Page 94 of Filthy Little Fix

So that's it. He leaves me with two other watchdogs. A transfer. That means time. Minutes? Hours?

I feel a nervousness I haven't felt in many years. I have a certainty in the back of my mind that Ivan will kill me at the first provocation. A man who does not accept any kind of insubordination without consequences of death. These are rumors. But if Alexei is sending me to him, it's because the rumors are partly true. I can play with strategy. Not with impulse.

Let's see who arrives first, Dante. I hope it's you.

TWENTY

DANTE

"Last chance, Sergei,"I say.

Sergei Orlov is tied to a steel chair, and he knows nothing. He's the third Malakov lieutenant we've interrogated in the last 24 hours. They all sing the same song: "It was an order from above," "I don't know where the boy is." Dead ends, one after another. The only thing that minimally restrains me is the pleasure of making them regret what they did.

Grigory is in the corner of the room, wiping a bloody knife. Luca is guarding the door, one hand resting on his holster.

Sergei knows he's going to die. His face is busted. He's spat out more than three teeth since we started, and a pool of blood is forming within his irises towards the center of his pupils. He squints at me. He must be seeing a red blur.

"All this war... all this death... for a boy?" he says, spitting a gush of blood onto the floor. "You're shedding too much blood. You killed my brother. A good man. All for him?"

I don't react. He laughs a gurgling sound.

"His blowjob must be worth gold to be worth all this. Is that why you're burning the world down? For a whore you could buy in?—"

He doesn't finish the sentence. Somehow, the first blow lands on its own. The metal crowbar against his jaw. The bone lets out a crackling snap, twisting. Spewing those dirty words about Nyx without knowing a damn thing. Trying to provoke me with that. He succeeded.

I don't follow with lucidity. There are bone cracks, skin colliding with metal. The crowbar is stained red. My head doesn't register it—it's all automatic and boiling. My body burns. He was going to tell me to get another one in a brothel. That there are whores everywhere. Thathe's not worth so much. That Nyx is replaceable.

This is the limit.

My vision darkens, and I can only see the color red with the body beneath my blows. It's the second time today. I'm losing my mind.

I don't know if ten seconds or ten minutes pass. My palm throbs with the friction, I breathe heavily with the force of each impact, and I feel a gooey sensation. It spreads across my face, my hands. It drips onto my clothes.

I don't know what brings me back. But, eventually, the fog dissipates. My body stops.

Sergei has turned into a red mess. His face is shapeless. The chair is broken. I'm drenched in blood.

Again.

I take a deep breath. Grigory is looking at the floor, avoiding the grotesque form slumped on the chair.

I let the crowbar drop.

Luca is the first to move. I hear him behind me, with slow, almost cautious steps. As if I were a wild animal. I feel him at my back, keeping a safe distance. He says nothing for a moment before extending a clean cloth.

I accept it. The tremor in my hands doesn't stop. I wipe the clean white cloth across my face, and it returns stained crimson.I wrap my hands, wiping the excess blood from them until I have a soaked cloth.

I turn around. Luca's face is tense, tight. I walk past him.

"Clean this shit up," I say.

There's no answer. My men walk more silently around me. They're afraid to irritate me. TheyknowI'm losing my mind.

I leave the hall. Dmitry waits for me on the other side of the warehouse, immune to the noises due to the distance. When I enter, he's standing, his back to me, speaking softly on the phone with Svetlana. He glances over his shoulder when he hears my footsteps.

His eyes drop from mine to my hands, to the splashes on my face, to the dark stains on my shirt collar. His calm is unshaken. He covers his phone's microphone and says, "Another suit for the laundry. I see your conversation with Sergei was productive."

"Waste of time," I complain.