Chapter 14
Seven Years
Anton:
Ruslan's needles don't just break men; they dissolve them from the inside out.
"Dead drop. Red Hook shipping yards." Sergei Petrosyan's words slide into each other, thick and syrupy. His pupils have consumed his irises entirely, leaving nothing but black moons ringed in bloodshot white. "Cash in a locker. Instructions on burner phone." He blinks slowly, like his eyelids weigh fifty pounds each. "Phone wiped itself clean as soon as I finished reading the messages."
His partner remains motionless in the chair beside him, chin collapsed against his chest. The rise and fall of his breathing comes steady and deep. Ruslan kept that one sedated as backup insurance. One conscious confessor provides all the informationwe need when the pharmaceutical cocktail performs this efficiently.
When the compounds flush from their systems in six to eight hours, they'll remember fragments. Fever dreams. Chemical hallucinations. Nothing concrete enough to identify or testify about. Just the lingering sense that they talked too much while riding a very bad high.
We stay cloaked in shadow and black balaclavas, anonymous shapes in the dark.
Digital masks strip my voice of identifying markers when I speak. "Tell me about the Morrison job."
Petrosyan tries to focus. His head lolls sideways before jerking back up. "We didn't...we didn't kill him. Dead already." His words tumble over each other. "We just...we just moved him. Made it look like our work." Petrosyan's head drops forward. "Boss said take the body, leave our signature, make it obvious. Said we'd get paid double. Said it would look right."
Across the room, Yuri photographs the unconscious Armenian's exposed forearms with his phone.
"Is your boss Markov?"
"Markov. Gregor Markov." Petrosyan's eyes drift closed. "But he takes orders from higher up. Don't know who. Never met him."
"Were you after the girl at the boutique?"
"Ah, the Quinn girl." His tongue works slowly. "The no kill. Boss was specific, no killing the girl. Just take her, make it look like chaos, get her out." His head lolls.
"Where were you supposed to bring her?"
"Red Hook. Shipping container." His words slur together now. "Number texted on the burner. Container 4-7-B-2. We had twelve hours to deliver her alive and unharmed." He blinks slowly.
I sink deeper into the shadows, listening to chemical confessions spill into the dark that carve new fractures through my control.
"Shane, the Irish guard. Was he part of this arrangement?"
Petrosyan's mouth works soundlessly before words emerge. "Don't know him. Didn't work with any guards." His head leans to the right. "Just supposed to grab the girl during the confusion."
"Where were you?"
"We were waiting." The words drag slowly as molasses. "The different crew...got territorial, started firing at everything." His eyelids flutter. "We pulled back when it turned into a bloodbath."
"Would you have killed her?"
Yuri looks at me, sharp, assessing, cautious. The kind of look that says, "Don't do what you're thinking."
"For what they're paying?" Petrosyan's drugged laugh sounds hollow. "I'd do anything. Kill her, kill you, kill my own mother." His head drops forward again. "Money's money. Girl's just a job."
The Glock slides from my shoulder holster before thought catches up to movement. Metal whispers against leather. Cold weight settles into my palm. My hands move through muscle memory, threading the suppressor onto the barrel.
Ruslan doesn't move from his position near the door, but I feel his attention sharpen. Neither speaks. They know better than to question when violence crystallizes in my silence.
I level the weapon at Petrosyan's forehead. His pupils remain dilated and unfocused, too chemically-soaked to register the threat.
"Got a message last night." His tongue works against his teeth. "Said to stay ready. The payment doubles if we bring her in without a scratch."
"What message? Show me."
