Page 10 of Baby Daughters for the Russian Bratva Boss
“You say that now. Wait until she spreads her legs for you.” He’s still pacing, leaving a huge, man-sized gouge in the snow.
“Sacha.”
He looks to me.
“We will get our revenge, my friend.” I offer him a cigarette and he takes it, plunging the end into the yellow flame of my lighter. “With her help, we’ll get more than revenge. We’ll get justice. Satisfaction. We’ll get to watch everything Viktor Desyatov has built crumble at his feet. And from the rubble, we will hear him confess his sins and repent them before we cut the bastard’s head from his body.”
Sacha inhales deeply, suddenly statue-still among the snow drifts, and looks off into the dense forest blackening the hem of the hills. Smoke plumes from his nostrils. “And the girl. When her father is dead, what will we do with her?”
Whatwillwe do?Since Alexei was shot, I’ve only thought of getting her here, getting her compliant. I can’t imagine killing her, slaughtering her as unceremoniously as a man might a goat for meat. But I can’t imagine releasing her either, releasing her here or depositing her back across the sea in America, letting her pick up the life she’d led with her children as easily as if nothing happened.
“We will find a use for her,” I say simply. “Dead or alive, we will find a use.”
This seems to satisfy Sacha, who nods once, gruffly. He’s sucked his cigarette aggressively down to the filter, and throws it down in the snow, crushing it unmercifully beneath his boot heel before stomping off down the wall.
I don’t miss the way he looks up at her rooms, the way his eyes lock on like a hound spotting prey. When I look up, I see her there, framed against the glass. She’s watching us, wearing a black silk robe, creamy legs showing and the neckline pulled tantalizingly low.
Even from here, I can see she’s smiling.
* * *
I get the call late in the afternoon. Sacha and I have returned to Moscow and sought out a warm, dry place to grab a drink. I hope my burly companion doesn’t realize I’m pacifying him.
He’s telling the famous story of how he killed a bear in the mountains the summer he was sixteen when my phone rings.
“Da?”
“Maxim.” It’s Gregor. “Are you back in the city?”
“Yes. What is it?” There’s a hard, almost angry edge to his voice. I realize I’m gripping my glass white-knuckled. “Alexei?”
“No. Viktor—we got one of his men. And he may know where the Snake is hiding.”
* * *
Beneath the office bar, there is a cavernous, stone-walled wine cellar. I’m told it was once used to hide runaways during the war, and at another time used to stock weapons for the other side. Under my control, it has become more multi-purposed.
At the moment, it is jammed full of my men. They’re shoulder to shoulder, seething with the kind of wild energy a wolf pack on the scent has. They part for me, Sacha shoving through at my back.
The young man is handcuffed to a rusted metal folding chair, head hanging. His shaved scalp is bloodied, and a tooth occupies a crimson puddle on the cold stone floor.
They got to work quickly.I scan my men, who are too caught in their anger to repent at acting without my order. Gregor stands with massive shoulders hiked to his ears, fists broken and bloody. He’s one of my most trusted men, one of the few I trust to stand outside Alexei’s door at the hospital as he sleeps on unaware.
“Where did you find this one?” I ask. I tip the man’s chin up, his dark eyes foggy with pain and fear. His brow, cheek, and bottom lip are split, both nostrils bleeding freely. The front of his sleeveless white shirt is soaked. “Kak tvoye imya?”What’s your name?
“Fedor,” he says, voice thick from his swollen mouth.
I look to Gregor.
“Found him skulking around the hospital,” growls the massive man, eyes not moving from Fedor’s wilted form. “I recognized him from our meeting with Viktor last year, about the coke from Ireland.”
I remember the day. It was one of the few times in my life I’d come face to face with the Snake himself. We’d met on the tarmac of a private airport in the mountains. I’m not sure I’d have recognized Fedor from the one meeting. Gregor has done good work.
“What has he said?” growls Sacha. He stands close to Fedor, looking down on him with a mixture of rage and disgust in his face. “Does he know why they shot Alexei?”
“Claims Alexei pulled a gun on Viktor outside his club downtown,” says Gregor. “They got the jump on him, shot him and left him for dead when the cops came.”
Sacha’s voice is low and deep. “Did they know who he was?”