"Yeah," Ilya says. "I never saw anybody. You just bid and send your money. It goes through five or six different transactions before it gets cleared. I got the keys and the paperwork via courier. Ican'tbelieve they put another apartment on the samefloor as mine!" He's looking between us, outraged. "Didn't they realize that would double our risk?"
Ilya is younger than me, more around Alexey's age. Still, being Adam's best friend, I'd grown up with him around. He was never as bright as Adam or as driven, but he seemed like a cheerful, slightly oblivious rich boy. Not a piece of shit who could buy a human being and hold her captive for over six months.
"How did you find out about the auction?" Roman leans in close. Ilya must see the madness dancing in his eyes, and now, he panics.
"I want to talk to my dad! Or- or to Adam. They can act as my intermediaries. We can work through them," he bleats. "We can lower the temperature here."
Knocking him off the chair with a single punch, I enjoy the pain radiating from my knuckles. I put my foot on his chest when he tries to sit up, enjoying his little choking noises as I lean down hard on his ribs.
"Everything you were before and the friendship we had with your family is gone now. You know our stance on human trafficking." He makes a snuffling noise, face already covered with tears and snot. "You bought ahuman being,you piece of shit!" I flatten his nose with my fist and it feels good. "You bought ateenager.We'll treat you like we do any other useless fuck who goes against our people.Yourpeople."
He stares up at me, eyes red and watering. "Adam will never forgive you for hurting me," he croaks. It's probably true. As useless as Ilya is, I know Adam loves him. I lean more of my weight on his chest.
"You have one way of coming out of this alive, and that is telling us everything you know. How did you find out about the auction?"
"I don't know," he wails. "Just, you know, around." He gives me a sickly smile. "I think I heard about it at your club, K- King's Rest. Some of the members were talking at the bar next to me."
My fucking club?
Ilya doesn't have a membership, but Adam does. I'm sure security would have allowed Ilya in. The guards there know how close our families are.
I push my foot down hard enough that one of his ribs creaks ominously, and he bats at my leg, wheezing. He has soft hands. Well groomed. He must go to a salon to get his fingernails buffed. "Who gave you the information?" I rasp, my voice thin and sharp.
"You have to understand!" He coughs violently. "It's by text, man. Everything's handled by text and online!"
"Who. Told. You?" My demon laughs as I kick Ilya in the stomach, the force of it rolls him twice and he hits the wall.
Cowering, he gasps, "I don't know his name! I'd seen him at the club before. He gave me a number to text."
"You don't have a fuckingname?Bullshit."
"He was a doctor, he was bragging to one of his friends about some surgery he'd done. That's all I know about him." He looks up at us pleadingly, still blubbering.
Roman puts a hand on my shoulder, grounding me. "You should go take a break." He sees the tremor in my fingers and he knows I'm hanging on to the last of my self-control.
Striding out of the room, I find Kolya, setting up a mobile workstation. "You got all that?"
"Of course," he says, fingers already racing across his keyboard. "I'm cross-referencing members and guests at King's Rest, with any connection to the medical profession. We can pull up the pictures and have him identify them."
"Myfucking club."
Kolya winces, but his gaze never leaves his monitors. "Yeah, man. That really sucks. You put a bunch of rich bastards together in a room, though, and something fucked up is always going to happen. And everyone's bitching about organized crime? Please."
Demid is standing by the entrance, he hands me a dress shirt. "You've got a mess there." He nods at my sleeve. There’s blood sprayed across the fabric from punching Ilya. Pulling off my shirt, I wipe my hands clean.
"Taking a member of an allied family, killing him… This has serious consequences," he says softly, looking through the one-way mirror. Roman has Ilya pinned up against the wall, arms and legs waving spasmodically.
"I know," I say.
"If Adam and his father find out what Ilya's done, and then what's happened here..." Demid watches me. "If Ilya's actions don't break them, this could."
Ilya's screaming again. Roman just dislocated his shoulder.
"Are you trying to make a point here,moy Vtoroy?" I'm enjoying Ilya's suffering. It's difficult to concentrate.
"Only outlining the potential repercussions," he says.
"He is the only concrete lead we have." I button up the clean dress shirt. "I would peel the flesh from his bones if it gave us the men in charge of this ring."
