Page 25 of Born into Chaos

If I weren’t so broken, I might feel a twinge of guilt at what I’mabout to do, but I’m way too far gone for that. This asshole crossed the Melnikovs, and he’ll pay for it with his life. Cause and effect doesn’t always need to be complicated.

Wanting to leave as little evidence as possible, I grip my knife tighter and step closer. I’m amazed at the man’s inability to sense my presence, but the empty beer cans surrounding the recliner he evidently spends most of his time in might explain that. Before his drunk ass can spot me, I reach around from behind and press my knife below his ear, being careful to not touch him. It’s impossible to keep all my DNA out of this room, but there’s no reason for me to leave behind a fingerprint if I don’t have to. Blood sprays when I hit the carotid artery on his left, sliding the blade across his neck before severing the other, giving him a quick but very bloody death.

I pull my hand away, wiping it on my jeans before going in search of Sasha. Staying quiet, I take the stairs and follow a hallway that’s a twin of the one downstairs—both dark, narrow, and disgusting. The first door I come to isn’t shut all the way, and there’s a light coming from inside. Hitting it with the toe of my boot, I lightly kick it open, revealing a scene that’s straight out of a horror movie. Blood spray paints the white walls, and I swear it’s like Sasha was trying his hand at a Jackson Pollock painting. The body slumped in the corner has been stabbed so many times it’s impossible for me to tell what the hell actually killed him. He’s a mix of various wounds that add up to him being very much dead, but what the killing blow actually was, I’ll never know.

The smell in the room is enough to make me shake my head and pull the collar of my shirt up in an attempt to protect me from it. I know that smell, and when I walk in further, looking around at the piles of dirty clothes and trash, I don’t see the dead body that I know is rotting in here somewhere. The closet door is partially open, and when I open it wider, the bloated body of a young woman is splayed out on the floor. She’s been here a while, and the smell has my eyes watering.

Backing out of the room, I go in search of Sasha. I drop my shirt, breathing in the slightly less noxious air in the hall. A pained grunt leads me to one of the other bedrooms, and when I get to the doorway, Isee Sasha hard at work. Knowing this might take a few minutes, I lean my shoulder against the doorjamb and watch. His skull mask turns momentarily in my direction, showing me that his mask is now covered in sprays of blood, before he puts his full attention back on the man he’s in the process of killing.

All that training has paid off, because the kid is damn good. He’s lighting fast as he stabs him in an intricate pattern that I’m assuming means he’s hitting every damn vital organ the man has. For a finishing touch, he tosses the knife up, grabbing the handle in an ice pick grip before plunging it into the man’s neck and finally putting the poor fucker out of his misery. Instead of backing way, Sasha steps closer so his mask is only inches from the dying man’s face. He watches him, waiting for the moment when the man stops breathing. When he’s satisfied he’s dead, he steps back and slowly pulls his knife out, letting the body fall to the dirty floor.

“Pretty impressive,” I say, making him laugh behind his mask.

“I’ve been practicing that move with Dario. He’ll be happy to know it worked.”

Most men couldn’t handle the kind of brutal violence Sasha just so easily dished out, but the eighteen-year-old is calm in a way that’s unsettling. It doesn’t help that he’s still wearing the bloody skull mask. I almost pity the girl who manages to catch his eye. Under the radar is the way to go with a man like Sasha. Being the focus of his attention isn’t something anyone outside his family ever manages to survive.

“How the hell did you manage to stay in that room long enough to kill that fucker?” I ask him. “That place fucking reeked, man.”

He gives a soft laugh. “Yeah, it was pretty rough, but I wanted to kill him more than I wanted to breathe in clean air.”

“Damn, Sasha. You know that’s not normal, right?”

He laughs again. “Yeah, I know.” Stepping around the body on the floor, he walks over to me. “She must’ve overdosed and they didn’t know how to get rid of her body. Either way, she’s dead now, and they’ll be rotting along with her.”

“True enough.” I push off from the doorway and say, “Let’s sweep the house and then get the fuck out of here.”

He nods before taking the upstairs while I do a quick look through the downstairs, making sure there isn’t anyone else hiding. The place is empty, but I do find two bags of our stolen pills. I toss them to Sasha when he comes back downstairs.

“I’m gonna go help with Radomir’s body. You leaving?”

“Yeah, I need to give Timofey an update and then I’m heading out. Don’t forget to text your dad,” I holler at him as he turns to leave.

He laughs and shouts over his shoulder, “I already texted him.”

I send a quick text to Timofey, telling him what happened and asking if he needs me to do anything else before leaving. He doesn’t make me wait in this shithole for long.

Timofey:

No, man, just get the hell out. We’re gonna let ‘em rot.

Me:

Sounds good.

I pocket my phone, not at all surprised by the order. Dragging out three dead bodies would just draw attention, and setting a fire would guarantee that it spreads to the entire row of townhouses. We don’t kill innocent people, not even Sasha is allowed to do that. It’s safer to let them slowly rot. Eventually they’ll be discovered, but that’s why we have Danil. The man can do anything with computers, and if the police do write something incriminating in their reports, Danil will just go in and delete it all. Everything is digital now, and people always believe what their computers say.

I’m just about to turn around and leave when a faint sound catches my attention. I freeze in place, waiting for the man that we’ve obviously somehow missed to come out and try and kill me, but nothing happens, and after a few minutes of complete silence, I hear it again, a soft, mewling sort of sound.

Is that a puppy?

I’m all set to rescue the poor, pitiful thing, but when I follow the faint noise to the room with the rotting woman in it, I can’t see anything, certainly no dog or any other animal. The sound comes again, this time a bit stronger, and I follow it to the closet.

“Jesus,” I groan, lifting the collar of my shirt back up as I step into the closet. There’s a pile of clothes in the corner near the woman’s head, and when I see a faint movement, my heart starts to race because deep down I already know what I’m about to find. Squatting down, I pull back the dirty shirt, revealing the baby beneath. She’s naked, just as filthy as everything else in this goddamn house, and the sight of her has me sucking in a lungful of rancid air before I can think better of it.

“Fucking hell,” I whisper, eyeing the baby that looks way too tiny and is way too quiet. The only baby experience I have is from watching Sveta with her niece and nephew, but I’ve seen enough movies to know that this baby should be screaming right now, but all I’m hearing are the tiniest of whimpers.

Working on pure instinct, I reach out and grab the tiny bundle, pulling her small body and the dirty shirt beneath her against my chest and getting out of the putrid fucking closet. I turn my back on the dead man in the corner, even though I know she’s too little to comprehend what the hell is going on, which is a good thing considering she’s been lying next to her mother’s rotting corpse.

---