Page 168 of Dance of Devils

Lou coughs violently, rubbing his throat. “When your deal with Dimitri goes through and he leaves the city…” He scowls. “I make alotof money from him…”

I glare at him. “What. Do. You.Want.”

Lou swallows. “Five million dollars. Five mill, and that little home video goes away. The copies, too.”

He eyes me warily as he backs away, still rubbing his throat.

“By next week, Mr. Nikolayev.”

I want to break him in half, slowly and painfully. But I keep my emotions relatively in check as I eye him cooly.Relatively.

“Why wait.”

I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out a checkbook and pen.

“Where are the other copies, Lou.”

He stares at me, dumbstruck.

“Where. The fuck.Are the othercopies.”

I turn and lean against the roof of my car as I make out a check for the full five million. Then I tear it out of the checkbook, turn back, and hold it out to him.

“What the fuck is this?” Lou growls suspiciously.

“This is how thebig boysdo it,” I growl. “I’m not going to play any fucking leverage game with you here, nor am I going to sit around with my thumb up my ass waiting for you to make bigger threats. Just take the fucking money and tell me where all the copies are.”

Lou he reaches out and anxiously plucks the check from my fingers. He stares at it, his mouth slowly pulling into a dazed grin.

He’s an idiot. No bank in their right mind is going to let a guy like Lou waltz in and cash a check forfive fucking million dollars.Especially when every bank in this city knowsexactlywho the fuck I am.

“Thecopies, motherfucker.”

He blinks and quickly looks up at me. “Oh… Yeah, hang on,” he mumbles, like he’s dizzy just from holding what he thinks is his ticket to riches. He fishes around in his jacket pocket and yanks out another cellphone.

I stare at him. “That’sit?”

He nods.

“No cloud storage?”

Lou shakes his head. “No, I swear. It’s just right there on that phone.”

In case I needed further proof of how fucking stupid this man is…

He's lucky that I can’t touch him yet. Not until Dimitri is done with him and pulls out of New York. When that day comes, Iwillbe finding this monster and cutting him into little chunks.

I take the phone from him and turn it on, click on the factory reset screen, then tap it. The phone goes black as I destroy another monster from her past.

“Pleasure doing?—”

“Some advice, Mr. Cassavetti,” I growl as I turn away to open my car door. “Runveryfar away and hide. Try, at least. Once Dimitri is done with you, Iwillbe hunting you down. Like a dog.”

I glance back at him, relishing the way his face goes milk-white.

“Well…” he mumbles. “D-Dimitri says I could maybe work for him in Russia.”

Yeah, that’s a speed bump, not a golden parachute.