Chapter 33: Devil’s Lair: Chapter 33

I close my eyes after we disconnect, trying to hang on to the unaccustomed feeling of well-being talking to Chloe has generated, but it’s fading fast. In its place is grim awareness of what I must do today, mixed with dark anticipation.

It’s been six months since I’ve been in this world. Six months since I’ve let myself get involved in our business on any level beyond the most superficial. And while I’d like to say that I hate being back, I can’t deny that a part of me revels in it all… that my blood is pumping faster through my veins.

Opening my eyes, I close the laptop and rise to my feet.

Time to get to work.

Pavel is already waiting in the hotel lobby, and we walk out together. Our destination is a small tavern a few blocks away, or more specifically, its basement.

The sight that greets us when we descend isn’t pretty. A man is hanging by his wrists from a chain bolted into the ceiling, the toes of his booted feet just barely scraping the bare concrete floor. His pale face is bruised and swollen, the area under his off-center nose crusted with dark blood. Two of Valery’s men stand next to him, their faces hard and eyes emotionless.

“Any luck?” I ask one of them, and he shakes his head.

“Claims he doesn’t have the entrance code. It’s a lie. We saw him use it.”

“Hmm.” I approach the captive and make a slow circle around him, noticing how his breathing picks up as I do. An acrid urine scent emanates from his crotch area, and there are dirt and blood stains on his beige Atomprom uniform.

The poor guy knows he’s fucked.

“What’s your name?” I ask, stopping in front of him.

He stares at me, mouth trembling, then bursts out, “I don’t know the code. I don’t!”

“I asked for your name. You know that, don’t you?”

“Iv—” His voice cracks, as if he were a teenage boy instead of a twenty-something man. “Ivan.”

“Okay, Ivan. Tell you what: I know you don’t want to piss off your employer, but you don’t really have a choice.” I give him a sympathetic smile. “You see that, don’t you?”

“I don’t know the code!” Beads of sweat form on his forehead. “I swear—I swear on my mother’s life.”

“But she’s dead, Ivan. She died in a factory fire when you were fifteen. That was tragic, I’m sorry.”

His face goes linen white, and I continue in the same sympathetic tone. “Look, you’re not a bad guy, Ivan. You’ve had a rough life, and you’ve done all you can to help out your family and take care of your younger sister. She’s what, in tenth grade now?”

“Y-you…” He’s shaking almost too hard to speak. “You fuckers!”

I tsk-tsk. “Insults will get you nowhere. Now listen to me, Ivan. I can let them”—I gesture at the emotionless guards—“beat the answer out of you. And if they fail, there’s always my associate”—I glance at Pavel, who’s quietly standing in a corner—“and his skill with knives. Not to mention all sorts of other, less savory tactics that my brother likes to use. But why go there when we can make a deal, you and I?”

His Adam’s apple moves in a nervous swallow. “W-what kind of deal?”

I smile at him gently. “You’re afraid of the Leonovs, aren’t you? That’s why you’re being so brave. You couldn’t care less about the plant you’re guarding. What’s it to you if we get the entrance code, right? But the Leonov family…” I make another slow circle around him. “… they can do things to you, to your loved ones. To your baby sister.” I stop in front of him. “Nod if I’m on the right track.”

He dips his chin in a barely perceptible nod, sweat running down his face.

“That’s what I thought.” I pull out a tissue from my pocket and dab at his forehead. “So how about this: You tell us the entrance code and share everything you know about the security protocol at the plant where you work, and we put you and your family on the nearest flight to a destination of your choice. It can be any place: Zimbabwe, Fiji, Thailand… the Cayman Islands. Name it, and we send you there with a new identity and a hundred grand in cash as a relocation bonus. How does that sound?”

Breathing raggedly, he stares at me, hope warring with fear in his eyes.

“I know what you’re thinking, Ivan,” I continue softly, letting the soiled tissue drop to the floor. “How can you trust me to hold up my side of the bargain? What’s to stop us from killing you as soon as you tell us what we want to know, right?”

He swallows again. “R-right.”

“The answer is nothing.” I let a hint of cruelty seep into my smile. “Absolutely nothing. But that doesn’t matter, because trusting me is the only option you have. If you don’t, you’ll tell us everything the hard way—and when the Leonovs learn of the breach at the plant, they’ll look for the culprit. When they discover it’s you, they will come after your family. Do you understand, Ivan? Do you understand what you have to do if you want your sister to live?”

His chin quivers as he stares at me, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. Finally, he bobs his head in defeat.

“Good. Now tell these gentlemen what they want to know.”

Turning away, I nod at Valery’s men, and they promptly step up, pulling out their phones to begin recording.

“You didn’t have to do this personally, you know,” Pavel says in a low voice as we walk out of the tavern. “They could’ve gotten the answers out of him. If not, I would’ve stepped in. Would’ve been cheaper that way.”

“Maybe. But this way, we know he’s not bullshitting us to make the pain stop.” I glance at my lifelong bodyguard, whose gaze is restlessly sweeping our surroundings despite the fact that Valery’s guards have already secured the perimeter. “Numerous studies have shown that information obtained under torture is unreliable.”

“Not the information I obtain,” he says darkly, and I chuckle.

“Afraid your knife’s getting rusty?”

Pavel doesn’t deny it. He misses being in the thick of things, just like I do—or did. Right now, I’d much rather be in Idaho with Chloe. I want to be there in case she has another nightmare. I want to hold her, soothe her, comfort her… and eventually, seduce her. Her resolve is already wavering, I can feel it—which is why I decided to reassure her about the bruises on my knuckles and the scar on my shoulder.

I don’t intend to lie to her about the kind of man I am, but I don’t want her to fear me.

I won’t hurt her… not in that way, at least.

“Did you already set up a meeting with the head of the Energy Commission?” Pavel asks as we stop at an intersection, and I nod, pulling my thoughts away from Chloe.

“I’m meeting him for lunch on Monday,” I say, stepping onto the street as the light in front of us turns green. It took three phone calls to get through to the guy, but I succeeded, as I knew I would. “That’s another reason I went this route with Ivan,” I continue. “There was no time to break him properly—we needed that code ASAP.”

“Wouldn’t have taken me long either,” Pavel mutters, and I laugh—just as a motorcycle roars around the corner and barrels straight at me.