“Fuck,” Trent muttered.
Ray Dorland outright cowered.“I swear I don’t know why that bugger wants to find Carl!It’s just a coincidence!”
“Well, it’s a coincidence your sister and your brother-in-law both ‘disappeared’ under circumstances you were directly responsible for, correct?”
“Well, I mean?—”
“And this Segura man’s search for your nephew, Carl, led him to learning the names of his parents and thus contacting you, correct?”
“I don’t know how to tell you any clearer that I never talked to the man or had contact with him or even shared a bloody continent with him before!”
“See, why don’t I believe you?”There was a noise and another shadow moved as the speaker apparently stood.When he spoke again, he sounded farther back from the camera.“Let’s see if you are telling the truth.”
A man dressed in all black, with a black balaclava over his face, partly entered the scene with his back to the camera.Ray started begging, pleading—screaming as Badger and Trent both heard a sickening sound.
“No!No no no please—AAAGGHHH!”
When the man stepped out of the shot, Ray Dorland was still sobbing and crying and what looked like his left thumb now lay in his lap as his chest heaved.
“Now then,”the Russian said, once again closer to the camera.“Would you like to try again?”
“I swear!”Ray sobbed.“I didn’t talk to him before he called me!I promise I wasn’t trying to make any deal with him!And I blocked his fuckin’ number!”
“But you sold out your own family,”he said.“Your brother-in-law, perhaps I can understand that if he truly was a threat to your business interests.But your own little sister?Tsk.Family is very important.And what is this lab Faegan works with?”
Trent spotted that, despite his pain, Ray was still trying to hold stuff back.He shook his head.“I don’t know what they do there, man, I swear.They do human experiments.Black book stuff.All I know is that Faegan cunt deals with them and asked me for help in exchange for a huge windfall.”
“And how do you know this Faegan man?”
“We had business dealings together in the past.”
“Fuck,” Badger muttered.“We takin’ bets he breaks?”
“No,” Trent said.“Because I know he will.”
“Does he run drugs?”the Russian asked.
“I don’t think so, but it had nothin’ to do with that anyway.Besides, right now he’s on the run from pissin’ off another family because his daughter married their daughter and he didn’t want that to happen because he’d already taken and spent a dowry from another man he sold her to, so his men killed the other family’s daughter, and?—”
“Enough,”the Russian said.“So you are in business with a man who enjoys killing women,hmm?”
“It’s not like that!It’s?—”
“It sounds very much like that.Let me tell you something, Ray.I am no angel, but my father made me promise never to traffick women or children.To sell drugs, and commit extortion, and run betting schemes, and other activities—but to never harm women or children.To threaten to harm them for leverage?Even kidnapping?Certainly.But never rape or harm or kill them, unless in absolute self-defense, and only as a last resort.And to avoid making them collateral damage.
“He was quite different and ahead of his time.Unfortunately, because his family members were tortured and murdered by the Nazis during World War II.They raided the village my family lived in, and the trauma was multi-generational.Not only did my father not wish to be that kind of evil man, he also recognized that people whose families are harmed, they are far more dangerous because they have nothing left to lose.Better to use the threat of harm to their family to… encourage compliance, no?
“Now, his contemporaries, they made fun of him.But as his wealth grew and people sided with my father because he had an inviolate code of ethics, which he never, not once, broke, he built an empire.I have continued on that route to much success, as you well know.I do not let my people be pimps, or sell women and children to perverts who want to harm them.So, can you see why I am also not happy with you in this regard?”
“Listen, I can give you money!I’ll let you take back more of a share!I swear I?—”
“Enough,”the Russian snapped, cutting him off.“You are a coward and without honor.And did I not, in the beginning, tell you of my policy?”
“You did, and?—”
“And did you not lie to me?Because your sister was taken before we began dealing together, correct?”
“Well, yes, but I never thought?—”
