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I didn’t know her, didn’t know anything about her from personal experience. She’d been taken from her bed in the middle of the night, trafficked to America, and sold off like a piece of meat to those who had power and money.
Those I worked for. And sometimes those I killed.
Those who liked breaking things. Ruining them.
Those men who destroyed a person until there was nothing left but the darkness, that once hope now nothing but hopeless resignation.
The familiar anger I felt at thinking of the fate of my mother was like acid in my veins. I didn’t let emotions play a factor in my life. They never had except for the thought of a mother I’d never known, a girl far too young, who’d been raped and beaten countless times, forced to push out a baby she probably didn’t want, then used all over again.
She’d been the only thing I’d ever let my apathy go for. And a part of me hated that, hated her for making me feel anything other than the nothingness I was so very familiar with. The bleak darkness I embraced.
I didn’t have to know her love to know she’d been innocent—like so many other young girls thrown into this life.
For a second I stared at my hands, ones that had been covered in blood many times over my thirty-one years. Hands that would soon be drenched in the life force of another.
They were fingers and palms that had killed mercilessly. Ones that had taken my father’s life once I found out he’d been the one who raped my mother, fathered me, and ultimately killed her.
I didn’t have to know the woman who birthed me to exact vengeance in her honor. It would never right the wrongs committed against her—or against any of the other helpless victims—but it sure as fuck made me feel better.
Patricide. Who knew it was what I’d been born to do? Who knew it was my own personal therapy?
And it was the act of killing my father that elevated me to the position I was in now with the Ruin and the Bratva. Apparently the Bratva thought I’d done them a favor by taking out my father—a traitor who’d been giving information to the Cosa Nostra.
I never corrected them, never told them that what I’d done, I'd done for myself and Sasha, that girl who’d been nothing but a child and had only been given hell on earth. Let the Bratva think I did what I did for them. It made no difference to the end result.
“I heard all the poor fucker did was look at the Pakhan’s daughter, and it earned himthatshit.”
Just hearing about the Pakhan—Leonid Petrov, leader of the East Coast Bratva—had my skin tightening. I didn’t respond or acknowledge what Maksim said. I glanced at him and watched as he pointed at the SOB who was about to be dismembered and dissolved. Maksim cursed in Russian, but I ignored him and focused on the job.
There was the sound of a lighter flaring, followed by the sweet, smoky scent of the cigarillos Maksim got from aconnection he had with the Cartel. I’d learned that all in the span of the first five minutes of being in his presence tonight.
I was called, and I came. I did my job, got rid of the bodies, and went about my miserable fucking life.
“A damnlook, Arlo,” Maksim muttered under his breath, and I heard him take another drag. “Can you imagine?—”
“No, because I don’t fucking care about the circumstances.” I cut him a glare. “A job is a job when the Ruin calls me.” I tipped my chin toward the black barrel off to the side. “They let you come and learn something, so shut the fuck up and listen. Stop talking.” I held his gaze with mine. “My job is to be effective and fast. Stop gossiping and get the fucking barrel.”
Normally I did my job alone. It was easier. Quiet. I didn’t want to fucking talk about the weather, let alone how one of these assholes kicked the bucket. I did what I was tasked to do, then put it behind me.
Because that’s what you had to do when you were a fixer for the Ruin.
But Maksim was still young and dumb, without much experience, and certainly not where the Ruin or the Bratva were concerned. But because he was a blood relation to one of the higher-ups with the Russian mafia, they allowed him to worm his way into situations that should have been reserved for more controlled, skilled men.
And this was one of those situations. But pissing off someone higher up in the Bratva or Ruin food chain wasn’t my style, or smart for that matter, so I kept my mouth shut and let the little shit learn a thing or two.
Because being a free agent for the syndicate known as the Ruin, one that dealt in everything illegal and underground, meant if you wanted to keep your balls, you didn’t question shit.
When the Ruin called, I took the job and did it fucking well. I didn’t care if it was for the Cosa Nostra, the Bratva, or thefucking Cartel. I didn’t give a shit who the job was for, as long as I got paid.
So as I looked at the bashed-in face of the body I was about to dispose of, all I saw was a means to an end.
“I heard they took a melon baller to his fucking eyes.”
I exhaled and felt my muscles tighten in annoyance. “For fuck’s sake, Maksim,” I said with unrestrained anger and cut a withering glare his way. He held up his hands and placed the thin brown cigarillo between his lips.
“I’m shutting up now,” he murmured swiftly and walked over to the corner of the warehouse where the fifty-five-gallon barrel drum was stashed. I crouched and opened the large duffel bag, rifling through the supplies I’d need for this particular job.
Maksim brought over the two most important implements I’d need and set them beside me.
