Page 40 of Bratva Beast

I nod as I step into the room. The floor slopes from all sides to a large floor drain. The chair legs surround the drain, welded to the floor plate. We don’t want the chair to tip while we’re beating the traitor. It’s sad to say, but the smell of urine and copper from the blood doesn’t register. When I was lying in my bed after my second burn surgery, I tried to count the number of people I had killed. Then I couldn’t distinguish between men I’d killed and those I’d ordered to be killed.

“Please, please.” The small blond man begged. “I didn’t do anything.”

I ask Anatoly in Russian about the man’s wife and he shakes his head. “Okay.” I turn back to the traitor. “You haven’t asked about your wife.”

The man’s swollen eyes widen. “What?”

“Your wife. We have her. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll slit her throat. Then I’ll find your parents and do it to them.”

He rocks in the chair. Distress dripping off him. “You can’t.”

I laugh. “Who else has been talking to the feds?” The man stares at me. My blood boils. He doesn’t understand I’m not kidding. I throw my fist at his cheekbone. The crack pierces the silence of the room followed by a scream from the man. “Who?”

“Georgie.”

“Georgie?” My eyes flick to Anatoly, who grabs his phone and steps outside the door. “Who else?”

The man swings his head back and forth. “No one. Please. I don’t want to die.”

Pathetic. “What about your wife?”

“Do you really have her?”

I nod. “Yes.” Anatoly walks back in, and I tip my head at him. “Photo of the wife?”

He walks over with his phone extended. A full-color image of a woman hanging from a hook with her arms extended and tied. The ropes overlapping the hook. Melted makeup on her face resembles a tired and overworked clown.

The traitor stares at the phone. “She didn’t do anything.”

“No. But you did.”

“I got caught with drugs, and I made a deal. I didn’t give them anything on the Bratva, just on the cartel guys.”

I grit my teeth. “A traitor is a traitor.” Shaking my head, I pick up a knife off the table and jam it into his thigh. His screams make me smile. Karma is a wonderful thing. Fuck us and I kill you.

He thrashes in the chair as blood pools around the knife and drips on the floor. The slope directs the blood in a scarlet river. “I don’t know anything else. I didn’t tell them about you. Please don’t hurt my wife.” He continues to ramble until I’ve heard enough.

“Anatoly, send men to get Georgie.” I grab the long blade and run it across his neck, making sure the blood spurts in the other direction, keeping the blood away from me. The man gurgles for a moment before his head falls forward.

Anatoly picks his head up from his phone. “And the wife?”

“Did she see anyone?”

“No.”

“Then let her go.”

“Okay, boss.”

I stroll across the room to wash my hands as the two clean-up men begin the process of dismembering the body. They’ll clean the room and dispose of the tools and body in a steel drum full of lye. They’ll heat the drum to three hundred degrees for three hours to reduce the body to liquid. One of the many things Thane learned during his time with the cartel in Latin America.

The door opens as I dry my hands. I toss the towel into the burn pile. The guys will burn anything left in the building incinerator.

My driver holds up my phone. “Pakhan.”

I step to the man and grab my phone. “Yes?”

“When’s this wedding?”

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