Page 40 of Rogue

Time seemed to hold its breath and Mikhail felt like all the snakes in his guts were readying themselves to rush at once out of his arse.

“Rory Novikov.”

Despite himself, Mikhail couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief.

A hushed silence fell around the office as the soldier tried to comprehend what had just passed. Rory’s mouth gaped like a fish as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Then the colour drained from his face with comprehension and he let out a nervous laugh. “What? Me? You can’t be serious.”

“Yes, you,” said the Chechen, rising out of the chair and turning to face him. The hard line of his mouth twisting to bare ivory fangs. “You were there in both instances. It was you that allowed your men to get drunk on duty. You who alerted your Brigadier to a non-existent threat, and it was you who turned this whole messy affair into such a shit show. That is, what is the expression, three strikes. You’re out, Rory Novikov.”

Rory glanced at Mikhail, unsure, his eyes downcast and pleading. The Chechen advanced on him. “Mikhail?”

However, his father’s friend just shook his head, helpless to do anything but disobey Roy and the westernised fool he had become. “I’m sorry Rory.”

In a man’s life, conflicting loyalties will always be forged, tested and tried. Mikhail had loved Ivan as a brother, but he was dead and gone. And if it came to a question of where his loyalties lay, to his fallen brother or the brotherhood and his Pakhan, he knew on what side of the line he stood.

It was time. He couldn’t protect the boy anymore. He was a man of the Bratva who had just fucked up once too often.

As if coming to the same conclusion, his soldiers slowly started backing away. Realising the truth, that for the first time in his life, he was alone, Rory slowly started backing away. “But you can’t. I know people. I have friends. Alexi will have your head if you-”

But the Chechen didn’t care about Rory’s threats and brushed them aside. “The Pekan doesn’t know you. You have no friends. Your Brigadier was your only protection, but he has abandoned you now. Your father’s reputation won’t save you Roy, he’s dead and gone, a worthless pile of shit and bones, just like you-”

Rory plunged forward, bellowing at the top of his lungs, his fear replaced by blind fury at the insult of his father.

It was a murderous attack, yet as his fist came down, the Chechen made no move to evade. He just suddenly went still, as if frozen in fear. Then he pivoted slightly, stepping out of the line of fire while moving his hands up and around. His left coming up to defend, grabbing the other man’s wrist and dragging it in closer to throw him off balance while simultaneously punching with his right, first a quick hard jab to the solar plexus that became a swift uppercut to the jaw.

Mikhail had never seen such speed, such violence.

That Englishman was fast, but this… this man was in a whole other league.

Yet the Chechen wasn’t done. As his hands did their devastating work, his off leg drove up hard into the back of Rory’s knee, taking the leg out so his body dropped. Then he was twisting, throwing him to the floor.

Rory tried to go with it. To hit the ground with a roll the way Mikhail had taught him, but the Chechen was already moving. He dropped with him, driving his knee down into the point between his shoulder blades, pinning him there on his front. As he did, he tugged the knot of his tie loose and away so that it came free in his hands.

Blind to the coming danger, Rory struggled and twisted desperately to free himself and with his body tight, it took only one simple move to drop the loop under the man’s neck before a great tug had them suddenly to their feet. Too late Rory’s hands came up to tug at the length of grey silk around his jugular, because the Chechen was again moving and he had no choice but to go with him as he turned and twisted, both hands swinging the tie and man both around. Momentum more than anything carried Rory over the suite’s bannister when he hit the rail, sending him over the drop. Yet the Chechen held firm, his leg coming up to brace against the barrier and take the other man’s weight as he hauled him up so his body hung suspended, the tips of his shoes dancing a jig.

A high pitched sound, half cough and half scream, was his only swan song.

Mikhail heard the strangled sounds, the desperate choking of his ward, but didn’t look away. This was on him. This was his failure and his punishment. Roy, no, Rory had been his responsibility, and he’d failed him. It was his duty to watch him die, to remember his suffering, and let it fuel his quest for vengeance.

Vengeance against those that brought his friend’s boy to this pathetic end.

Vengeance against the Chechen and the Englishman.

Then silence descended.

Around Mikhail, the soldiers who had watched Rory grow up, who fought and drank with him, watched him die without a word. None dared speak out or try to interfere, and only when he was sure Rory was dead did the Chechen lope the ends of the tie around the railing and knot it.

“Leave him until the meat stinks, then take pictures and hang them there in his place, then leave the space next to them free, large enough to hang another. A warning to all that forget the price of failing the brotherhood.” Then he turned and sneered at Mikhail, the baleful violence blazing in his cold blue eyes as bright and hard as a diamond. As if he hadn’t just killed a man with his bare hands. “You will retain your command, but you will act under my direct supervision. Is that in any way unclear?”

Mikhail swallowed down the curse that was rising in his throat. “No.”

“Good.”

The statement hung in the air, yet there was more to it and Mikhail felt a sense of foreboding roll down his spine, like a black lake for the snakes that still roiled in his belly to slither into. He couldn’t help pressing.

“That’s this matter dealt with, then?”

“No, not quite. This bar. What is its name?”

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