Page 69 of Brutal Secrets
“Ever the optimist.” Sasha grins at him.
Kai follows Dima through the open doors and closes them behind him.
“Well, sometimes it all works out for the best. I was ready for a trip to New York. London is dismal and gray at this time of year.” Dima cracks a grin. I don’t see the joke, but who knows.
I walk over to Dima and grab him in a one-armed hug. “How’s London?”
“Easier pickings than New York. We’ve bought half the government. Those fuckers would sell their grandmothers for a donation to their political machines. Getting access is a piece of cake.” Dima smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
I turn back to Sasha. “Dima’s always glass half-full. But why are you hopeful that my fuck-up in picking up the girl could work in our favor?”
Sasha looks over at all of us. “Because someone lashed out by sending men against us. Why not just call me in for a meeting? Why send the cavalry over to carry out a hit?”
“Doesn’t make sense,” I say. “It’s not something I would have done. It’s the act of a panicked man.”
“Have you been working closely with the Italians?” Kai says from the doorway, where he’s leaning against the side of the shipping container.
“We’re better with money, if you ask me, but they have stronger ties with America, which used to work well for everyone. We rub along well enough with them.” Sasha looks over at the other two men. “This kind of drama is out of character.”
Dima looks pensive. “Yeah, Sasha’s right. They’ve never ordered a hit without a conversation. Something must be going on inside their ranks to have triggered it.”
Sasha stares at me. “It might be worse. It could be something going on in our ranks. One of the bodies had Russian gang tattoos.” He glances over at Kai. “How’s the girl?”
“First she was scared. Now she’s just furious. I’ve left her alone to cool off. She’s entertaining some fantasy that I’m going to let her go.” He shrugs. “But at least the food bill’s not big. She says she’s going on a hunger strike.”
“Sorry I brought trouble to your door, man. I’m glad you were able to step up.” I nod at him.
What if that happened to my daughter? This is not a world to bring a kid into, and if I need any more proof, I only need to look around me.
“Let’s get this show started.” Sasha picks up the bucket and dumps it over the guy’s head. “Rise and shine, fuckhead.”
The man slumped in the chair groans. One eye is swollen shut and the left side of his face is already a puffy mess, but he opens his right eye enough to take in the four of us standing around him. “I didn’t do anything. I was just following orders.”
From behind me, Kai’s deep voice echoes off the container’s metal walls. “And those orders were?”
“Pick up the pop star and her daughter and get out of there as fast as possible.”
“So you were supposed to keep them alive?” Kai adds.
“I guess . . .”
His words fade as Sasha takes a knife and slices through the man’s pants in a couple of sharp swipes. He gouges deep enough to draw blood and show he means business, but not enough to do much damage.
The man bites his lips until they’re white, but he doesn’t scream. “Fuck. I don’t know anything. You can hack me to pieces, but I won’t be able to tell you much.” He levels Sasha with a direct stare.
“Well, we can do this clean or we can do this messy,” Sasha says with a grin. “It’s entirely up to you.”
“We were supposed to pick up the woman and the kid and the tall guy with the scar. But we didn’t know there would be three tall guys. It was a mess.”
“There now.” Sasha pulls out the pliers and walks over to him with a big smile. “That’s something that we can agree on.” He grabs the man’s hand and rips out a fingernail.
I’ll give the fucker credit. He doesn’t scream then, just bites his lips and pants heavily.
“We wasn’t gonna kill them. We was supposed to hold ‘em and exchange them for the girl.”
“Which girl?” I ask to be sure. As if it isn’t obvious.
“Spataro’s daughter. She was supposed to marry who she’s told to.” He looks at me through his swollen eye and tilts his bloody face to the light. “You shouldn’t have touched Alessandra,” the man bites out. “Spataro had been holding that girl until he found the right use for her, and now you’ve fucked up his plans with the Russians.”