2. Alik

2

ALIK

F ifty rats squeal over one another while they fight for their next meal, some smart enough to use their brothers as ladders to reach the juicy meat that drips blood onto their snouts. They appear starved and desperate, their teeth aching to latch onto something, and if I was a pitying man, perhaps I would pity them.

“I have a family,” Agent Cullin sobs as he tries to lift his feet away from the rats. We’re in the basement of this abandoned building, and he hangs by his wrists from a chain wrapped around a beam on the ceiling while the other end is attached to a crank for me to control how high he is suspended. His bloodied feet are just out of reach from the hungry little predators, all of his toes missing. Already, the rodents have devoured the nubs I tossed for them.

“Please, I have a wife and child.”

So do the rats. What am I to do, starve them? Deprive them of the meal I literally dangled above their noses? Am I supposed to pity Agent Cullin, a man who lied to my Pakhan, to my family, claiming to be one of us while having the sole mission of sending my brothers to prison, but not the helpless rodents who did me no harm?

I clipped off all ten of his toes with gardening shears without blinking, and he still doesn’t get it. I don’t pity spies… I don’t pity anyone.

“I need the identities of the other moles.”

Cullin hangs his head while he sobs. “I don’t have them.”

My eyes dropping to the rodents, I turn the crank to lower him within their reach while he shrieks and tries to jerk his legs up. It doesn’t work. I’ve already taken out his kneecaps.

His head whips back and forth while he screams out his pain, countless sets of teeth gnawing at his flesh. They’ve covered his feet, so it’s hard to see what damage they’re doing, but damn, they’re really going at it.

“I’ll tell you everything, just make it stop!” he cries. “Make it stop.”

No.

I keep staring. Keep watching the spectacle. It’s hard to look away from it.

“Alik! Please!”

My gaze finally moving to Cullin’s agonized face, I rotate the crank to lift him. The rats violently protest with their squeaking while he weeps.

“Answer my question, Agent.”

His face contorts while he cries harder for a few seconds until the pain seems to fade from his face, replaced by resignation. They all hit a point in this process when they stop begging to live and start wishing for a merciful death. He’s approaching it.

“You’re just a weapon for them,” he says, his voice barely audible over his friends. “You should hear the things they say about you behind your back.”

They .

So vague. Such a waste of words.

I put my hand on the crank but pause when he whimpers and opens his mouth. “Anna Colgrita, Peter Lebedev, Ashton James, Reece Moore, Igor Popov.”

It must be in my head, but the rats seem to quiet. I let my hand fall off the crank then walk to stand closer to Cullin.

“They’re all undercover?” I ask, my voice cold as ice.

He nods.

How did the DEA manage to get that many people by us?

That’s … a lot. Many more than I thought there would be. I thought it was possible there was one more. Maybe none besides Cullin.

Five?

That doesn’t seem right.

“Is there anyone else?”

“No.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head a pathetic number of times. Urine reeks, but I don’t bother looking down at his pants. “That’s everyone. I swear to God.”

“Why is the DEA putting so many resources toward the Bratva?”

“The Special Agent in Charge wants to clean up Las Vegas.”

“He believes he can do that?”

“Apparently.”

Then he’s a real dreamer.

“How many agents does the DEA have on the other organizations? Are they going after the Irish and Italians with the same force?”

“I don’t know. I just do my job.”

“Bullshit.”

His head snaps up to face me as his eyes widen with panic. I’m not even near the crank. What a pussy.

“I’m not lying to you. I don’t have information on cases that aren’t mine. The force is tired of organizations like yours infecting our city, so I’m sure the DEA has agents undercover with the others, but I can’t tell you how many because I don’t know . I?—”

“Calm down, Cullin. That’s enough.”

I roll my neck and close my eyes for a moment. He’s just put five more things on my to-do list, and already, I’m mentally preparing myself for it, along with what I’m going to tell my boss.

The Pakhan is going to want hell raised.

Five agents. Five . On top of the three I’ve already found and the two busts we’ve had this month. Agent Cullin isn’t lying. The DEA is coming down on us hard , so this Special Agent in Charge must be both a man with a cause and a death wish.

Stepping back, I rub my eyes. It isn’t dark in here. In fact, it’s mercifully dim, but the spotlight behind Cullin is irritating enough that I’m glad we’re finished.

“Alik, please,” Cullin whimpers. “Just shoot me. Just get it over with.”

“Alik!” His voice quakes when I get to the crank and don’t take out my gun.

“Sorry.” I rotate the crank to lower him to the rats. “I’m just doing my job.” I say it just to mimic him, but I don’t know if he hears me. If he does, I doubt he’d recognize his own hypocrisy. It certainly doesn’t occur to him now as his screams fill the basement.

Without another look, I tuck my hands in my pockets and head up the stairs, leaving him to be eaten alive as my boss requested. If it were up to me, I would’ve used the gun, not out of pity but out of efficiency. I’m not as theatrical as my boss.

But nothing is up to me. I’m a soldier for the Bratva. An enforcer. As Cullin so accurately put it, a weapon. I don’t mind it. I don’t know anything else.

When I make it to the back exit of the building, I kick over the container of gasoline I left by the door and light a match when it oozes out.

Fire erupts the instant the match meets the gas, but I’m already out the door and striding down the alley, pulling my black hood over my head, although I’m hardly concerned with getting seen in this part of town, even at midday.

I reach the parked car around the corner and slide into the backseat, removing my hood when I look over at the Pakhan, Nikita Petrov. He’s staring straight ahead with his hand casually stroking the stubble darkening his chin. His cane rests between his legs, a forever reminder of a time he villainized the wrong enemy. They did him a favor. The limp doesn’t make him look old or weak, only menacing.

“Well?” he asks as the car pulls away.

“You aren’t going to like it.”

His murderous gaze slowly turns my way. Most would apologize or try to ease that gaze, but he’d only see them as weak. And as his weapon, I’m well aware of what happens to people he deems weak.

“We have five more problems to take care of.”

His eyes widen as his hand falls from his face. “ What ?”

“The DEA is cracking down on the organizations. Apparently, the SAC is getting serious about cleaning up Vegas.”

The mole above his lip shifts as his lip curls, and he faces forward while he processes this. “Maybe it’s time we make use of the princess.”

The princess. As in, the special agent’s daughter.

Her image comes into my mind, and the first thing I see is cinnamon hair that so skillfully hides her face. She’s a nervous thing and is always looking at her feet, so I’ve only caught brief glimpses of her bluish-gray eyes that look at me like I’m a strange new species she’s staring at through a thick glass plate at a zoo. It isn’t that uncommon. The scar on my iris freaks some people out.

“She isn’t much of a princess,” I reply, remembering the letter.

Normally, her mail bores me. It’s nothing but junk. Six months ago, when her father was put in charge, I moved into the same apartment building to keep her in our sights, but it wasn’t until the other day that something interesting showed up in her box.

“She’s a junkie,” I go on. “And Daddy’s tired of footing the bill. There won’t be any information I can get from her, if that’s what you’re thinking. I doubt they even speak regularly.”

Nikita shakes his head. “That isn’t what I was thinking. I don’t give a shit about getting information on the bastard, but I do want to make him hurt.” He runs his hand over the ball of his cane and turns to me. “Can she accomplish that?”

Make him hurt.

I consider it. She’s a junkie, who from the sound of it has been a pain in his ass, yet he’s paying for that apartment and probably for her drugs. If she was dead, I’d be doing him a favor.

But would it hurt?

Probably.

Well, yes, definitely. Their relationship may be strained, but he wouldn’t be paying for the apartment if he didn’t love her.

“Yes.” I nod. “An overdose would be most believable.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t care about believability. I care about pain . And the more she feels, the more he’ll feel. Cause of death needs to be slow and brutal. Find some more rats to feed her to if you’re not feeling creative, I don’t give a shit.” He looks off, but not before I see his eyes ignite like he does in fact give a shit. “It would be a fitting death… Kill all of them that way, but pay special attention to the girl beforehand.”

His lip is no longer curled. Instead, it’s lifted in a slight, sick smile while I stare at him, thinking through my response. Nikita Petrov is not a stupid man, but sometimes, when his eyes look like this, his fantasies make him do stupid things.

“With all due respect, sir, I think we should be concerned that it would only pour gasoline on the fire we’ve already started. We left the informant’s body to be found to send a message. If we leave our calling card on the SAC’s daughter, they’ll retaliate with a force we’ll need to be prepared for.”

Tension coils in the car, and if I were to glance at Nikita’s hand, I know I’d find it white-knuckled on his cane. It’s better not to disagree with him. I am the weapon, not the voice of reason.

But this time, I have to speak.

“If, however,” I continue, “We leave someone else’s calling card, it could take the heat off us altogether. Pain is a great distraction, sir, but the need for revenge is even greater. I can use another organization’s heroin to overdose her. The Armenians, perhaps.”

The tension doesn’t dissipate. His jaw doesn’t slacken. If I have to feed that girl to rats, I will, but right now, I’d rather feed Nikita to them for the sake of making room for more reasonable leadership.

He nods at last, but he looks no less pissed. “That’s good thinking, Alik.” Sucking in a long breath, he cracks his neck. “Use the Irish’s supply, and make it painful.”

The Irish. One of many rivals, one large enough to cause big problems for us if they find out what we’ve done. I don’t like it, but I don’t dare argue. I’m not afraid of Nikita, but I know better than to push it.

“Understood.”

The driver pulls the car over a couple blocks from my apartment building, letting me out to stop at a liquor store to pick out a bottle of wine for this evening’s job.

I see the girl in my mind again and wonder what the night will bring.