Page 90 of Scarlet Secrets
My father would have done business with him. Did. I stopped that long before his brother crossed lines. I have levels of lowlife types I do business with. I don’t like Niko’s level. Too much slime.
It’s easy enough to get someone in the game through Sergio, and Niko leaves the sex club on time and heads to Toto’s.
We arrive.
The beauty is it’s early enough Toto’s won’t be busy. With my men as backup, I grip my gun and look at Ilya.
I mime to him a countdown, and at one, we burst in.
A girl screams and people dive for cover.
There’s a beat, and someone raises a gun as the bartender disappears beneath the bar. I shoot, hitting the fucker with the gun.
It’s not Niko. The asshole falls, dead. No, not Niko, but one of his men, and soon bullets fly as Niko’s men rise andswarm in. Someone, somewhere, tipped the fucker off or he was expecting different trouble.
The gun battle is short and bloody, and when the last men standing on Niko’s payroll put their weapons down, I don’t think. I beat one to a pulp. Then another.
Finally, I pick out the leader; he’s the one dusting off his fucking jacket because the prick hid. I grab him, haul him over a table, sending a remaining bottle smashing to the ground, and throw him against the wall.
The fucker dares to look at me. So I beat the living shit out of him.
For Alina.
For Max.
“Where the fuck is Niko?”
The man spits blood. “Gone. Changed his mind about his plans tonight, fucker.”
I raise a boot and kick him in the head.
“Demyan.”
“What, Ilya?” I answer in Russian.
“Don’t kill him.”
“You have a good reason?”
“Let him take back a message to Niko,” he says.
I switch to English. “My comrade here says to let you live. So, pass this on to Niko. Tell him no matter how long it takes, he’ll pay for Max’s death.”
Then I shoot the fucker in both legs before turning and walking off.
Chapter Twenty-Two
ERIN
Three weeks ago,my life changed for the second time in a dramatic way. Not like getting pregnant, but Max’s death, my… not kidnapping, but something close to it by Demyan is something that ranks in cataclysmic.
So is being locked up away from my son.
And seeing him be a father who desperately loves his son, perhaps to a depth he doesn’t even realize.
Then there’s the sex.
Just that once.
