black hair slicked back, in his dark suit, he certainly looks like the devil’s bargain.
When he’s angry, the edges of his lips go white and the area around his mouth stiffens like the muzzle of a dog.
“Yousaidif we sold the drug cheaper, Adrik wouldn’t be able to buy supplies anymore. Yousaidhe wouldn’t be able to fulfill his contracts to the clubs and the dealers, and we’d get them instead.”
“That’s right.” I watch my lips move in the mirror—dusky red, the color of a rose a gangster would lay on a coffin if this really were all part of a movie I was filming. “It’s simple math. He’ll run out of money first. That’s why America is the business giant of the world and not Russia—‘cause you don’t respect the fucking numbers.”
“Well guess what, John Nash? He’s just partnered up with Yuri Koslov. And heisfilling his orders, and wearestill losing a metric fuck ton of money!”
By the end of his tirade, Krystiyan is yelling right next to my ear, loud enough to make the hair shift around my face.
I stay perfectly calm. That’s the beauty of the dissociative state. Krystiyan can’t possibly annoy or upset me. I can’t even feel the stress I was feeling before I took the drug. Good or bad, nothing touches me.
Happily, this reads to Krystiyan as confidence. As if I’m certain that what I promised will still come to pass.
“Even better,” I assure him. “Now Adrik has to split his profit two ways. And he has to work with someone outside the Wolfpack. He’s not in control of his environment anymore. That makes him vulnerable.”
It probably also makes him furious. Now we both have a partner we can’t stand.
You might miss collaborating with someone you could fuck, won’t you Adrik?
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Krystiyan snarls.
“Figure out the weak spot in his new supply chain. Yuri Koslov isn’t nearly as meticulous as Adrik—there’s bound to be one.”
Krystiyan considers this, his mouth working.
After a minute he leans in close and hisses, “You better be as smart as you think you are.”
It turns out I am.
Two days later, Krystiyan informs me that he’s discovered the time and location of Adrik’s next three shipments.
The bribe he paid for the information was more than half the value of the drugs themselves. Ilsa and I, plus four of Krystiyan’s men, successfully intercept the truck twenty miles from its drop-point. When I open it up, Yuri’s hidden compartments are much less ingenious than Zakharov’s. It only takes ten minutes to strip the vehicle of every last gram of illicit material.
Krystiyan is cackling at our theft. All his doubts forgotten, he’s right back to thinking he’s kingpin of the world, running train on Adrik like a real big boss.
I don’t feel good or bad about it.
I don’t feel anything at all at the moment.
* * *
40
ADRIK
Sabrina hijacking our materials is a big fucking problem.
First, she’s not just stealing from me anymore. Yuri Koslov wants to put a bullet in her head. Second, this is a direct attack on my business. Not price-manipulation and market-flooding—she stole from us. Which means we’re going to war.
My feelings for Sabrina over the last six weeks have vacillated from regret to all-consuming rage. I’ve never been angrier at someone in my life. To position herself as my enemy and rival, after everything we shared …
I spend hours fantasizing about the dark and depraved things I’ll do if I ever get my hands on her.
Yet even in my most murderous moments, I can’t stand the thought of her catching a bullet from one of Yuri’s men.
So when Koslov demands that we retaliate against Krystiyan Kovalenko, I tell him I’ll handle it myself. I order the Wolfpack to strap up, and we drive over to Krystiyan’s compound in Rublyovka.
