“Then, good. We don’t need to kill this guy. Keep him alive.”
Our conversation ended as two men walked up to me. They didn’t need uniforms. I could smell the politsiya all over them.
Plain clothes NYPD.
Fortunately, they were also my cops—on the New York payroll. They handed my brothers information, when necessary. They destroyed evidence and cases, when required.
Both men appeared uncomfortable. One kept checking over his shoulders as if hoping his fellow brothers in blue wouldn’t catch him working with the enemy. The other looked young, probably early twenties. He held his stomach with both hands like he’d just eaten bad uncooked meat and was close to doubling over.
I turned to Mr. Nervous. “What do you have for me?”
“A coroner friend owed me a favor and looked it over. Rumi died last night from blood loss. Mainly from all the stab wounds to his groin. There weren’t many fingerprints where they killed Rumi or security, but we grabbed something. The photos of the scene are with your men upstairs.” The nervous one checked over his shoulder again. “I might have a lead.”
Sasha inched forward. Mr. Nervous pulled out a small note pad and flipped it open.
“Rumi was a top customer with a high-end brothel in SoHo managed by a Penelope Fairchild. My understanding is that this one is affiliated with your. . .organization.”
Sasha nodded.
“Good,” I said. “We’ll go talk to this Penelope later.”
Mr. Nervous continued, “Rumi had a woman delivered every night at ten pm from the brothel. The madam, Penelope had a key to his place that she gave to the girls so they could just let themselves in, go to his bedroom, and pleasure him.”
He always was a lazy bastard.
The cop read on, “The girls were always eighteen or older, but Rumi liked them to look young. Tonight, he didn’t cancel. Penelope sent the girl in a limo. According to the limo driver, the girl went into the building and phoned that she was in the condo. Two hours passed. She never came out. The limo driver was the one that found the body. Rumi’s door was opened and the girl had disappeared.”
A dead washer and a missing hooker. New York is always full of surprises.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“As far as finding prints or the killer’s DNA, the clean-up job was professional. I doubt I’ll have something. The killer took the footage and somehow bypassed the building’s high-tech security. But the murder. . .I don’t think it’s. . .” Mr. Nervous lowered his voice. “I don’t think it’s mafia related. This looks emotional. The stabbing was done with rage. Jagged and very messy. What the person did to his. . .private area was brutal.”
The young one holding his stomach spoke up. “Sick. The intestines. . .and. . .smiley faces.”
He doubled over and vomited a little onto the sidewalk.
Sasha frowned.
We walked a few feet away.
Mr. Nervous shook his head. “Sorry. He’s new to shit like this.”
I kept my gaze on Mr. Nervous. “Smiley faces?”
“For some reason, the person drew smiley faces all over Rumi’s legs. I don’t know what it means. I’m doing a search to see if other victims were found this way. We’ve already got a psycho running around the city killing men in hotels. We’re calling him the Tinder Killer. What we don’t need is another serial killer in Manhattan.”
“Let me know anything else you find.” I walked off.
The young cop continued to retch behind us.
“Maybe you’re right about the full moon and its effect on people.” Sasha followed. “The tide was definitely working with that one.”
“Not everybody’s made for this.” I entered the building.
Our armed men led the way. Silence filled the elevator as it took us up.
I turned to Sasha. Fear radiated off him. It was subtle, but I’d known him all my life. He wore a neutral expression—the one I called the mask. It covered his face—gaze straight, the mouth barely formed into a line, no movement in his shoulders as usual.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He continued to stare at the door. “You’re being reckless.”
I smiled. “The world belongs to the bold.”
Sasha said nothing.
Chapter 1
Kazimir
The elevator doors slid open to Rumi’s stunning loft. It had floor-to-ceiling windows showing off endless water and sky views. I made out the Empire State building off in the distance. We turned right into a ballroom-sized formal living room with an adjacent casual office.
Paintings of naked angels decorated the walls, but these angels were young girls. Barely developed. Budding breasts and hairless vaginas. My stomach twisted as we moved on.
They said Rumi was a pervert. Was he the disgusting type?
The Bratva didn’t have many rules, but many frowned on homosexuality and pedophilia. And when the Bratva frowned, many died.
“I don’t think it’s mafia related,” the cop had said. “This looks emotional.”
I didn’t care about a man being gay, but I enjoyed killing molesters. If Rumi had been a pedophile, lucky for him. He’d hid it well. If I’d known, I would’ve done more than intestines and smiley faces.
On the left, there was an enormous kitchen near a formal dining room that could seat about twenty people.
In every country, I kept my washer in an upscale place. They had to play the part of the rich while cleaning my dirty money. Of course, I owned the property and kept it monitored by cameras and round-the-clock personal security.
Rumi’s security guy was an ex-NY cop.
We walked to the back, found the security room, and stepped inside.
The police had done a lousy job with clearing the area. Blood stains remained.
One of my men covered his nose from the stench and handed me a folder of photos. “This is what the guy did to the security person and Rumi.”
I opened the folder. “Interesting.”
In the photos, the cop floated in a pool of his own blood. A burnt-out cigarette rested between his cold, stiff lips.
I checked the images of Rumi.
He lay on the floor. There was a bloody smile cut into his face and tattered with pink ripped flesh at the corners of his neck. A cross was carved into his chest. His intestines were wrapped around his neck. The other end of the slimy length was still attached to the inside of his gut. His eyes had been frozen open in shock. There’d been more knife wounds on his chest. And as the cops had told us, tons of smiley faces were drawn in blood, all over his legs.
But what the person did to his groin. . .even I found it difficult to look at.
“These stabs aren’t precise. They’re crazy. All over the place. More jabs.” I pointed to one of the wounds, showing Sasha. “Look at that. With a sharp blade and with precision, it would’ve just been a line and scarring with blood leaking out. This one has the flesh yanked out. It’s almost like two people did it.”
Sasha rolled his eyes. “Probably a hook knife too. And what are you doing. . .investigating?”
I ignored the comment. “Where’s Rumi?”
My men took me down the hall. Hundreds of dildos and cracked wine bottles covered the floor as if someone had scattered them around. Shelves were slung on their sides. It looked like an orgy that had gone bad.