I stand before him, rubbing my sore knuckles as I look down on him. When the adrenaline wears off, my arm is going to feel like it’s on fire. I don’t imagine I’ll get the chance to rest and repair anytime soon. There’s still a lot of things left to do and heads left to bang together.
We’ve been in this basement for the better part of the morning and Junie’s been here all night. After we stashed the guns, I had both Ares and Ivan root out the mole. It didn’t take them long to settle on Junie, who was the only one taken into custody and released after only a couple of hours. It was either a sign that they had nothing to hold him or that he’d struck a deal with them. Either way, he’s the best candidate at the moment. Forall I know, they got to him before and now they just wanted the whole thing to look good, so they arrested him.
Either way, we’re about to find out what’s what. I have to hand it to the guy. Despite his sniveling, Junie’s taken this beating like a man so far. Most guys would have passed out by now.
I hear Ivan sighing behind me. In Russian, he says, “I think he’s pissed himself.”
I look down at his jeans and see a growing wet stain in the crouch. “You scared?” I ask him. “Worried I’m going to beat you to death?”
His entire body starts to shake and he nods. “Please,” he says, saliva dripping from his bloody mouth. “I’m telling you, it wasn’t me. I didn’t talk. Iwouldn’ttalk.”
“Tell me again what you saw,” I say as I walk over to the table behind him. Ivan brought several implements of torture just for this occasion—pliers, pruning shears, a ballpeen hammer… and a rag. I grab the rag and wipe the blood from my knuckles.
“I was standing at the door,” he says. “Just like every night. I was checking IDs and watching for trouble.”
“And then?”
“Then I saw all the lights, and… and I ran. I just ran.”
“Hmm.” I walk back around to him and lean into his face. “They arrested you and then they let you go. Any reason why your turnaround time was so much faster than everybody else’s?”
“They didn’t have nothing,” he says, his voice cracking into sobs. “I didn’t rat, Mr. Orlov. You have to believe me.”
“Convince me. I would love to hear—” I hear Ivan’s phone go off. I sigh and look over my shoulder at him. He’s got the phone to his ear and talking in a low tone while he looks at me apologetically. How many times have I told him not to keep his phone on him when we’re working?
Now I’m distracted. Ugh. Problems and more problems. “Hold that thought,” I tell Junie. I walk over to Ivan as he hangs up the phone. “That had better have been God himself.”
“It was important,” he says. “Ares has asked Boris to take Sasha to school.”
I frown. “Why?”
“Your… manager has taken off, apparently. He’s gone after her.”
That throws me. Taken off? What does that even mean? “She left?”
“Apparently so.”
That doesn’t make sense. Ember was on board with moving in. She understood that I wanted her protected at all times. What is she doing?
“Call him back.” He goes to reach for his phone, and I grab his wrist. “Go back upstairs and call him back. Tell him to find out exactly where she’s going.”
“Yes, sir.”
He leaves and I turn back to Junie. “Where were we?”
An hourmore of beating on Junie until he finally passes out… and still nothing. I wipe my hands as I look at him, leaning forward, his mouth half open as blood drips onto the concrete at his feet. His face looks like hamburger, but he’ll live.
He’s not the mole. I look at the other tools on the metal table that I could have used on him, but it seems less than necessary. In the end, he just wept as I pummeled him, dissolving into a useless bowl of pudding.
A lot of guys can take beatings like that… but they’re usually not begging me to stop the whole time. They are usually the ones spitting in my face and swearing that once they get free, they’ll destroy me.
I look at his lifeless body with a little bit of regret. Sorry, Junie. Sometimes, you gotta break some eggs to find a mole.
Up the stairs and into the house I go. The basement door leads directly into my kitchen where I find Ivan sitting at the counter island, having a cup of coffee. He sits up when he sees me, motioning to his cup. “Hope you don’t mind. It’s been an early morning.”
I glance over at the half-full coffee pot. At least he left some for me. “It’s fine,” I say, walking over to the cabinets to get my cup. “Any word back from Ares, yet?”
“No. Last thing he said was that she was headed west on Main.”
