Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Arlo

Present day

M y mother had been called a whore.

My father had been a boyevik —a soldier—for the Bratva.

I was an orphan at the age of eleven. A criminal at the age of twelve.

I was a murderer when I turned sixteen.

And here I was, fifteen years later, a coldhearted bastard.

You could have summed up my life in those details. The particulars didn't matter. The people I'd come in contact with were inconsequential. It was easy to pretend to have interest. It was effortless to act like I had a heart.

I'd been told a lot of things during my life, lies to make me fall in line.

"Your mother was nothing but a cheap slut. Women like that don't last long. They're used up and thrown away. They serve their purpose that way."

That had been one of the longest, most "heartfelt"—in my father's eyes—conversations he'd ever had with me. The truth, I'd later learn, had been far from what he told me.

I'd been taken from my mother's arms shortly after she'd been forced to give birth to me, thrown into the home of strangers associated with the Bratva—the Russian mafia. From the moment I drew my first breath, I'd been indoctrinated to the life of a criminal. Of death and hatred and loyalty to only one entity.

My mother had been a young Russian girl who had hopes and dreams. That was the fantasy I made up. That was the fantasy she was no doubt told to stay pliant and submissive. Hope could make anyone do whatever you wanted.

I didn't know her, didn't know anything about her from personal experience. She'd been taken from her bed in the middle of the night, trafficked to America, and sold off like a piece of meat to those who had power and money.

Those I worked for. And sometimes those I killed.

Those who liked breaking things. Ruining them.

Those men who destroyed a person until there was nothing left but the darkness, that once hope now nothing but hopeless resignation.

The familiar anger I felt at thinking of the fate of my mother was like acid in my veins. I didn't let emotions play a factor in my life. They never had except for the thought of a mother I'd never known, a girl far too young, who'd been raped and beaten countless times, forced to push out a baby she probably didn't want, then used all over again.

She'd been the only thing I'd ever let my apathy go for. And a part of me hated that, hated her for making me feel anything other than the nothingness I was so very familiar with. The bleak darkness I embraced.

I didn't have to know her love to know she'd been innocent—like so many other young girls thrown into this life.

For a second I stared at my hands, ones that had been covered in blood many times over my thirty-one years. Hands that would soon be drenched in the life force of another.

They were fingers and palms that had killed mercilessly. Ones that had taken my father's life once I found out he'd been the one who raped my mother, fathered me, and ultimately killed her.

I didn't have to know the woman who birthed me to exact vengeance in her honor. It would never right the wrongs committed against her—or against any of the other helpless victims—but it sure as fuck made me feel better.

Patricide. Who knew it was what I'd been born to do? Who knew it was my own personal therapy?

And it was the act of killing my father that elevated me to the position I was in now with the Ruin and the Bratva. Apparently the Bratva thought I'd done them a favor by taking out my father—a traitor who'd been giving information to the Cosa Nostra.

I never corrected them, never told them that what I'd done, I'd done for myself and Sasha, that girl who'd been nothing but a child and had only been given hell on earth. Let the Bratva think I did what I did for them. It made no difference to the end result.

"I heard all the poor fucker did was look at the Pakhan's daughter, and it earned him that shit."

Just hearing about the Pakhan—Leonid Petrov, leader of the East Coast Bratva—had my skin tightening. I didn't respond or acknowledge what Maksim said. I glanced at him and watched as he pointed at the SOB who was about to be dismembered and dissolved. Maksim cursed in Russian, but I ignored him and focused on the job.

There was the sound of a lighter flaring, followed by the sweet, smoky scent of the cigarillos Maksim got from a connection he had with the Cartel. I'd learned that all in the span of the first five minutes of being in his presence tonight.

I was called, and I came. I did my job, got rid of the bodies, and went about my miserable fucking life.

"A damn look , Arlo," Maksim muttered under his breath, and I heard him take another drag. "Can you imagine?—"

"No, because I don't fucking care about the circumstances." I cut him a glare. "A job is a job when the Ruin calls me." I tipped my chin toward the black barrel off to the side. "They let you come and learn something, so shut the fuck up and listen. Stop talking." I held his gaze with mine. "My job is to be effective and fast. Stop gossiping and get the fucking barrel."

Normally I did my job alone. It was easier. Quiet. I didn't want to fucking talk about the weather, let alone how one of these assholes kicked the bucket. I did what I was tasked to do, then put it behind me.

Because that's what you had to do when you were a fixer for the Ruin.

But Maksim was still young and dumb, without much experience, and certainly not where the Ruin or the Bratva were concerned. But because he was a blood relation to one of the higher-ups with the Russian mafia, they allowed him to worm his way into situations that should have been reserved for more controlled, skilled men.

And this was one of those situations. But pissing off someone higher up in the Bratva or Ruin food chain wasn't my style, or smart for that matter, so I kept my mouth shut and let the little shit learn a thing or two.

Because being a free agent for the syndicate known as the Ruin, one that dealt in everything illegal and underground, meant if you wanted to keep your balls, you didn't question shit.

When the Ruin called, I took the job and did it fucking well. I didn't care if it was for the Cosa Nostra, the Bratva, or the fucking Cartel. I didn't give a shit who the job was for, as long as I got paid.

So as I looked at the bashed-in face of the body I was about to dispose of, all I saw was a means to an end.

"I heard they took a melon baller to his fucking eyes."

I exhaled and felt my muscles tighten in annoyance. "For fuck's sake, Maksim," I said with unrestrained anger and cut a withering glare his way. He held up his hands and placed the thin brown cigarillo between his lips.

"I'm shutting up now," he murmured swiftly and walked over to the corner of the warehouse where the fifty-five-gallon barrel drum was stashed. I crouched and opened the large duffel bag, rifling through the supplies I'd need for this particular job.

Maksim brought over the two most important implements I'd need and set them beside me.

Butcher saw.

Lye.

The latter I'd brought over in abundance earlier.

Maksim dragged the barrel over to the body currently laid out on the plastic tarp. "They really did his face dirty?—"

" Maksim ," I growled and cut a glance his way. I didn't need to say anything else for him to shut his trap and give a sharp nod. "Put that out."

He took the cigarillo from between his lips and snubbed it out on the bottom of his shoe before tucking the butt in the back pocket of his black jeans.

For long minutes there was silence. I did the job quickly and efficiently, and I had to give Maksim credit—for this being his first time watching a cleanup, he didn't lose his shit. Maybe he had balls after all.

"You want to hit up Yama? We could check out the fights down below at the Pit? I heard there are a couple of brutal ones booked tonight. Or I heard they got some new girls at Nino's."

I finished cleaning up and glanced at Maksim. "No," was all I said. I had nothing against either place and had in fact fought plenty of times over the years at Yama—the Bratva underground fight ring. And Nino's, one of the many strip clubs owned by the Ruin, wasn't my style.

"Suit yourself," Maksim murmured. "I'm hitting up Nino's then. Those girls are eager to please the right people, if you know what I mean."

The right people meant Maksim could get free ass because he was associated with the Bratva. If they didn't recognize him by face alone, as soon as he took off his shirt, they'd see his tattoos and know who he was affiliated with.

The same as me.

A group of really fucking bad men.

But where some of them might have been redeemable… I was a monster who had a first-class ticket straight to hell.

Besides, I had plans tonight, plans that included me going somewhere I shouldn't, because I wanted to see someone I had no business looking at.

The far-too-innocent brunette who worked at Sal's all-night diner, a diner that was owned by the Bratva to launder their money. And the latter she'd have no fucking idea about. She probably just saw it as another run-down twenty-four-hour diner that catered to drunks, addicts, and those stumbling in after clubbing all night, looking for piss-poor food after everything else was closed.

I shouldn't have been thinking about her, not while I was alone and lying in bed, and sure as fuck not while I was hacking up the bastard spread out on the ground.

But fuck, she'd been on my mind for months, and for a man who wasn't afraid of anything… wanting her terrified the fuck out of me.