Page 211 of Sins of Arrogance

Darakov glares at my lieu­tenant. “I’m still part of Odessa and if you kill me, you’re declar­ing war on them.”

“Nah. I spoke to your pakhan.”

Darakov doesn’t look afraid yet. “So? Then you know he stands by his vor.

Vor be­ing what they call their sol­diers.

But I shake my head. “Not this time. I showed him proof of your at­tempt to steal from me. If you had got­ten away with it, he would’ve praised you. But now? You make him look bad. You make him look weak.”

He starts yelling at me in Rus­sian.

I just shake my head in mock sym­pa­thy. “If you had asked per­mis­sion, or told the pakhan about the Whis­per gun, maybe. He thinks you put his neu­tral re­la­tion­ship with the Shaugh­nessy Mob at risk for a non­work­ing pro­to­type of a more re­li­able weapon un­de­tectable to se­cu­rity scan­ners.”

“You lied to him!”

“And?”

“He won’t let you get away with killing me.” This time, there’s des­per­a­tion, not con­fi­dence in Darakov’s tone.

“On the con­trary. He doesn’t want war with us. Where Odessa has un­easy truces, the Shaugh­nessy Mob has al­lies. All over the world.”

There it is. That look of ter­ror that feeds my dark soul.

“Don’t kill me. I can get things for you. Things no one else can.”

I don’t bother to re­ply to that or his other beg­ging.

Fi­nally, I taze him just to shut him up. It works. “Dress him now or af­ter?” I ask Brice his pref­er­ence be­cause he’ll be the one do­ing it.

“Now. The venom might trig­ger in­stant rigor mor­tis. Some do.”

“Venom?” Darakov croaks.

Brice ad­min­is­ters chlo­ro­form and then he and Wraith dress the un­con­scious man.

Darakov comes to as the two men lift him to hold him be­tween them.

“What are you go­ing to do with me?” Darakov asks grog­gily.

“Well first…” I grab a sy­ringe and lift it. “I’m go­ing to in­ject you with this.”

His face pales. “What is that?”

“You’re well known for us­ing the venom of the Siberian pit viper on your vic­tims. I thought you would en­joy dy­ing the same way.” I didn’t have to give up my fa­vorite parts of my orig­i­nal plan af­ter all.

He starts to strug­gle, know­ing what’s com­ing: ex­cru­ci­at­ingly painful death that will leave no marks on his body.

Im­por­tant, be­cause the best way to get rid of him and Dier­dre is to con­tinue the ruse of star-crossed lovers.

Their boat will cap­size in the bay, and they will both drown.

Con­scious, but un­able to save them­selves.

I give him enough venom to in­ca­pac­i­tate him and cause him ex­cru­ci­at­ing agony. It would prob­a­bly re­sult in death af­ter a few hours, but he’ll drown in the bay first.

Af­ter go­ing to the cell next door and in­ject­ing Dier­dre with a par­a­lytic, we take her and Darakov down to the boathouse. We used Kara’s pro­gram with some mod­i­fi­ca­tions for the new se­cu­rity pro­grams to tem­po­rar­ily dis­able mo­tion sen­sors and cam­eras out­side, re­plac­ing their feeds with the one of Dier­dre walk­ing down to the boathouse the night be­fore.

That footage was re­placed with the back acreage de­void of move­ment.