Page 85 of Filthy Little Fix

Viktor's eyes go wide. A glimmer of hope, pathetic and bright. Salvation. He looks from the kitchen door to the main room, almost smiling through his tears. The idiot.

The sirens get louder, stopping outside. I hear the voice of an older, tired man echo from one of my men's radios: "I want a two-block perimeter! Nobody in, nobody out! Contain the civilians on the south corner for statements!"

One of my men—Marco—at the entrance signals to me.He's coming. Alone.

Viktor doesn't see the signal. He only sees the silhouette of the detective entering the restaurant through the shattered door with his weapon drawn. For Viktor, thecavalryhas arrived.

"Thank God, the police!" one of the cooks whispers from the dining room.

The detective enters. The place is a chaos of overturned tables and broken glass. Wealthy customers are huddled on the floor. My men, the ones who did the initial sweep, are standing like statues near the walls.

"NYPD! Nobody move!" the detective—Walsh—yells. His eyes scan the room and find mine, at the back, in the kitchen doorway. I don't move. I give him a slight nod.Do what you have to do.

Walsh acts. He points his gun at my men. "You two! Hands on your head! On your knees! Now!"

Marco and the other one look at me. They see my approval. Immediately, they obey, raising their hands and slowly kneeling. To the customers, it's a surrender.

Walsh walks with his gun still raised, past my kneeling men, and comes straight for the kitchen. He doesn't stop.

He steps into the kitchen, keeping his armed silhouette visible to my men, and gets close enough for the wall to hide him from the civilians. He leans in toward me.

"Dante, what the fuck is this?" he whispers. "I said I'd hold off patrol for ten minutes, not that you could demolish the place."

I don't look away from Viktor when I answer. "There was a rat infestation. Business, Detective."

The smile of relief on Viktor's face wilts. He looks from me to the detective, from the detective back to me, and his chin trembles. He understands. The cop isn't arresting me. He's complaining about the paperwork.

"Five minutes, Dante," Walsh says, eyeing Viktor with disgust. "After that, my men are coming in, and the scene has to be consistent with the story." He turns back to the kitchen door and puts his mask of authority back on, yelling to the dining room, "You two, on your feet! Slow! Hands on your heads! Get in the kitchen, move!"

While Walsh puts on his show, I turn back to Viktor. The man is broken. There are no more pleas, no more bargaining. This is the end.

I ignore the detective's voice in the background.Viktor.

"Hang him," I say.

The men who were holding Viktor in the chair pull him up, his expensive shoes making a pathetic, greasy scraping sound on the floor. He's a dead weight, resigned.

In the background, I hear Walsh's theater continue. My men who were "surrendering" in the main room enter the kitchenwith their hands on their heads as Walsh closes what's left of the door behind them.

"Go through the back," he whispers to them. "Disappear. Now."

The remaining men secure Viktor on the meat hook. The steel tears through the expensive fabric of his suit and lodges in his flesh. A low, guttural groan escapes his throat as his feet leave the floor. His sweaty carcass hangs there. A message.

I step closer. The smell of his sour sweat is nauseating.

"You took something of mine. I cripple something of yours."

I open the side of his throat with that same steak knife—a cut long and shallow enough not to kill him immediately. His body thrashes on the hook, and the scream dies before it's born, drowned in its own collapse.

"That's for my men."

I take a step back. The monstrous thing inherited from my father stirs. It likes this. It would enjoy letting him agonize while it breaks other parts of his body.

I don't.

I look around the kitchen—Walsh is already gone, and Grigory, who has been silent behind me the whole time, steps closer.

"Grigory," I say.