Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Revenge is a complex thing.

At times, it’s been all that’s sustained me. My single motivation. My sole purpose in this world. Those were—still are—my darker days. The days where the demons of my past scream at me from the shadows. When the ghosts of those I lost beg for their lives over and over, as I’m held down and forced to watch, powerless to stop it.

Luckily, there’s an antidote when it gets that bad. A balm to soothe the stabbing, burning sensation that curdles and snarls inside of me.

Violence.

Unbridled, unchecked, unhinged violence.

Those are the days I live for: when a hunt has paid off. When it finally all comes together.

What was done to me and mine was monstrous. And so, when I latch onto another of the vermin who betrayed us, or schemed against us, and at last get to destroy them the way they had a part in destroying me, there’s nothing surgical or precise about it.

It takes a beast to fight beasts. And I thrive when I let mine out to play.

I know I should be in New York right now. I should be walking into Annika’s—sorry, Taylor’s—office and slitting her throat right there on her fancy carpet, or taking her somewhere else by force so that I can spend more time on her.

The others have all paid in blood and tears for what they did to my family. They’ve watched as I’ve meticulously destroyed their entire lives and existences before they beg me in the end to take their last breaths.

She’ll be my magnum opus. My greatest symphonic work of vicious retribution.

Right now, though, I’m busy finishing another, less important, masterpiece.

In the basement under the bar in Mexico City, the man with just one eye left and no teeth looks up at me with a pitiful, hollow expression. Yet, through the ruin of his face, the torment of his soul, and the utter hopelessness in his heart, I can tell.

He knows.

And he remembers.

The man wallowing in a puddle of his own blood, piss, and excrement is Daniil Gorav, a mid-tier Bratva strongman with a pathetic little fiefdom of “power” in St. Petersburg. He’s a nobody. A shitstain the bigger Bratva families in Russia would wipe off the sole of their shoe without a second thought.

But I’ve given Daniil plenty of second thoughts. And third, and fourth, and fifth thoughts.

It’s hard to forget one of the men who held you down, laughing and forcing you to watch, as your mother’s throat was slit in front of you.

Fifteen years ago, Daniil thought his star was on the rise. He was two tiers down from the Iron Table and might have eventually risen to the higher ranks, alongside the Bratva kings he idolized and worked for.

But then he made the gravest mistake of his life: he helped those larger Bratva families betray and murder my family.

Since then, I know he’s woken up plenty of nights worrying if it’s me he’s just heard outside his bedroom window. Wondering if his wife is late getting home from her shopping because I’ve gotten my hands on her.

There’s a reason I’ve left him alone for more than a few years, even after tracking him down and discovering every single thing about his life, his schedule, his hopes, dreams, and family.

I’ve wanted him to fear this day for as long as possible.

I’d have let the horror his life has become over the last four years go on for another decade, if I could. He wouldn’t be the first of my prey to throw themselves off a building or swallow the barrel of their own gun to end the suffering. Of course, I do everything in my power not to let it come to that.

That’s cheating. And I hate being cheated out of my prize. My vengeance.

Unfortunately, Daniil’s just forced my hand. I got wind late last night, back home icing my fucking balls after she kneed me, that he was enroute to Mexico City to undergo major reconstructive facial surgery.

The pussy couldn’t even take his own life after I ruined it. He thought he could escape me by changing who he was.

He was wrong.

“Remind me, Daniil,” I growl quietly, pacing around him, careful to avoid the stinking, spreading puddle of filth. “Which hand was it you used to hold me down that night?”

His one remaining eye widens just a little bit. I smile widely, inhaling the intoxicating scent of fear emanating from his mangled body.

“Was it the left?” I muse, continuing my slow walk. “Or, no, it was the right, wasn’t it?”

“P-p-p-please…” he burbles. “Please, Drazen…”

“Begging will get you nowhere,” I smile icily. “Begging got me nowhere fifteen years ago. But I do so enjoy the sound of your blubbering. So, please: continue.”

He shudders.

“Drazen,” Daniil chokes. “I—I have money⁠—”

I laugh uproariously.

I don’t want whatever pathetic table scraps this fuck could scrounge together. It could be all the gold in the world, and it still wouldn’t bring my family back.

Daniil seems to immediately realize what a ludicrous gesture that was. So he decides to appeal to my emotional side.

“Please, Drazen,” he whimpers. “I—I have a son…”

Too bad I don’t have an emotional side to appeal to.

Oh, and he’s mistaken about his status as a father.

“Not anymore, you don’t.”

The look of pure horror on his face is the sweetest thing in the world. It’s not a bluff, and it’s the icing on the cake to see in his eyes that he knows it’s not.

Daniil’s only son and heir, Peytor, “accidentally” fell out of the window of his Milan penthouse on the fortieth floor earlier today. Clumsy, clumsy.

“But…if you’d like…” I venture quietly. “I can call the street cleaners and see if they can scrape up a few bits of Peytor to mail to you.”

Daniil crumbles. Whatever spirit or soul he has left breaks and shatters, right there in front of me.

My smile splits my face. Christ, I’m almost hard I’m so pleased.

Not that it matters—Peytor could have been curing cancer and I’d have still erased his existence just to make Daniil suffer—but as it happens, I’ve actually done the world a favor by wiping a known child predator and trafficker off the face of the planet.

You’re welcome, everyone.

“But, enough about your dead son,” I say chattily. “I believe we were trying to recall which of your hands you used to hold me down.”

Daniil’s not even present anymore. He’s sobbing, broken, his spirit and I’d bet even his will to live utterly destroyed.

Over the past few years, I’ve taken it all from him. His business holdings, one by one. I’ve bribed away his most trusted advisors and lieutenants, or paid them to stay with him and subtly betray him or sow doubt in the ranks.

I had his piece of shit father killed. His uncle. His three cousins. I had his family homestead on the Black Sea burned to the ground, and the prized, six-generation vineyard sowed with salt.

I had every corrupt cop and politician on his payroll either murdered or jailed. I bought the land used as the cemetery where his forefathers were buried and had the entire thing paved over and turned into a slaughterhouse for pigs.

Now, with his only son gone, Daniil is officially broken—spiritually and emotionally, that is.

I’m not done with him physically yet.

“Wait, wait…” I muse, rubbing my chin as I walk over to the small folding table near the wall and lift the giant machete. I half-turn toward Daniil, snapping my fingers. “You know what? I’ve just remembered.”

I glance at two of my men standing guard by the door and nod, smiling widely.

“It was both hands.”

They move instantly. One of my men drags a heavy wooden chopping block across the floor until it’s right in front of Daniil. Then the two of them grab hold of Daniil’s filthy, bloody hands and yank hard, laying his arms across the wood. His one eye bulges as he realizes what’s happening.

“No…” he manages to burble out.

“You don’t get a vote, you fucker.” I let my gaze level on his. “I hope you had fun the last time you jerked off. Because it’ll be the last time.”

I raise the machete as Daniil screams.

He’s still screaming when he’s in three pieces.

“Enjoy yourself?”

For a moment, when I hear the voice in my ear as I step out of the basement under the cantina, I freeze. It takes skill to get past my men like he clearly has. It takes even more skill to sneak up on me and get this close without my being aware of it.

In fact, there may only be one man on Earth who’s capable of it.

Luckily, we’re…well, I wouldn’t say friends. But we’re not enemies, either—for the present.

“I did, in fact.”

Kenzo Mori doesn’t even blink at my appearance—half-drenched as I am in Daniil’s blood. I wouldn’t expect him to. Again, we’re not friends. But at times, we’ve had “aligned interests and goals”. We’re also not dissimilar.

Both of us live for the taste of sweet revenge. Both of us toil to rebuild empires and lives that were taken from us.

Kenzo eyes me coolly. His mix of Japanese and what I assume is Northern European ancestry always gives him this cold, dark, zen-like aura, as well as an appearance somewhere between a samurai and a Viking berserker. Plus, his height and broad shoulders sort of put us on equal footing, physically speaking.

“I assume congratulations are in order? On a successful hunt?”

I glance down at my suit. “What gave it away?”

Kenzo’s lips curl almost imperceptibly at the corners…which is the closest thing to a smile he’s probably capable of…but he doesn’t say anything. He just folds his muscled arms over his chest and rolls his neck. The sleeves of his black dress shirt pull up, giving a flash of his irezumi style sleeve tattoo on one corded arm, near the wrist.

“What are you doing here, Kenzo,” I growl, the bantering tone gone from my voice.

“We’ve known each other for some time, Drazen,” he murmurs. “And I’d like to think that the times when we’ve collaborated have been mutually profitable and advantageous.”

“If you feel a hug coming on, I’d ask that you kindly restrain yourself,” I mutter.

“I heard a rumor, Drazen. One involving you recently finding a target that’s evaded you for some time.” His eyebrows raise. “A woman.”

My face stays neutral. But inside, something vicious snarls deep in my chest.

“And where might you have heard such a rumor, Mr. Mori,” I say quietly.

Kenzo lifts a single shoulder. “I have many little birds who sing all sorts of songs into my ears.”

My expression hardens. “Well, please tell your little birds that if they continue to fly into my yard, and I happen to catch them, I’ll tear their wings off and grind them into Chicken McNuggets.” I keep my gaze steady. “We’re not enemies, Kenzo, because I’ve always kept my nose out of your shit, and you’ve kept yours out of mine. Should the latter change, I can promise you, the former will as well.”

“Who’s the woman, Drazen.”

My jaw tightens. “Just walk away, Kenzo.”

“Was that a final warning?”

I shake my head. “No. Your final warning was thirty seconds ago. That was a direct order.”

“I don’t work for you.”

“No, you don’t. Which is the only reason he hasn’t blown your head off yet.”

I nod past him to where Milos, my unofficial number two, is leveling a gun at the back of Kenzo’s skull.

Kenzo doesn’t even blink or flinch.

“I’m not so sure that’s the only reason.” He rolls his neck again. “We’re still not enemies, Drazen. Let’s make sure it stays that way.”

With a final curt nod, he turns and strolls past Milos. “You might want to check your weapon.”

Milos scowls in confusion. I watch as Kenzo disappears down the alley and then vanishes from sight.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Milos mutters.

“Check your magazine.”

Milos’ brow furrows as he slides out the clip of his gun. “Mother fucker,” he mutters. It’s empty.

He goes to empty the chamber. Nothing ejects.

“How the fuck?” Milos growls. “This has been on my hip for the last two hours, and I loaded it myself.”

“Kenzo,” I mutter dryly. “That’s how.”

Milos turns to follow my gaze down the now-empty alleyway. “You want me to have someone follow him?”

“I can probably think of bigger wastes of our time, but it would take me a minute,” I mutter, shaking my head. My eyes slide from the end of the alley to Milos. “No. But find out what he’s up to. I want to know why he’s sniffing around.”

“On it,” Milos grunts, pulling his phone out.

Again, Kenzo and I aren’t enemies. But we will be if he keeps asking questions like the one he just did.

“I heard a rumor, Drazen. One involving you recently finding a target that’s evaded you for some time. A woman.”

Not “a woman”. A thief. A destroyer of worlds. A phony, who’s escaped my wrath by living a lie as someone else.

And I hate how close I’ve been to her without ever realizing it.

I haven’t been a client of Crown and Black for long. And Gabriel Black himself typically handles my affairs. But I’ve crossed “Taylor’s” path before. We’ve been in meetings together. On group Zoom calls.

I’ve looked her in the eye, and never once imagined she was Annika.

My eyes draw to slits, my jaw clenching.

I never dreamed Annika was even alive. I saw the wreckage of the car the morning after the carnage. I saw her charred, burned body half melted into the front seat.

On top of that, Annika had dark hair, and perfect eyesight. “Taylor” has flaming ginger red hair, and wears glasses. I’d say she’s dyeing her hair, but… I saw her naked the other night.

The red hair is definitely real. Which means she was dyeing it brunette fifteen years ago. Needless to say, I never cared to check to see if the dark locks were her natural color back then.

It was a marriage neither of us wanted. The Brancovich family and mine were mortal enemies, and we’d been taught that since childhood. Forcing us together was like Romeo and Juliet without a single line of the love story.

It was the tattoo that gave her away. It was a bit of a surprise when I jumped “SecretSlut” in her hotel room and realized it was “Taylor Crown”, name partner at Crown and Black. But then again, that was a side of her I’ll bet none of her clients or coworkers ever see.

I’d seen and tasted the dirty girl underneath the smooth, polished lawyer. The subby little slut with cravings as dark and fucked up as my own. At least, nearly as fucked up as mine. It’s a rare, rare thing for me to find a woman willing, let alone wanting, to indulge in my level of dark kinks.

And by “rare” I mean “virtually impossible”.

I’m an investing partner in Club Venom these days. I’m also a billionaire with more power in his hands than most elected officials. So it’s not exactly difficult for me to meet women. What’s difficult is telling them what I’m actually looking for, and then coming up with a dollar figure to go along with the NDA after they inevitably freak out.

Women think they want a monster. They think they want to get choked, or fear fucked, or slapped around a little. To “play rough” or “be my sub”.

They have no idea the depths of my depraved tastes.

But “SecretSlut” did. I told her, and then showed her all my cards. At least, nearly all of them. More than I’ve shown most. And she didn’t run away screaming. Well, not outside of the context of our planned, twisted games.

She didn’t shut down or disappear.

She showed up. She came to the woods. She let me run that blade over her skin, never once even whimpering her safe word.

She turned on her location feature in the app.

And all of that is…fucking with me, and my plans for her, which don’t—or at least didn’t—include playing deviant games with her.

And then that tattoo gave her away.

That’s when I knew who I had in my clutches.

My fucking wife.

I’d never seen Annika naked before the other night. But I have seen that ink on her.

I’ve seen it on someone else, too.

On her, it was two days before our wedding. My father drove the two of us, followed by a number of his men, to the Brancovich compound. Mihajlo Brancovich was a notoriously paranoid man when it came to threats on his and his family’s lives. He, his wife and daughter rarely went outside the perimeter wall of their estate grounds. It was a rarity even to see them outside the house itself.

But that day, when my father and I arrived, Mihajlo met us outside in the driveway. He shook our hands, smiling, and then took us to the back of the sprawling old castle-like mansion where the pool was.

Annika, who I’d only met a handful of times before, was now a chestnut brunette as opposed to her usual fiery red. The almost perpetual glare whenever she looked at me hadn’t changed, though.

That day, she was swimming in a modest one-piece bathing suit you’d see on a competitive swimmer. The suit was cut high in the leg, and I remember clearly seeing that little speck of ink, hardly bigger than a coin, on her hip, just peeking out.

Mihajlo invited us to swim ourselves as he took off his shirt, revealing the same tattoo, much bigger, on his shoulder.

“The family crest,” he’d explained when he saw me looking at it.

My father and I declined his invitation to swim, and Annika glared at me from the side of the pool for another few minutes before disappearing into the house.

So, yes, I remember that tattoo. And that’s how I know who “Taylor” or “SecretSlut” or whatever the fuck she wants to call herself really is.

I exhale slowly, my teeth grinding. It’s been years since I touched a cigarette. But it’s moments like this that make me crave one. My fingers twitch, flicking an imaginary lighter as my black thoughts settle on the ghost from the past.

But for once I’m not imagining ways of torturing or dismembering her. I’m not envisioning Annika aka Taylor dead, and my dick isn’t getting hard—mercifully—from imagining her face turning purple as I choke the life from her body.

But it does stiffen when I think about the other night—both nights, actually. The chase through the woods. The rush of adrenaline as I hunted down her scent. The throb in my cock when I grabbed her and took her down to the ground, squirming and writhing against me. Screaming and pleading.

Never once using her safe word.

The same thing happened in her hotel room. Maybe at first I scared the absolute hell out of her by surprising her in the darkness. But then she wanted my roughness. She goaded my monster.

She asked for it.

My jaw grinds as I replay the feel of her skin. The soft wet heat between her thighs. Her moans as she begged for more.

…The fact that my dick is still hard makes for an awkward transition when I try to force myself to remember the ways in which I’d like to destroy her.

Milos turns back to me, lowering his phone from his ear.

“The plane’s ready, Drazen. Where⁠—”

“Back to New York,” I growl as my lips curl darkly. “I have some loose ends I need to tie up.”