Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Halfway up, I paused on the staircase, hand resting on the rail, and just listened. I couldn’t stop the memories of my mother and that godforsaken night playing through my mind. The man soundly sleeping just feet from me had paid to watch someone being killed. And Andrey had facilitated.
Everything had narrowed then. I felt no rage, not even grief. All I felt was clarity.
I didn’t believe in fate or destiny. I believed in revenge and vengeance, and tonight, I was getting the latter tenfold.
I followed the sound of snoring down a hallway lined with closed doors. At the end there was a set of double doors, slightly ajar, muted light from the television spilling onto the carpet. I pushed the door inward, and it cracked. I stood there a moment and just stared at the body on the bed.
I knew everything about him.
His shell companies, offshore accounts, and the men he paid to make problems disappear. I knew which charities he used to launder his money and which politicians owed him favors they’d never admit to in daylight.
Eighty-three years old on paper, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. Money had sanded down the years. Private doctors and experimental treatments created a life cushioned from consequences. His skin was smooth for his age, his hair only just starting to silver. And right now, he looked like a man who’d never missed a night’s sleep after watching women die.
He thought he was untouchable. I was going to rectify that tonight.
On the wall opposite the bed, a massive television looped news headlines. Markets are up, cities burning, and names scrolling past without meaning. He liked watching the world he helped poison keep turning.
I cataloged what mattered right here and now. Gun on the nightstand, cell phone beside that, half-empty glass of water, and a framed photo of him shaking hands with a politician all lumped together.
Evil loved proof.
I crossed the room in three silent steps and silently took the gun first, sliding it into my waistband. For a solid minute I just watched him sleep and counted his respirations. Enough with delaying the inevitable.
I grabbed his shirt and yanked him halfway off the bed.
He woke with a strangled sound, and I slapped his face, causing him to gasp and grow silent. I leaned down and snarled, “Quiet,” against his ear. “If you scream, I’ll make your death as slow as possible.” I was going to do that anyway, but compliance would make this easier on my part.
His eyes went wide, and sweat broke out instantly. “Get up.” He started murmuring incoherently, but didn’t move. I grabbed a chunk of his hair and forced his head back. “I said get up.”
He finally staggered to his feet, breath reeking of alcohol. I stared at him, seeing nothing but the man who paid to have my mother murdered. It was hard to see this old man as the person who paid to see my mother killed for his sick pleasure, but I knew it was him. I snarled, “Ty ne muzhchina. Ty gnil’ s den’gami.” You’re not a man. You’re rot with money.
I pressed his own gun to his temple and leaned in close enough for him to feel my rage. “Move,” I said. I guided him down the stairs, keeping my body between his and the open spaces of the house, controlling his pace, his balance, his fear.
Once outside, the night cut sharp and clean. The snow and ice covering the ground glimmered dark like a perfect mirror. For a moment, I considered pulling the pool cover back and drowning him right there. Holding his head under until the panic burned out and the body went slack.
But that was too easy.
I took him across the lawn instead, keeping one hand locked at the base of his skull and the other tight on his arm. I controlled his balance, dictated every step, and let his fear do most of the work for me.
At the side wall, I didn’t rush it. I pressed him chest-first to the stone and leaned in, using my weight until he understood he wasn’t climbing anything on his own.
“Slow,” I whispered.
I guided him over the low section where the wall dipped, lowering him down rather than throwing him. His feet slipped on the other side, and he went down hard on his knees, breath tearing out of him in a sharp gasp. He started shaking from the cold and fear.
I followed immediately, already hauling him upright by the arm when he tried to turn. He didn’t get far. I shoved him toward the car waiting in the shadows, forced him into the back seat, secured his wrists and legs with zip ties, and pulled a hood over his head.
I drove until the pavement thinned, and the city lights gave way to darkness. Asphalt cracked into dirt, glass towers became rusted bones, and the slaughterhouse loomed ahead, half-collapsed and rotting. Fitting graveyard for this fucker.