"Belong to you?" he laughs, spitting up more blood as he does, a desperate sound that's half hysteria and half disbelief. "Man, she doesn't belong to anyone. She's just some whore who?—"
I don't let him finish. My fist connects with his face, once, twice, three times in rapid succession, the impact sending blood spraying across the brick wall and his head snapping back with each blow. He's not laughing anymore, just making wet, choking sounds as blood pours from his broken nose and split lips, as his teeth cut into his cheeks and his eyes start to swell shut.
"Try again," I say, and my voice is still calm, still controlled, because this is what I do. "Tell me about Svetlana’s father."
He talks. They always do, eventually, when they realize that the pain is only going to get worse, that there's no rescue coming, that their only choice is between a quick death and a slow one. When he's done, when he's given me everything he knows and is just sobbing against the wall with blood running down his chin, he looks at me pleadingly.
"Please," he whispers, and there's genuine terror in his voice now, the understanding that he's not walking away from this, that all his talking has only bought him a few extra minutes of life. "Please, I have a family, I have kids, I was just trying to make some money, I didn't know?—"
"You knew enough," I interrupt, and I pull the knife from my belt, the blade catching what little light filters into the alley. "You knew she was running from something. You knew she was scared. And you were going to take her back anyway, because the money was good and you didn't care what happened to her after you collected your payment."
"I'm sorry," he sobs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please?—"
The knife slides between his ribs, angling up toward his heart, and his words cut off in a wet gasp as his lungs fill with blood. I hold him there, pinned against the wall, watching his eyes go wide and then glassy as the life drains out of him and his body goes slack and heavy in my arms. It takes less than a minute, efficient and clean.
When he's gone, I lower him to the ground and get to work. I need something to send to Morozov, something that will make my message clear and show him exactly what happens to men who threaten what's mine. I consider taking his head, but it’s messy and will take too long. Instead, I settle for his right hand, using the knife to separate it at the wrist.
The hand goes into a plastic bag. I wipe the knife clean on the dead man's jacket, then drag his body deeper into the alley, behind a dumpster where it won't be found for at least a day, probably more. By the time someone reports it, I'll be long gone, and there will be nothing to connect me to this scene except the vague description of a man in dark clothes, which could be anyone in this city.
I leave the alley, the hand tucked into my coat, and walk three blocks to where I parked my car, moving with the same casual pace as everyone else on the street, just another person going about their business on a cold Boston afternoon. No one looks at me twice. No one ever does. That's the trick to this work, the ability to be invisible in plain sight, to be so unremarkable that people's eyes slide right past you.
The drive to the address I was given takes twenty minutes, and I use the time to plan my approach, to think through the risks and the potential complications. I can't go in as myself. I can't let Morozov see my face or hear my voice, can't leave any trace that might lead back to me or, more importantly, back to Ilya. This has to be clean and untraceable, has to look like the work of someone else entirely, someone who has their own reasons for wanting him to leave his daughter alone.
I stop at a convenience store and buy a cheap hoodie and a disposable face mask, the kind that people have been wearing for the past few years and that no one thinks twice about anymore. In the car, I pull the hoodie on over my jacket and adjust the mask to cover the lower half of my face, then add a pair of sunglasses that hide my eyes. It's not a perfect disguise, but it's good enough for what I need. It will make me unrecognizable in any security footage and keep Morozov from being able to identify me later.
The house that the man was meant to bring Svetlana to is exactly what I expected, a rundown two-story with peeling paint and a chain-link fence that's more rust than metal. There's a car in the driveway—an old sedan that's seen better days—and lights on in the front windows that suggest someone's home. I park a block away and walk back, the plastic bag bumping against my side in the inner jacket pocket.
The front door is locked, but the lock is cheap and old, and it takes me less than thirty seconds to pick it. I slip inside, closing the door quietly behind me, and pause to listen. There’s no sound from anyone, and I wonder if Mikhail is here alone. I slip through the back hallway and through a kitchen that smells of cigarette smoke and old cooking grease, past a living room that's cluttered with empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays, until I reach what looks like a home office.
Mikhail Morozov is standing in front of an old bookcase, looking at the waterlogged titles on the shelf. He seems to be waiting for the man he hired, and he looks entirely out of place in this shoddy room. He’s wearing a finely tailored grey pinstripe suit with no tie, his greying hair combed back, and I can smell a hint of aftershave and cologne in the air—both smell expensive.
He turns at the sound of my footsteps, and when he sees that I’m not the man he hired, his hand goes to his jacket, undoubtedly to go for a gun.
I'm faster than he is by a good bit. My gun is out first, and I close the distance between us, the barrel to his head, before he can get his own clear of his jacket. “Don’t think about it,” I say harshly, thickening my accent to the point that he wouldn’t recognize my natural speaking voice. "We need to have a conversation about your daughter."
His face pales slightly. “Who are you?” he snaps. “You’re not the man I hired. If Iosef thinks he can threaten me like this?—”
“I’m not from Iosef.” I throw the plastic bag onto the desk in front of him, and it lands with a wet thump that makes him flinch. "Open it."
He doesn't want to. I can see the resistance in his eyes, the desire to talk or pay his way out of having to continue this interaction. But I press the gun harder against his temple, and his hands shake as he reaches for the bag, then opens it and looks inside.
His face grays out, and he drops the bag, the wrist poking out with the tattoo on it visible, and the cheap watch still attached. It’s clearly the hand of the man he hired, and he knows it.
"He failed." My voice is cold, empty of anything except the promise of violence. "He failed because I was watching her. Anyone who tries to touch her is going to end up like him. Do you understand?"
Morozov’s jaw tightens. He’s staring at the hand, and I can see him trying to calculate what he’s going to do next.
"Your daughter is not coming back.” I lean in close, close enough that he can feel my breath through the mask and see the absolute certainty in my eyes. "She's not your property. She's not your asset. She's not yours to sell or trade or use. She's done with you, done with this life, and if you send anyone else after her, if you even think about trying to find her again, I will come back here, and I will take pieces off of you. Fingers first, then toes, then other things, things you'll miss more. And I'll keep you alive through all of it, keep you conscious so you can feel every cut, every break, every moment of pain. Do you understand?"
The fear in this rich asshole’s face is so satisfying that it’s almost orgasmic. “I—” He takes in an unsteady breath. “I won’t send anyone else after her. You have my word.”
That’s not worth much, but it’s something. “You’ll stop looking for her?”
He nods. “She’s worth nothing to me now,” he says flatly. “But you should watch out for Iosef. I don’t control him.”
“I’ll deal with him if he tries.” I step back, the gun still leveled at him. "If I hear that you've broken this promise, if I hear that you've even spoken her name, I'll know. And I'll come back. And next time, I won't be this merciful."
I keep an eye on him as I back out of the room, gun still in hand, and then I leave the house almost as quickly as I came. No one stops me. No one else even sees me. The street is empty and quiet, and by the time I reach my car, I'm already pulling off the disguise, stuffing the hoodie and mask into a bag that I'll burn later, returning to the version of myself who works for Ilya Sorokov and has no connection to what just happened in that house.
