Though he’s looking a little worse for wear now, that’s for sure, as he lifts his lolling head to gaze at me. His nose is bloody, and it looks like he’s missing a couple of teeth. Ilya apprehended him before he could make a run for it and seems like he gave him a piece of his mind in the process, too.
“Pakhan,” he gasps, as though shocked that I’m the one who has come to deal with this. “You have to believe me, I didn’t know that they were?—”
I land a slap to his face before he can continue. I don’t want to hear whatever bullshit he’s going to try and sling in my direction. I already know what kind of man he is, and if he thinks for a fucking second that he’s going to get away with it, he has another thing coming.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I growl, and I grab his hair, yanking his head back so sharply he has no choice to look up at me. His gaze is bleary, but if he thinks this is the worst of it, he has another thing coming.
“Who were they?”
“Who are you talking about?”
I jerk his head back again, and he cries out in pain. “The men you let in to the warehouse last night,” I snarl. “The ones you let stroll through this place and photograph anything they wanted.”
“I–I don’t know!” he protests. “I just took the money, I know I shouldn’t have, but you have to understand, my mom has a lot of debt...”
I cut him off again, yanking his head forward and stepping away from him. “I don’t give a fuck why you did it,” I tell him, as I pull off my jacket, rolling my sleeves up. “I just want to know who put you up to it. You think you can find it in yourself to come clean, Ivan?”
He looks up at me again, and I punch him in the jaw, sending a spray of saliva and blood across the gray wall beside us. He groans again, shifting in his seat, hands still tied behind his back.
“I don’t know!”
I lift my fist again, and this time, as he recoils to try and protect himself, he finally comes out with it.
“Okay, I think I heard the two of them talking at one point,” he concedes. I still my fist for a moment, giving him a chance to put this right.
“Talking about what?”
“About... about who they worked for.”
“And who was it?”
He pauses for a moment, like he’s wondering if he can get away with lying to me. I catch him by the chin, forcing him to look at me.
“If you try and bullshit me, Ivan, I’m not going to let you walk out of here.”
And he knows I’m deadly fucking serious. He’s aware of my reputation, was when he took this job working for me, so he should have known better than to try and fuck me over. Finally, he speaks again, and I know that he is being honest with me.
“Vinski. That’s the name I heard from them,Vinski.”
I shove his face away once more, straightening up.
Vinski… I knew it.
If there was one fucker out there who would do something this bold,thisfucking stupid, to try and cause me problems, it would be Vinski. The bastard has had it out for me for longer than I can remember, and he’d take great pleasure in seeing everything I’ve built for myself crumble away in my hands.
I punch Ivan again, harder this time, and I feel his lip split beneath my fingers. When I pull my hand back, it is coated in his blood, and I let out a snarl of irritation.
“Always making fucking trouble for me,” I snap, as I step away from him. As tempting as it is to take all of my fury out on the kid right now, I’ve other things to think about—namely, what Vinski is going to do with those photographs now he’s gotten his hands on them. I need to make sure that he doesn’t get the chance to make a move against me, and that means tripling the security on all of my warehouses and sniffing out anyone who might have even had a passing contact with a Vinski operative.
I step out of the office, pulling my jacket back on as I go. Ilya is standing out there, hands clasped in front of him, as he waits for his orders.
“Vinski,” I spit. “He’s the one who put him up to this.”
Ilya’s face darkens. “Shit,” he mutters.
“My thoughts exactly.”
I look back over into the office, where Ivan is still tied to the chair, his face pale where it’s not streaked with blood.
