Rafferty
Dublin has a way of getting under your skin if you let it. The rain, the noise, the pubs that never fully close. I've been here for three weeks and I'm starting to think in an accent that isn't mine.
I watch the door of Grogan's from across the street, collar up, hands in my pockets. It's a nothing pub on a nothing street in a part of Temple Bar the tourists don't reach. The kind of place where the regulars know to keep their eyes on their pints and their mouths shut.
Artyom Yakanov walks in at nine fifteen. Right on schedule. The Baron's right hand. His enforcer, his fixer, the man who's been making our operations in Ireland a living hell for the better part of the last month. All because his boss can't accept that Anya Agapova married my brother instead of being handed over like a party favor to a man whose wives depart this world under suspicious circumstances.
That's what this is really about. The Baron wanted Anya. The Council pushed for it, even. Then she turned up at my family’s door and begged to marry an Orlov. The Baron took it personally, and instead of swallowing it like a man with any sense, he started picking at the edges of our business. Shipments delayed. Contacts leaning away from us. A warehouse in Cork that caught fire at a very convenient time. All of it traceable back to Yakanov, which means all of it sanctioned by the Baron.
I give him ten minutes to settle. Order a pint, find his booth, get comfortable. Then I cross the street and walk in.
The pub is half full. Working men, tired faces, nobody looking for trouble. Yakanov is in the back corner with a whiskey and his phone. He's a big guy. Thick neck, heavy hands, the kind of build that intimidates people who don't know what they're looking at.
I know exactly what I'm looking at.
He sees me when I'm three steps away. I watch the recognition land. The way his shoulders tighten and his hand moves toward his waistband.
"Don't," I say.
He stops. Smart. The dumbest thing he could do right now is reach for a weapon in a room full of witnesses. The second dumbest thing is to run. So he sits there, jaw working, eyes calculating.
I slide into the booth across from him.
"Rafferty Orlov," he says. Like saying my name out loud might give him some kind of advantage.
"Artyem." I fold my hands on the table. "We need to have a conversation."
"I've got nothing to say to you."
"That's fine. I've got plenty to say to you." I lean back. The booth creaks. "Your boss has a problem. He wanted something that wasn't his to have, and when he didn't get it, he started acting like a child pulling wings off flies. The shipments. Cork. The pressure on our contacts in Europe. All of it traces back to you, which means all of it traces back to him."
Yakanov's expression doesn't change. Professional. I'll give him that.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't." I study him for a moment. He's got about forty pounds on me and six inches of reach. None of that matters. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to deliver a message to the Baron. Word for word. Can you do that?"
"I'm not your errand boy."
"Tonight you are." I hold his gaze and wait. This is the part most people get wrong. They talk too much, threaten too loudly, fill the silence with noise that dilutes the point. I've learned that the silence does the work for you. You just have to be willing to sit in it longer than the other person.
Yakanov blinks first.
"What's the message?" he asks.
"Find another family to fuck with. Anya is Connor's wife. That's done. It's settled. If the Baron keeps pushing, the Council will be the least of his worries. I will go to his territory, and I won't be having a conversation."
Yakanov stares at me. Trying to figure out if I mean it. They always do that. Try to find the bluff. The gap between the words and the willingness to follow through.
There is no gap. There never has been with me.
"And if he doesn't listen?" Yakanov says.
I move fast. Faster than he expects from someone sitting down. My hand closes around the back of his neck and I slam his face into the table hard enough to crack the wood. His whiskey glass shatters. Someone at the bar flinches but doesn't turn around.
I hold him there. Cheek pressed into the wet wood, blood already running from a gash above his eye. He's strong enough to fight me, but he doesn't. Because he can feel my other hand now, pressing something cold and flat against the base of his skull.
"Then I'll kill everyone he sends," I say quietly. "One by one. Starting with you. And when I run out of his men, I'll go to his house and finish it there."
