Prologue
Nikolai
We’d arrived at Butcher and Son, a decades-old abandoned slaughterhouse in the outskirts of Desolation, New York ten minutes ago. I looked down at my watch, expecting Arlo Malkovich any minute.
Arlo, a free agent in the crime syndicate known as the Ruin, did the dirty shit other men couldn’t or wouldn't. Body clean-up, mercenary work, torture, and hits ordered down from the higher-ups from all factions of the underworld.
The Cartel, Bratva, Cosa Nostra, and any other illegal entity that needed a hub to get their guns, drugs, trafficking, or kills done easily and without legal interference.
And that’s exactly what we were going to use Arlo for.
Our dirty work.
Not that I personally gave a fuck if anyone knew we were about to put a hit out on Leonid Petrov, our father and the Pakhan of the Desolation branch of the Bratva. The asshole had this long coming, and had dodged more attempted hits on his life over the decades than I could count.
The sound of a car pulling in, gravel being kicked up, and then followed by an engine being cut, a door being opened and closed sounded. I straightened and glanced at the partially opened metal doors just as footsteps echoed off the walls and Arlo stepped inside.
I glanced at my brother as he leaned against the rusted walls of the warehouse, Dmitry’s body relaxed although I saw the lines around his tightened lips. He brought a cigarette to his lips and lit it, the end flaring a second before he inhaled, held it in, and then exhaled, tendrils of smoke curling around him. He brought it to his mouth again and inhaled, and I could see the tension growing in him. The end of his cigarette lit up once more in the darkness, a flare of brilliant orange as he inhaled.
I kept to the shadows as Arlo came closer, his focus on my brother. I knew he couldn't see me shrouded in the corner and I grinned.
Arlo stopped a few feet from where Dmitry still leaned against the wall. “Your brother can crawl out of whatever dark hole he’s occupying anytime now.” His voice was low and I grinned wider and laughed, the sound echoing off the rusty, debilitated walls. The fucker.
Dmitry inhaled from his cigarette again, that smoke circling him, clouding his visage, his focus trained on Arlo. My brother didn’t say shit, just flipped the ash from his cigarette, took one more hit, then flicked it away before pushing off the wall and coming to stand before Arlo.
I tensed, taking a step closer but staying in the shadows, my hand on the butt of my gun as I prepared to fight dirty.
Dmitry grinned, a frightening visage with his lips peeled off his teeth, all straight, white, and flashing in the darkness. Dmitry started talking about the bullshit that happened at one of my father’s establishments, an encounter where Arlo had taken it upon himself to obliterate the hands of one of Leonid’s soldiers simply for touching a female Arlo had taken some hardcore interest in.
“I swear he’s got a constant fucking hard-on because of it,” Dmitry said. “It's been a long time since I’ve seen him so excited about something.”
I moved forward then, coming up to Arlo from behind, the shadows slipping away from me.
I knew Arlo was well aware of my presence, but the fucker didn’t even tense as I approached and I felt my grin widen even more. “I don’t know whether to be offended or to up my game over the fact that you didn’t even flinch in my presence,” I said.
“Probably safe to assume both.”
Arlo’s words irritated me and I sneered at him as I came to stand beside my brother.
“Your father needs to find a hobby if my life is so consuming to him.” Arlo addressed Dmitry in reference to what had been said about our father.
Dmitry gave Arlo a sharklike grin.
Long moments of silence stretched out before Arlo broke it up by saying, “you need to get the fuck on with it and quit wasting my time.”
I noticed Arlo’s fingers twitching, and knew the sociopath wanted to go for his gun.
I didn’t want to have to kill Arlo, not when we needed him.
“I’d like to offer you a job.” Dmitry was the one to break up the silence.
“I already have a job with the Ruin,” Arlo said right away. “And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t take a job from someone who barely has hair on his balls.”
My pulse jack-knifed at the low blow comment Arlo directed toward my brother.
But my brother didn’t take the bait. He laughed, deep and low. “Man, Arlo, if you were anyone else, I would have already put a bullet between your eyes for your insults.”
Arlo curled his lip. “You could try.” We may have only been a decade or so younger than Arlo, and far from children as Arlo so crudely implied, but we’d seen some heinous shit… done terrible things that we were right up there in the sociopathic killer tier as Arlo.
“I’m going to give you a pass on the disrespect.” Dmitry held up a finger. “But just this once, Arlo.”
“Is that so?” Arlo took a step forward and I tensed even more, about to move closer. But Dmitry held his hand up, stopping me from coming closer.
“I think we’re getting off on the wrong foot here.” Dmitry tipped his head to the side as if trying to examine Arlo, trying to figure him out. “I think this is something you’ll like, Arlo, something that will satiate that evil, tar-stained, fucked-up soul of yours.”
I chuckled in response.
And then the air shifted, changed as it charged with something sickly and vicious. The atmosphere changed, wasn’t filled with the laughter of demented men with fake smiles and twisted minds. It was a sudden seriousness that was cloaking, a sturdy presence like a fourth body in the room.
“We want you to kill our father.” Dmitry said it so matter-of-factly that I was pleased to see Arlo was actually taken aback. “I know, before you say it or even think about it, that you're wondering if this is a setup.” He held his hands out, palms up. “This is my brother and me offering you an olive branch. We’re giving you a chance to take out the threat that is directed at your woman, no strings attached, no repercussions with the Bratva. No retaliation.”
Arlo eyed us both. He wouldn’t see shit. We knew how to keep our cool, how to act like shit was dark and deadly. He chuckled, but it held no humor. “You little shits think you can take down Leonid on your own?” He lifted an eyebrow as he eyed them both. “I’ll give you both credit; you have some balls of steel, conspiring to take down one of the strongest Pakhan in the Bratva.”
I stepped forward and spoke. “He’s become unorganized, his vengeance with the Cosa Nostra becoming volatile. He’s making too many mistakes and fucking things up. He’s going to end up bringing a lot of fire and death down on this organization and ruin a lot of connections we have in place.”
“I’m not sure how this is my problem,” Arlo said, his jaw tightening further.
Dmitry gave me a hard smile. “This is your problem, because my father has plans for your woman.”
I instantly saw Arlo’s entire body tighten. The woman Arlo had become obsessed with was clearly someone special. A weakness. And it’s what we’d use against him to get him to do exactly what we wanted.
Kill our father.