Mikhail scoffs and moves past me toward the warehouse. “Pretty sure Father already knows anyway.” He drags a hand over his buzzed head, his blue eyes flicking my way.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I mutter and shoulder him hard as I pass. He stumbles a little, and a string of Russian curses hits my back, but I don’t turn around. My lips twitch with amusement.
The warehouse is massive. Gray metal exterior, loading bays along the side, big enough to take direct shipments off the water. I head toward the side door we use for family business.
Before I reach it, I glance back. They’re still in the parking lot. Mikhail’s shaking his head, all wound up. Daniil has a hand on his arm, trying to calm him down like always. Fuck, I love getting him riled. He’s always had a short fuse. The drugs just make it shorter.
I walk in and cut across the warehouse floor. None of the workers look at me directly, just keep their heads down and focus on their tasks. At some point, my brothers catch up with me. We take the freight elevator down to the basement where we handle interrogations.
The room opens up, and Calder’s there, crouched in front of some guy who’s bound and gagged in a metal chair.
He glances over when he hears us approach and smirks at us.
Even I can’t stand looking at him for too long. He doesn’t have to try to unsettle people, but he does it anyway, like he enjoys watching them squirm under his attention.
His tattoos leave almost nothing untouched on his body. Arms, chest, crawling up his throat and across his jaw, ink etched into the skin of his forehead, and down the back of hisshaved head. And then those eyes—dark brown, so dark they look wrong on his pale face.
My older brother Yulian is the reason this lunatic started working for our family. Found him homeless after he got out of the Navy and offered him work instead of leaving him to rot. Turned out to be the best decision he ever made. Calder’s competent, loyal, enjoys the work too much to ever complain. My mother treats him like he’s one of her sons. I think she secretly wishes he was.
I stop in front of the man in the chair. Gagged, arms tied behind him, ankles bound to the chair legs.
Blood’s already dried on one side of his neck where Calder’s been working on him. Calder stands up slowly. “Look what I caught for us,” he says, grinning. “One of Nozares’s men. The warehouse where you got shot. His operation.”
The Nozares family has been testing boundaries for the past few months, but there are decades of bad blood between our families. They have old, sloppy structure, but they’re not stupid enough to move on us without reason. Their boss is pushing seventy and should know better.
Problem is, his cousin Omar Nozares runs Mexico and Cuba, and that psychopath doesn’t follow anyone’s rules but his own. Every other family in the city keeps their distance from our business.
The Nozareses are either desperate or the old man is losing his grip.
My father doesn’t want war. He wants order. When he finds out someone just tried to kill his son, that’s personal, and he takes it very seriously.
I don’t recognize this guy though. Late forties, light stubble along his jaw.
“I haven’t really started yet,” Calder says, eyes still fixed on the man. “According to my intel, he was at the warehouse thenight you got shot. So go ahead, sit. I’ll get us some answers. Won’t take long. They never last as long as they think they will.”
Calder steps behind the guy and yanks the gag off. The man coughs hard, then immediately starts screaming.
“Help! Please! Help me, somebody help?—”
Calder’s face lights up with the manic expression I’ve seen too many times.
The screaming drills into my skull. I slam my fist into the guy’s face, feeling his nose collapse. Blood sprays across his shirt. He jerks back in the chair, wheezing through the mess.
“Shut up,” I snap. “No one’s going to hear you anyway.”
His breathing turns wet and ragged, but the following silence is better.
“Fuck, I love it when they start strong,” Calder says, cracking his knuckles. He grips the man’s shoulders. “Makes the whole process more authentic. If I start with the smaller bones and work my way up, I can keep him talking for hours. It’s about finding the right rhythm, you know? Watching it all unfold.”
Behind me, Mikhail laughs. He slumps into one of the metal chairs by the wall, the chair creaking under his weight. Daniil walks in after him and drops into the next seat, pulls one leg over the other, reaches into his hoodie, and pulls out a bag of chips.
The guy opens his mouth again, voice cracking. “Please, please don’t kill me. I have a wife and kids. They need me.”
Calder frowns, genuinely disappointed. “But where’s the fun in that?” he says, tone flat. “I was just getting warmed up.”
He walks around the chair and crouches in front of the bound man, looking up at his face. Then he glances at me for permission. “Did you know if you hit a kneecap at just the right angle, it pops exactly like bubble wrap? I love that sound. So satisfying.”
I shrug. “Sounds exciting. Show us.”
