Page 59 of Paved in Venom

The room goes deathly quiet except for Stefan’s whiny, panting moans. Roman steps closer and says, “That’s my sister,” and Stefan goes a bit paler when he realizes what’s going on here. This isn’t about money. It’s personal, which means there’s no way in fuck he can talk or buy his way out of this. “What the fuck happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” Timofey translates. “I never saw her again. She was brought in, and I examined her.”

Matvey lets out a pained, low growl at that because we all know what his examination methods consist of.

Stefan keeps talking as Timofey quickly translates. “She was a virgin,” he says, trying to appease our anger. “That means she would’ve been sold for a high bid instead of going to a club and being passed around.”

“Who fucking bought her?” Matvey growls. “Who’s behind all this?”

“I don’t know,” Timofey translates. “Someone very powerful. Emil’s in charge of bringing in girls from Romania. We have other men in other countries doing the same thing.”

“How the fuck do you get paid?” I ask him.

“Money gets transferred to me through a company called Swan Investments.”

“Where was Simona taken to once she was brought to America? What’s the address?”

He gives the address of a place that’s about twenty minutes from the Red Viper, and then quickly adds, “But there won’t be another shipment for a few months.”

“She said she met the man in charge of all this. Why haven’t you met him?”

“I’m no one,” Timofey translates, and I don’t disagree. “They only meet with Emil and his top men, and they insist on seeing each batch of new women, but they’re never in one place for long, and sometimes they view them in the country they were taken from instead of flying into America. It’s always changing. They’re very careful about not getting caught.” He lets out another slobbering gasp. “They’re untouchable.”

“We’ll fucking see about that,” Roman says, grabbing the shears and getting to work on Stefan’s left foot.

The old man’s a fighter, I’ll give him that. I seriously thought he’d stroke out, and I know he’s wishing he would, but he lasts for hours, and we don’t waste a second of it. All five of us take our anger, our rage, all the shit we’ve been feeling since Alina disappeared, and we give it all to Stefan. By the time his heart stops, there’s very little left of him. The room is filled with the stench of blood and burning flesh and piss and shit and vomit because he lost control of everything near the end.

We’re covered in blood, staring down at the body we’ve quite literally destroyed, and I don’t feel a single drop of remorse. My only regret is that we couldn’t make it last longer. He’d talked, though. Stefan had remembered details that I think surprised even him. He’d told us that the head of the Bratva has a brother who helps with everything. Everyone’s afraid of the two men, and Emil let slip once that they’re originally from Saint Petersburg and do a lot of business in Berlin. They also have Red Viper clubs all over the world, each being operated the same way, each being supplied directly by the Bratva.

It’s not a complete picture, but it’s pieces to the damn puzzle, and I’m going to make them all fit together. It’s the first real lead we’ve had, and we’re all feeling the excitement.

“Jesus Christ.”

I turn to see a couple of our enforcers that Timofey called to come and dispose of the body. They walk in, eyeing what’s left of Stefan. These men are used to violence, but this is testing their limits. Lucky for them they get themselves under control and let out a laugh instead of throwing up in the corner like they most definitely want to. My brothers and I aren’t cruel, but we don’t tolerate weakness in our Bratva. You can do the job, or you can’t. There’s no in between, and if you can’t do the job, then we have no use for you. The death will always be a quick one, though. Like I said, we aren’t cruel.

“Get rid of the body,” Roman tells them, tossing the bloody pruning shears into the gaping hole that used to be Stefan’s stomach. They land in a pile of intestines, sinking into the gooey flesh with a sound that would test even the hardened of men.

“I really hope I can replace those before Emily realizes they’re missing. I’d really rather she not know about this.”

Vitaly looks over at Roman and laughs. “You think maybe the five of us walking in covered head to toe in blood might clue her in on what happened tonight?”

“It’s three in the morning, and Sergei texted me an hour ago to let me know that she’d fallen asleep. I can sneak in and get a shower before she wakes. She knows enough about all this. She doesn’t need to know the details.”

“Agreed,” I say, knowing there’s no way in hell I’d want Simona to know that we slowly gutted an old man and then pissed in his open wound while we laughed and he took his last breaths. She’ll know he’s dead and that he suffered horribly. She has enough nightmares as it is. It’s best she doesn’t know how truly monstrous I can be. This is the side of me that she’ll never see, the side that I don’t ever want her to see. It will never be directed at her, only at those who dare to hurt her, but that doesn’t mean she’d be happy knowing this sort of darkness lives inside me and that I’m capable of such violence.

Taking one last look at Stefan, I turn my back on him and walk outside. We’re all still riding the high, and on the drive back all I can think about is how badly I miss Simona and want to get back to her. She’d texted me a few times, asking how everything was going, but my responses had been quick and far apart. Her last text had come in two hours ago, telling me that she loves me and to be careful. Then she’d sent me the kissing face emoji, which is just cute as fuck.

After spending several minutes convincing Vitaly that we’re way too bloody to go through a drive-thru, we finally pull into the parking garage and load into the elevator. All five of us look like we just finished an all-night shoot for a horror movie, but there’s a lightness that wasn’t there before. Torturing a guy will do that to you.

As soon as the doors open, Sergei and Aleksandr are waiting for us. They’re at the counter drinking coffee and watching the security monitors.

“Goddamn,” Aleksandr mutters when he sees all the dried blood. “Looks like you all had fun tonight.”

Vitaly laughs and claps him on the back before going to raid the fridge. “You have no idea, Aleks. It was a good fucking night.”

“How’d they do?” I ask them.

Sergei puts his empty mug in the dishwasher and says, “They’re doing fine. They were worried, a bit antsy, but they both ate supper and finally crashed around two.”

---