Well, that was easy.
But it’s not enough. No matter how much Harold wishes it were otherwise, he and I have a long way to go before this conversation is complete.
I cross one ankle over the opposite knee and start cleaning my fingernails with the tip of the blade. The scrape of steel against keratin fills the gap between songs. Harold’s breath quickens as he watches.
“Let’s start with the money,” I say. “The shell corporations you ran Bratva cash through. The handling fees you skimmed off the top.”Scrape. Scrape.“I’m guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of three percent? Four? Tell me you didn’t get five, you wily old bastard.”
Harold’s eyes track the knife. “I don’t?—”
I toss the knife to my other hand, then lean forward and bring it to rest casually against his knee. The point dimples the fabric of his trousers. “Try again.”
“Three!” he gasps. “It was only three percent. But it wasn’t my idea—Aleksei came to me with the structure already in place?—”
“And the inside information?” I lift the knife and move it to hover over his exposed hand where it grips the chair arm. “Because youdidsell inside information, didn’t you, my friend? Aboutme.My finances. My timeline. All my little vul-ner-a-bil-i-ties.”
With every syllable, I tap the tip of the knife against his skin.
“You let the devil in, Harold,” I snarl. “Time to fess up.”
He starts spewing details, laying out the entire scheme. It’s all painfully simple. It couldn’t have taken Aleksei more than an hour or two to dream the whole thing up. Find a corruptbusinessman. Grease his palm for a while as you slowly build a bear trap around him. And then, just when he thinks he’s gotten the sweetest deal of his life, you press the lever and watch as the springs release the steel teeth and they puncture into every one of the bastard’s weaknesses. Watch him squirm. Watch himbleed.Watch him beg you to let him out.
Harold’s nightmare is just another cliché.
It’s also just beginning.
Because it’s true that he let one devil in. But he didn’t realize that, now, another devil has come up from the depths of hell to sink teeth into his throat and rip, rip, rip until it’shisblood glowing red in the low light.
He thinks everything he’s telling me will save him. These lurid stories of shell corporations and wire transfers, of encrypted emails and offshore bank accounts. But it won’t. Nothing will. At best, it will delay the end.
But the end will come sooner or later.
Sooner, if I have anything to say about it. Much, much sooner.
I listen as he talks, but truthfully, none of the past matters to me too much. It’s the future that concerns me. While his whole yarn spills out, I glide the knife gently up his arm, past the sensitive crook of his elbow, tracing over his shoulder, his chest, and finding a home underneath the hollow of his chin. It wobbles dangerously with every breath he takes.
“There’s more,” he babbles. “Please, you have to understand! Aleksei hasthingson me. Photographs. Videos. From places like this, with girls who… who weren’t…”
He can’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.
“And I’m not the only one! He’s got a whole network—investors, politicians, all of us trapped by our own—” He gestures weakly around the room, at the velvet walls that have witnessed a thousand sins. “City councilmen, too! And planning commissioners, so many… All of them feeding him information, money, whatever he asks for.”
My gut churns. Seems I’m not the only Izotov man who’s spent the last two decades building an empire.
“Where does he keep it?” I ask softly. “This evidence. Thiskompromat.”
“Safety deposit box at First National. There’s a storage unit in Cicero, too—I don’t know the number, but it’s on Cermak Road.” Harold is sweating bullets now. “He showed me once. Rows of files. Thousands of them!”
I grimace as I think about how the hell we’re going to get in there. Pulling out these poisonous roots will require a fucking excavator.
But first things first.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Harold.” I lower the knife from his throat and watch the confusion spread across his sweaty face. “I’m not going to kill you tonight.”
His eyes dart between me and the blade. He doesn’t trust me. That’s the first smart thing he’s done yet.
“You’re going to get your hands on that evidence,” I continue. “I don’t know how and I don’t give a fuck, but youwillfind those files and bring them to me. Meanwhile, you’re going to keep playing your role like a good little boy. Aleksei will be none the wiser.”
Harold’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. No sound comes out.
