Page 8 of Used By the Merciless Bratva
I sighed as I dropped the bound folder on my desk.
Situations like this had happened before, each one reinforcing my stance on relationships with women.
I grew up with the notion of women being valuable for sex and procreation. I believed they only looked a man’s way if he had money or good looks; I told myself that creatures like them didn’t deserve my respect or even the tiniest affection.
But I wasn’t so blind to the need for an offspring, an heir, in my line of business. The plan, which was not to be actualized until I was ready, was to find a woman with whom to enter into a contract marriage. She would carry my child and nurse him for a year before signing a no-contest divorce paper. The inconvenience of living with a woman was a necessary evil in my quest to have a true, untainted Yezhov heir, not just an adopted child.
However, my opinion of women began to seem less of an irrefutable fact when my Yezhov brothers started not just looking, but also becoming happy after meeting their partners. By then, though, I knew it was already too late for me to do a 360-degree turn; my cold treatment of women made me undeserving of such a chance.
Love, a feeling I only knew by reputation, was surely not meant for someone like me. I had never been in any type of relationship with a woman, and I couldn’t go through the trouble of learning. So, my plan remained intact.
The only problem with my sex-only principle was that I sometimes regretted meeting some of the women I had sex with. Women like Olga, who confused repeated sexual encounters with a relationship.
I closed the folder in front of me and stood from my chair. I needed to get my mind off this topic.
Groaning sounds hit my ear as I opened the door of the large basement space that served as the torture room.
“Boss!” Jerry, the soldier standing around the entryway, called out as he bowed in greeting.
The others turned around, giving me a clear view of the young man tied to a metal chair at the center of the room. Blood and sweat covered his shirtless body, and his long hair covered the sides of his face.
“Anything yet?” I asked Pavel.
“Not yet, Boss. He’s still acting tough,” he noted. “But he’ll spill soon. He has no choice.”
“Well, I’m here now,” I remarked, walking over to the stool by the far left of the room.
Picking up the screwdriver I needed, I went back to the chair.
“Look up,” I instructed.
He raised his head with less difficulty than I expected.
“Brief introduction,” I stated. “I’m Danil Yezhov, the Bratva boss whose warehouse you tried to steal from.”
I expected his eyes to widen in realization, but they didn’t. While the fear in his face was clear, there was no shock. And that meant one thing: he knew who I was. He knew exactly where he was heading.
“You’re not just an opportunistic thief, are you?”
“I’ll never come here again, I promise. Just—”
“Who sent you?” I asked, bending to his level.
“Nobody. I just wanted to make some quick cash.”
“Same thing the motherfucker has been singing all day,” Ian remarked, folding his arms.
“That’s about to change,” I revealed, my gaze not leaving the bastard’s face as I chuckled. “I’m not going to ask you to tell the truth.”
Fisting the handle, I drove the screwdriver into his left pupil.
His animalistic cry echoed throughout the room, making the clang of the screwdriver dropping to the floor seem silent in comparison.
Not wanting the tiniest sight of the mess, I turned to Pavel. “Get me—”
“I’ll talk, I’ll talk. Please, I’ll tell you everything,” he cried, interrupting me.
“Carry on,” I instructed before marching out of the room as I wiped the unwanted fluid off my hand with my white handkerchief.
