“My bad, I skipped the introductions. I’m Eduard Yezhov.”
His eyes moved like he was trying to understand something while the other guy, facing away from us, shouted, “The Russian Yezhov brothers! Oh, my God. We didn’t know! I swear, we didn’t know!”
“Hmm, it doesn’t really matter if you know or not. The people who sent you know exactly who I am.”
I straightened, taking a few steps to the side where I could see both of them.
“I have just a few questions for you. Now, I’m not going to give you the promise of freedom for answering my questions. The only thing I can assure you of is that refusing to answer a question or not answering adequately will bring you punishment.”
Folding my arms, I asked, “For how long have you been here?”
“Here? You mean…this warehouse?” the second guy asked.
“One more stupid question and you’ll be covered in blood. Both of you.”
“We started monitoring your shipment from the port last week,” the first guy rushed.
I nodded before asking, “What was the plan?”
Then, after a moment of silence, I called, “Guys. Stand by each of them with your knives. I’ll count to three before you remove one eye each.”
“We’re talking…we’re talking,” the second guy answered.
“One….”
“We were going to find a way to follow your men to your warehouse…” he stuttered.
“Two….”
“The plan was to see the type of machinery you sell and find out who your highest-paying clients are,” the first guy divulged.
“For what purpose?”
“We were going to sell the info to the person who sent us.”
“And who is this person?” I pressed.
“He’s an independent supplier. We didn’t exchange names, but he has an alias.Mandy,” the first guy revealed.
“Right. I guess it makes sense for an arms supplier to want to get ahead of the Bratva, even though it’ll never be more than a wasted effort. Now, the question is, why did he send you? Who are you both?”
“I’m just an intermediary for covert exchanges. Leonardo asked me to join forces with him because of my knowledge of the secret passage,” the first guy answered.
“Do you need me to nudge you, Leonardo?”
“I…I’m a soldier under…the Italian Mafia,” he revealed.
“Ah, interesting,” I commented, my lips curving in a small grin. “I don’t suppose Matteo and his underboss gave their approval for thismissionof yours.”
I turned to my men again.
“How far did they get? Where did you catch them?”
“They managed to escape the cameras until they got to the first store. They had taken one of the guards down and were struggling with the other one when we heard their noise. We captured them immediately and brought them here,” the one standing over Leonardo explained.
“They killed a soldier…” I thought out loud.
“Yes, Boss.”
