Page 161 of Boardroom Ties
And then the door behind me explodes inward.
The bolt that Collins so smugly slid home a few minutes ago tears straight out of the frame in a snowfall of splintered wood and concrete. My ears are ringing with the sounds of my own screams.
Through the ringing, two shapes pour into the room.
The first one is tall. Black coat. Black hair. Pale, pissed-off face that I would recognize from the surface of the moon.
Matvei.
The second one is shorter, broader, older. Salt-and-pepper hair, leather gloves, with a still-lit cigarette dangling from his lip. There is a family resemblance in the set of the jaw and the slope of the brow that’s impossible to miss, even with my brain as preoccupied with things like imminent death by senatorially-administered poison.
DeMaris has just enough time to widen his eyes, and just enough time to open his mouth, and just enough time to start to say, “What the f?—”
And then Matvei is on him.
I’ve seen Matvei do violence twice in my life. Once in an alley behind Khaza, and once in a hotel hallway to this very same man, funny enough. Both times, it was efficient and surgical.Bored,almost.
This is not that.
This is something else entirely. This is a man who has been holding a very specific feeling on a very high shelf, in a very small box, for several weeks, and has just now decided to take the box down and rip it to fucking shreds while we all watch.
Matvei’s hand closes around DeMaris’s throat and lifts. The senator is a big man, but he’s basically a child in Matvei’s grasp. His Ferragamos scrabble for traction on the linoleum as Matvei slams him against the cinderblock wall.
The syringe goes flying. It clatters into a corner, intact and still full of whatever fast and oh-so merciful death DeMaris had picked out for me.
Afon strolls past the two of them, unhurried. He stops where the syringe has landed, crouches, and produces a phone from inside his coat to snap a quick picture.
“For the media,” he explains to me with a wink. “They always like to see the gory details.”
I’m too speechless to respond.
Besides, there’s a nasty assault about to take place right above me.
DeMaris’s face is going an interesting color. Matvei has him pinned at the throat with one hand. His other hand is curled into a fist down by his side.
“Senator,” Matvei snarls. “I think you’ve wandered a bit far out of your jurisdiction.”
DeMaris emits a terrified gargle in response.
“I was going to kill you if I found you doing something like this,” Mat continues. “You didn’t disappoint in that regard. But I’m not going to kill you. Do you want to know why?” He leans in close and snarls, “Because killing you is thekindestthing that could happen to you now. And I am not a kind man.”
I’m not breathing much more than the senator is. Matvei hasn’t looked at me yet, but I’m unable to look at anything thatisn’thim. He’s more beautiful than ever. A dark angel of wrath. Those eyes are hot, hot, hot with rage.
“In just a few minutes” he says, “an investigative reporter at ProPublica is going to receive an email containing, among other lovely attachments, a complete copy of the ledger Bill Oglethorpe kept on you. I’ve seen it myself; it is quite damning. Around the same time, that packet will also be arriving at inbox at a dozen or more different newspapers and media outlets around the country. By tomorrow morning, my friend, you will be the most famous senator in America.”
DeMaris’s eyes do a frantic little jitter.
“And then,” Matvei goes on, in that same soft, dreadful voice, “my uncle here is going to circulate some information to a smaller, much moreprivateaudience.”
The smile on his face is one of the most haunting things I’ve ever seen, and it makes me love him that much more. He’s what I wanted to be so badly for the last five years: a man capable of committing horrible sins for all the right reasons.
My shadow.
My savior.
“Your people are not going to be happy when they see just what a mess you’ve created. I imagine they’ll reach a very quick decision on what to do with you.”
Matvei is so close now that his nose almost touches DeMaris’s.
