“I didn’t! I—I couldn’t! I don’t even know American girls.”
I’d fetched Pavel, Vitali, Vlad, Bogdan, and Dmitri from different parts of Russia and smuggled them into New York. I’d already killed the first four in spectacularly violent and slow fashion over the past week. In fact, it was why I had gone MIA on Tierney for a few days last week. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I now realized I needed to be more present.
So instead of killing Dmitri by impalement as I did with the first four—watching as they starved to death while speared from their anus all the way to their mouths—I chose a relatively fast method for him. The acid should burn his brain clean in the next few hours. Oh well. At least he was going to feel every moment of it.
I’d always had a fascination with violent, gory deaths. Watching bad guys die soothed my soul.
“You knew this one. Tierney Callaghan.” I puffed smoke into his face.
At the sound of her name, Tyrone whimpered from across the room. He was still bound by chains in a cage, shitting and pissing into a bucket, living on a can of beans and a bottle of water a day. Tierney deserved to see the bastard take his last breath. The only reason I’d waited was because I wanted to make sure she was feeling 100 percent, and I believed the time was near.
“Achilles, be reasonable. Let’s talk about this! I had no idea—” Tyrone started.
“Shut the fuck up.” I pulled my phone out again, thumbing the screen to answer my girlfriend.
Achilles: Hey, beautiful. I have a meeting with my brothers in ten minutes, then I’ll come home. Will you be there?
Three dots danced on the screen in front of me.
Tierney: idk.
Achilles: Want me to bring you a bite? Maybe dessert?
Tierney: idc.
Look at us. We were so fucking cute together. Me and my enthusiasm. Her and her dry acronym comebacks.
Achilles: I’ll pick up some takeout on my way back. Italian good?
Tierney: w/e.
Sure, she wasn’t the most talkative via text. But you could really feel the love shining through each word.
“Okay, this is getting boring.” I tucked my phone into my pocket. It was ten to six, and I really needed to get this shit over with so I could take Tierney Dmitri’s head, along with the rest of these fuckers’, to heal her beautiful soul from what they’d done to her in that work camp.
Yes, my gifts to her tended to be outside the box, but it was the thought that counted.
“How about we speed things up a bit?” I winked at a lying, tied-up Dmitri.
“Nooooooo, nooooo, nooooooo!” He screamed and thrashed, arching from the bench press I’d used as a makeshift gurney while I unscrewed the water tank attached to the faucet and picked up the bottle of fluroantimonic acid. I poured it into the container. An unbearable odor of fumes immediately filled the air.
“I’d say I’m sorry for the smell,” I told Tyrone over my shoulder, “but the stench is the least of your worries right now. Buckle up. What I’ve got planned for you will make shitbag here’s death look like a euthanasia in a six-star Swiss resort.”
I climbed upstairs, away from the racket of Dmitri screaming as the acid ate through his skin and brain, and from Tyrone, who rattled the bars of his cage.
____________
The first to show up was Jeremie.
Peculiar, considering he wasn’t fucking invited.
He was wearing his usual outfit of black combat boots, black tactical pants, and a too-tight Henley. Couldn’t fault him for the Henley. He was the size of a kraken. I doubted they made human clothes his size. I was definitely a scary motherfucker, standing tall at six feet four inches of muscles, scars, and ink, but Jeremie was easily six feet six inches and more shredded than IRS forms at a Midtown hedge fund.
“This is a Camorra meeting,” I informed him. “Ugly Bastards Anonymous is down the street.”
“And yet here you stand, the chairman of the club.” Jeremie pushed past me, his shoulder nearly dislocating mine. His deltoids were the size of his head. I threw the door shut with a frown. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone who wasn’t my sweet angel fiancée.
Speaking of…
