"Private event tonight. Get lost." Muscle Head number one on the left steps forward, blocking our path. His accent is thick, his voice bored. "No walk-ins." He takes in my size, then his gaze stops on the tattoo on the back of my hand before moving to Luca's matching one.
Fear flits across his dark eyes as he takes in our inked vipers that identify us as Red Letter Syndicate members. It warms my heart to know our reputation precedes us.
“Open the door.” Luca doesn’t mince his words.
"Mr. Kedrov isn't seeing anyone without an appointment." Muscle Head number two moves to intercept when we don’t slow down, his hand closing around my arm when we get within reaching distance.
That's his first mistake.
I catch his wrist and twist, using his own momentum against him as I step into his body and drive my elbow into the soft spot beneath his ribs. The air leaves his lungs in a whoosh. Before he can recover, I grab his arm and wrench it behind his back, applying pressure to the joint until I feel the bone begin to bow.
"I don't need an appointment. Understood?"
The crack of his elbow dislocating echoes off the brick walls like a gunshot. His scream follows, high and raw, cutting through the ambient noise of the street. I let him crumple to the sidewalk, his arm hanging at an angle that makes several nearby pedestrians turn and hurry away.
The second guard draws his weapon, but Luca is faster. He moves like water, fluid and inevitable, closing the distance before the gun can find its target. A strike to the wrist sends the weapon clattering to the concrete. A knee to the stomach doubles the man over. And then Luca has him in a hold that I recognize from our early days, when he was still with Club Genesis and we were still figuring out if we were going to be allies or enemies.
Muscle Head’s shoulder pops out of its socket with a wet, grinding sound. The guard's howl joins his partner's, a symphony of pain that has people inside the restaurant pressing against the windows to see what's happening.
Good. Let them watch. Let them remember who has the real power here.
I step over the first guard's writhing body and push through the front door. Luca releases his man to follow. The briefcase swings at his side, its contents representing everything Victor thought he could extort from a woman who deserved none of this.
The interior of Tsarina lives up to its name. Red velvet drapes hang from the ceiling in cascading waves, pooling on a floor of checkered black and white marble. Crystal chandeliers throw fractured light across tables draped in white linen, each one occupied by patrons whose conversations die the moment I enter. The air smells of expensive vodka, ambition, and cigar smoke.
Old-world Russian aesthetic overlaid with new-world corruption. A throne room for a petty rat who styles himself a king.
I spot Victor immediately. He holds court in a curved booth at the back of the restaurant, red velvet cushions framing him like a bloody halo. Two more bodyguards flank the booth, younger than the ones outside, their eyes tracking my movement across the room with the barely contained aggression of dogs straining at a leash.
The restaurant has gone silent. Forks hover over plates. Glasses freeze midway to lips. A woman in a sequined dress presses her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with the particular fear of someone who has seen violence before and recognizes the promise of it in my stride.
I weave between tables without slowing. Luca moves as a shadow at my six, and I watch Victor's face as I approach. Those pale blue eyes that don’t blink nearly enough never leave mine. I’ve always found them cold and calculating behind the reading glasses that give him such a deceptively harmless appearance.
"Mr. Moses." His voice is soft, almost gentle, with a Russian accent faded thin from decades spent in America as I draw within speaking distance. The idea of this man in Katriana’s apartment keeps the fury in my blood just below boiling point.
"This is unexpected. And unwelcome."
I give a half shrug. "Most things I do are."
The bodyguards move to intercept me, but I hold up a hand without breaking stride. "I'd advise against that. The two outside are going to need reconstructive surgery. Do you really want to join them?"
One of the guards hesitates. The other doesn't. He reaches for me with hands the size of dinner plates, and I let him grab my jacket because it puts him exactly where I need him to be.
I drive the heel of my palm into his nose.
Cartilage crunches. Blood sprays across the white tablecloth of the nearest occupied table, and a woman shrieks, stumbling back from her chair as crimson droplets stain her silk blouse. The guard staggers, hands flying to his ruined face, and I sweep his legs out from under him before he can recover.
He hits the marble floor hard enough to crack one of the tiles. I plant my foot on his chest and press just enough to make breathing difficult. And I feel nothing for the pain on his face. He’s assaulted the innocent and worse. It’s part of the job description working for a man like Kedrov. I’m just the karma that has finally caught up with him.
"Anyone else want to test me?" I look around at a few other muscle heads creeping closer.
The remaining guard at the table looks at Victor, waiting for a command. Victor's lips thin, but he gives the barest shake of his head. Smart man. He understands the calculus here. He understands that the scene I'm causing in his restaurant, in front of his clients and his employees and anyone else who happens to be watching, costs him more than whatever loyalty his guards might provide.
I lift my foot and step over the bleeding man, sliding into the booth across from Victor like we're old friends meeting for drinks. The leather is warm against my back, supple and expensive, probably imported from somewhere that makes Victor feel important.
Victor sits perfectly still, his thin fingers wrapped around his vodka glass with a grip that suggests he's holding himself together rather than holding a drink. His hands are pale andpapery, the skin stretched tight over knuckles that have never done their own dirty work. A gold signet ring catches the light on his pinky finger, ostentatious and old-fashioned, like everything else about him.
Luca drops the briefcase on the table between us. The impact makes the crystal glasses rattle and sends a fork skittering off the edge. The sound of it hitting the floor is very loud in the silence that has swallowed the room.
