"Fuck," Raf snarls. "I wanted him alive."
Silvestre lets the corpse drop like trash. It hits the concrete with a wet sound and doesn’t move again.
Silvestre pants, eyes wild now, feral with it. "You see?" he spits. "You see what happens when idiots talk?"
I step closer. Slow. Measured. "You killed your son."
Silvestre bares his teeth. "You would’ve killed him anyway."
Oksana exhales sharply. I turn toward her; her face is pale, and her expression is that of pure murderous intent. She looks almost feral. Damn, that woman is sexy.
"You’d better start talking," Raf snarls. "Because whatever you just protected?" He gestures to the body. "It was worth more to you than him."
Silvestre spits blood onto the floor. "Fuck you."
"Alexei," Raf tries to coax him.
Silvestre’s lips curl. "The boy," he laughs maniacally, "oh, the boy. You have no idea what kind of storm is coming for you."
"And when Voronin died?" I press.
Silvestre’s eyes flick away. Just for a fraction. "Then the boy became leverage."
Silence presses in.
Oksana’s voice cuts it, ice-clean. "You kept him alive because dead men don’t inherit."
Silvestre smiles thinly. "Smart girl."
Raf straightens slowly. "You just handed us a war."
Silvestre laughs again, blood in his teeth. "No. I handed you history."
I look down at Aurelio’s body. At the man dangling above us. At the mess they made trying to outrun ghosts.
"No," I say. "You handed us riddles, and you will give us answers."
And this time, when I step forward, Silvestreknows it too.
It takesSilvestre two days to die. Two days soaked in blood and shit. Two days of torture from the best there are—Oksana and Raf. They even brought Sasha in. But when a man makes up his mind to take a secret to the grave, he can endure quite a lot of pain and think himself a martyr. We finally admitted defeat, but at least we can report to Massimo that the old man died in agony.
"I wonder if he was the last of his kind," Oksana says without turning, when I enter the lavishly decorated parlor of Aurelio's house. She stands looking out at the backyard, where the birds are making a feast of the still-untouched dead bodies. A few of ours were killed during the operation, and Raf arranged for them to be taken home to their families. None of us gives a shit about the Valverde men, or the father and son, both dead now in the basement. But everything is starting to smell. It's time to pack up and leave.
I walk to her and wrap my arms around her. She leans back into me. I know there are only two people in the world she trusts enough to allow that. Being one of them is not something I’ll ever take lightly.
She's right, though. There is a certain amount of respect I have to give Silvestre. What he endured… not many people could have taken. From what I heard, Donna Margarita and Igor both faced death with the same kind of dignity.
"I like to think that he wasn't," I answer honestly. You have to be hard in our world, or you won't make it.
"I suppose it’s time we leave," Oksana suggests quietly.
It’s not a question. It never is with her.
I nod. "There’s nothing left to bleed."
We went through everything—ledgers, safes, servers, and hard drives pulled from walls and floors like rotten teeth. Names, routes, shell companies, old favors, and newer betrayals. Enough to make the cartel eat itself alive. Not enough to answer the one question that matters. Where is Alexei Voronin?
Silvestre gave us nothing.
