I haven’t been back to our manor in the Catskills for two days now. And despite the pull to return, I know it’s for the best.
While everything is still up in the air, I need to put some space between Elisa and myself.
Nolan was right. I’ve been obsessed with her ever since I saw those candid shots that his surveillance team took last year. I thought that taking her might finally calm down my obsession, but really it’s only made things worse.
It’s made me weak. It’s made me slip up. For an all-important night, I was more concentrated on my new princess than I was on my new empire. For the past two days, I’ve been making up for that mistake. Violently.
In this world, it takes violence to protect what’s yours.
Of course, Elisa is mine, and she needs my protection now more than ever. If we’re right, the Russians are working with her father. And they don’t play gently, even if they’re after their ally’s daughter. The Black Delphi. The shadow conglomerate of the most powerful assassins in the world. We still don’t know what exactly their intentions are, but I’m preparing for the worst.
I’ve tripled security around our giant patch of land out in the mountains. No one’s getting in. Or out.
That leaves me with the peace of mind to stay focused on work. Still, Elisa tugs at the back of my chest. I have to be extra violent just to get rid of her. It’s a good thing I’m no stranger to violence.
With the turn of a handlebar, I make a sharp exit off of Baker St. and onto the docks. For the first time in years, I’ve dragged my Ducati XDiavel out of storage. The sleek black motorcycle roars through the salty sea air, helping me clear my head just a little bit more before I step back down into the underworld.
In the distance, I can see the smoldering ruins of our burned down warehouse. The sight fills me with rage. So far, that’s my legacy. Failure.
But I can change that.
Following the lead that I worked out of Ginger, the fiery red-headed stripper from Nolan’s club, I’ve been scouring every dirty hiding hole in this god-forsaken city looking for a certain bastard named Vladimir. Early this morning, we got lucky.
While exploring a tip in the east end, I came across a talker. He spilled his guts quickly enough. Russians. On the west side. Luckily, my most vicious enforcer had a gang of men nearby. Niall McCabe. The Bulldog. I called him up and he raided the joint immediately.
Now, he has my guests tied up in the cellar underneath the fish market, right next to the warehouse we’re sure they helped burn down. It’s a place we call the icebox. Few men survive a visit down there. And these men aren’t likely to be an exception.
From what I’ve been told, our main target, Dmitry Gazin, isn’t among the prisoners. But that’s alright. One of them is Vladimir Stanislav. A peripheral member of the Black Delphi crew who will tell us what we need to know. I’ll make sure of that.
Niall meets me in the alleyway entrance that leads down to the icebox. To my surprise, the hardened enforcer looks nervous.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, a sliver of dread working its way around my throat.
“I told them they shouldn’t come, but they wouldn’t listen,” Niall insists, his old Irish accent coming through.
“Who!?”
I get my answer when the alleyway door bursts open and Shane comes stumbling out, unlit cigar in hand. My first reaction is to smack it away.
“Hey!” he mumbles.
“What the fuck are you doing here!?” They wouldn’t listen. “Nolan is here too!?”
Niall nods and I want to kill both him and my brothers. Despite the sudden left turn we were forced to take when the warehouse was burned down, my ascension was supposed to be the start of a different life for my family. A legitimate one. Behind this alleyway door there are captives who are about to be subjected to vicious methods of torture. In fact, I’d wager that Niall has already started on that front. My kid brother can’t be here for that. Same goes for my lawyer brother. They’re supposed to stay on the good side of the law. Clean hands and a clear conscience make for good business partners. I’m a lost cause, but Nolan and Shane aren’t, not yet. They sure are trying to change that.
“Get out of here!” I order Shane before he can give me any lip. The commotion seems to attract Nolan’s attention, because suddenly he appears in the alleyway too.
“What are you thinking?” I want to grab both of them around the scruff and carry them home myself. But they aren’t boys anymore. They’re men, and I know that if I treat them as anything but men, I could risk alienating them.
But this is something worth alienating them from.
“Easy, boss,” Nolan says easily.
I can only shake my head. While Shane looks shocked by my aggressive reaction to his presence, Nolan seems to be fully prepared for my fury. Of course, he’s never been one to come unprepared. But fucking hell. They don’t listen. I’ve told them the plan. My hole just keeps getting deeper.
“I’m supposed to be able to trust you, Nolan,” I say. “You too, Shane. How many times have I told you to stay away from this side of the business?”
“Only a thousand…” Shane huffs.
“And how many times have you listened? Obviously zero.”
“We’ve listened, but things have changed. It’s not just smooth sailing like we’d thought it would be. Someone got to us, and we want to help.”
“You did help, by finding the Black Delphi ring and salvaging what remained of our security footage. Same with you, Shane. Thanks to you, we got this lead from the club girls. I’m here to take things to the next level, but it’s not going to be pretty, and what’s about to go on behind that door isn’t the same as finding rings and talking to girls. There’s no coming back from what’s going to happen behind that door.”
“We know.” Nolan says, ever the mediator. “And we’re in.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen shit before,” Shane adds. “It hasn’t been all easy sailing for us, you know.”
“I know,” I respond, trying to calm myself down. “But my job is to keep you from what I can. Protect you. You may be my brothers, my most trusted advisors, but it’s my job to keep you safe and you being here leads us all down a dark path from which there is little hope of return.”
“… I’m afraid they might already have been sent down that path.” Niall’s old grizzled twang interrupts.
My gaze falls on his hands. Fresh blood stains his pale skin.
“Fuck.”
“It’s okay, brother. We’re all in.” Nolan and Shane both nod.
My heart is torn. On one hand, I’m touched. It’s a great show of loyalty that my brothers are willing to dive headfirst into the darkness just to support me. On the other hand, it’s foolish, and against my wishes.
Niall is also here to see them disobeying me first hand.
“What have they seen?” I ask the Bulldog.
“Enough.”
“Fucking hell. Fine, let’s see if you can handle it.” Despite my decision, it doesn’t feel right as I lead my brothers back into the icebox. Through the frost, I can smell blood and suffering. Who would want to be a part of this if they didn’t have to be?
“What have you got so far?”
Nolan speaks up first. “Nothing useful yet. Niall has been siphoning the weak from the strong.”
“Out of the seven we brought down here. I’ve whittled our group down to three. Of those three, one is clearly the leader. Vladimir. The other two are obviously the weakest. I’ve made it clear what awaits them if they don’t speak.” Niall hardly sounds phased. He’s particularly vicious and I worry about what he’s already done in the presence of my brothers. I’m also worried about how unphased they seem to be.
That worry is only exacerbated when I kick open the heavy door to the icebox. The frigid cell is already rife with horrors. In the middle of the room are seven metal chairs. In three of them, the Russian’s are stripped down to their underwear. Their exposed skin sticks to the metal of the chairs like tongues to a flag pole. Frozen rivers of tears are carved onto the faces of the two-younger captives. The older fatter man, Vladimir, is in no such state of self-pity. He looks pissed.
Around the three remaining men, is a circle of about ten of my own men. Each heavily armed.
Behind them are the gothic remnants of Niall’s horrific interrogation methods. Dozens of fishhooks hang from the ceiling. Four of them hold the Russians that were sacrificed to convince the remaining three to talk. The brain-dead men have had the fishhooks dug into the back of their skull, in the soft part just above the neck. Some still spasm like fish gasping for air.
I’ve seen Niall execute this method before. Even after all I’d already been through, the few first times still gave me nightmares. How will Nolan and Shane handle it? I guess I have no choice but to throw them into the deep end. Call it the Rian Kilpatrick method.
Still, if it weren’t for their presence, I’d almost be happy to see the graphic scene. I’m used to it by now and this tactic almost always gets people talking. Any other time, I’d be glad that Niall warmed up the cold room for me, but I’m not sure how to feel about it at the moment. He did this in front of my brothers. They’re accomplices now, and not just in the eyes of the law, but in the eyes of the underworld.
It’s just as well that no one is getting out of this room alive.
“You,” I point to one of the cry-babies still left in a chair. “Do you have a family?”
The young man has duct tape over his mouth, but he pitifully shakes his head. I gesture for my men to lift him from his chair. Even through the tape, his screams of agony are clear as his skin is ripped from the frigid metal.
Next, I walk over and give the other cry-baby a gentle slap on the cheek. “You. I want you to watch.”
With a nod, one of my men steps forward and holds the shivering Russian by the jaw, forcing him to gaze upon his friend.
My brothers are good at finding information one way. I’m very good at finding it another way. You have to know which captives to pick in a situation like this. Too weak, and the information they give you might be useless. They’ll say anything just to try and stay alive. Too strong, and they might never break. There’s a sweet spot, and I’m betting on this fucker being the one who’s going to tell us what we need to know.
Before I take my gun out, I give my brothers one last look. “Are you sure?”
There’s hardly any hesitation in them. Suddenly, I’m more proud than worried. They know what this all means to me. They know how Ciro tortured me. They want revenge just as badly as I do. They want to be my partners in crime while we build on this empire we’ve inherited.
So be it.
I’ll throw them into the deep end, just like Dad would.
With little hesitation of my own, I rip my gun out and shoot our standing captive right between the eyes. He goes limp and my men let him drop to the icy floor below.
Now, back to the other cry-baby.
My man steps back and I grab the blubbering Russian around the jaw, squeezing some warmth into his frozen skin. “You see that? That was an easy death. No pain. Just lights out. If you tell me what I want to hear, then I’ll give you an easy death. If not, then you’ll be hanging from the fishhooks with your other friends. That’s not an easy death. They might not truly die for days.”
Tears freeze down the man’s red cheeks. When I feel he is ready to speak, I rip the duct tape from his mouth.
“I will not repeat myself. I will not wait for long. You see that fishhook? That’s yours if you don’t answer my questions quickly enough. Understand?”
The Russian nods.
First, an easy question that I already know the answer to. “Who burned down my warehouse?”
Despite the fear on his face, the blubbering Russian looks over at his one remaining comrade before answering. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Vladimir give a subtle nod. This fucker. I’ll deal with him later.
“We did,” the Russian answers.
“Who’s we?”
“The Cheryshev Bratva.”
My hand closes into a fist and I land a solid punch against the man’s temple. He yelps in pain, but his restraints keep him from falling to the ground.
The Cheryshev Bratva is a small-time collection of Russian crooks here in New York. They are petty thieves. Dmitry Gazin is only using them as cover.
“Who else?”
Again, the man looks over at Vladimir. A nod.
“The Black Delphi.”
That would have been a real revelation if Nolan hadn’t found that ring and recovered those photos. Now, it’s only a means for the real question.
“Why?”
This time, Vladimir doesn’t give his underling permission to answer. The fat older man stares daggers at his comrade like he could do worse to him than we can.
My gun is quickly out again. I shoot Vladimir in the kneecap. His cry of agony is muffled by his own duct tape, but it’s still loud enough to make our younger captive shake.
“Let me tell you how this is going to work,” I say, tucking my gun back away. “Whatever Dmitry and the Black Delphi have threatened you with is inconsequential. By the time they know you’ve talked, you’ll be long dead. As I’ve said, the only question now is whether you’ll get an easy death or a hard one. I’ll be taking your life, no matter what. So, answer my question and at least let your soul rest easy.”
The Russian looks over to Vladimir for instructions, but the older man is too consumed by pain to give them. It’s all up to him now.
“I… I have a family. Back in Russia. If I tell you anything, they’ll kill them. Slowly.”
A bolt of dread flashes across my chest.
I chose the wrong captive to kill. The other one didn’t have a family.
I’ve never made that mistake before.
Fuck. What the hell is wrong with me all of a sudden!?
Ever since I took Elisa…
No. I won’t drag her down here with me.
“We’re going to find out eventually,” I try to recover. “You might as well save yourself.”
A chain rattles behind us as one of his hanging comrades spasms. “Please, just shoot me…”
“Tell me why you burned down my warehouse. Are you working with the Italians? Ciro D’Ignoti?”
The other night, at Nolan’s club, I got information through a different type of interrogation. In the past, I’ve seduced what I needed out of my fair share of women. Well, ‘seduced’. If you can call it than. It hardly ever felt like any effort at all. When they throw themselves at you, are you seducing them, or just giving them want they want?
Ginger and I gave each other what we wanted. The curvy stripper showered me with as many juicy details as someone like her possibly could. And I gave her what she wanted too.
Honesty.
We were willing to be honest with each other. When I asked her for names, she worked those red lips of hers for me. Russian names, Italian names. Some Greek names too. They were partying together. But that’s not entirely unusual.
Ginger never heard any last names. She was too busy trying to keep the drunkards from pushing her and her girls around too roughly. Still, I appreciated the lead.
Then it was her turn to ask me some questions. I answered straight on. She’d heard about my princess, from Shane no doubt.
Is she prettier than me? The seductress had asked. It was clear that she was used to getting whatever man she wanted.
Yes, I answered plainly. The truth was simple.
She wasn’t happy, but we both got our dose of honesty. I let her off my lap gently, only getting hard later when I thought of putting Elisa there instead.
But I couldn’t linger. There was work to do. We had names. How useful those names were going to be was up to me.
I’ve been searching for some last names. Trying to see if any of Ciro’s men were there with the Russians.
You see, the Cheryshev Bratva has long since become a joke in New York. Over the years, The Family has made sure to snuff out the Russians at every opportunity. Among the petty thieves and criminals that remain, none are named Vladimir, and there definitely aren’t any who would dare rough up some girls from Nolan’s club.
These were out-of-towners.
When he takes too long to answer me, I put a bullet between the eyes of the last living cry-baby.
“You fucking bastard. I’ll make you pay for this!” Vladimir hisses through bloody teeth when I rip off his duct tape.
“No. You won’t. Tell me, Vladimir. What does Dmitry want with me? War?”
“He wants what you stole from him,” Vladimir lashes.
Suddenly, he’s free. The caged animal lunges at me wildly.
… But his wounded knee gives out on him before he can get too far. Still, I feel the burn of his long scraggly nails as they rip through my shirt and tear away the surface of the skin on my chest.
He hits the icy ground with a primal wail of pain. My men wrestle him back to his chair, but not before I can kick the bastard in the face. His nose cracks and even more blood starts spilling from him. He won’t be alive much longer.
“I didn’t steal anything from Dmitry Gazin,” I growl, taking out my gun for the last time.
“That’s not how he sees it,” Vladimir coughs.
Chains rattle around us as the Russian’s friends spasm in various states of hellish limbo. Crimson waterfalls gush from him at every level.
But Vladimir only smiles. A deeply bloody and disturbing smile.
A wet chuckle escapes those thin torn blue lips. “You’re so fucked, Kilpatrick. You and your father may have influence in the overworld now, but Dmitry is god of hell. You think you’re tough?” He spits blood onto the icy floor. “You Irish are like dogs. Animals. Fight or flight. No sophistication. Men of the Black Delphi aren’t animals. They’ll slit your throat from ear to ear and disappear into the shadows before you can even taste their blade. We drink your blood in crystal decanters. There is no fight or flight in us. We get the job done, no matter what. We don’t brawl, we don’t run,” Vladimir’s evil grin widens. “We don’t hang ourselves from trees when times get tough. We don’t die, because we are never really—”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish.
Before I can stop him, Nolan jumps past me and shoots the Russian straight between the eyes. The bastard crumples over dead and his last words echo around in my brain.
We don’t hang ourselves from trees when times get tough.
He was talking about Mom.
Corpse or not, Nolan isn’t done with Vladimir. My younger brother beats the dead Russian’s head in with a furious energy. I let him.
He’s the one who found Mom swinging from that branch. Nine years old. Fuck.
Why the hell did the Russian bring that up? Shit. How the hell did he even know about it?
Dad always kept the truth of Mom’s death between the four of us. When I was returned to them, my brothers never even talked about it to me. I only learned the how of Mom’s death from Dad. He was very clear about what had happened, but only so he would never have to bring it up again. Too painful.
My family’s secret. Coming from the bloody mouth of a dead Russian.
What the fuck is going on?
