Page 48 of Bratva's Mercy
“Who’s distributing the drugs?”
“If I tell you, do I walk?”
“Yeah, man,” Dezi said, clearly frustrated with how long this was taking. He’d been ready to kill the second we entered the door.
“No,” I said quickly in refute as I turned the safety off. “But if you tell me, I can make it quick, so you don’t suffer unnecessarily.”
I’d already done Leo too many wrongs. If I let this scumbag walk after he killed one of Leo’s colleagues, there would be one too many things for him to forgive.
If he comes back.
“Then fuck you,” Blu spat. “It’s too late to stop it anyway. Many of us are loyal to Vasiliev, not Morozov.”
“Vasiliev is dead,” I said softly. “If men like you would rather play stupid games, then don’t mind me for choosing the reward you deserve. And make no mistake, Blu. With or without you, I’ll find every single one of them in this enterprise.”
Successive bullets left both kneecaps shattered and Blu openly weeping. I had to give him credit for still holding on to the information I wanted. He was determined to die with his secrets, so I let him in the most agonizing way. A gunshot wound in the gut that had blood pouring out of him in a stream.
“Stay with him and make sure he’s dead,” I said to Dezi. “You know what to do with the body.”
Unlike the nurse, whose body we’d sent back to her family in the most respectful way, it would be long, if ever, for Blu’s remains to be found.
Dezi nodded. “Can I at least have a little fun with him? I’m afraid I’ll be bored if he takes too long to die.”
“Be my guest.” It was none of my business that Dezi got off on torture.
I couldn’t get to the adjoining room fast enough to discard my clothes. Nik walked in as I stood by the sink washing my hands, wearing nothing but my boxers.
“Here.” He’d brought in my change of clothes and my boots from the car. He settled the boots on the floor by the sink and hung the clothes on the peg behind the door.
“Thanks.”
From the mirror, I watched him stare at the tattoo on my neck. “Interesting new ink.”
It wasn’t. I’d just tattooed over where Leo had left his teeth mark on my body the one time we’d been together. To stamp the memory permanently into my skin before it faded. Just in case he never marked me like that again. I knew it was pathetic, a rash moment of decision born out of panic, due to his disappearance. But I had no regrets.
“Hmm,” I grunted, and reached for the shirt on the rack.
“The doctor still not back yet?” Nik asked.
“No.”
“Still have no clue where he is?”
“No.”
I buttoned my shirt, then slipped on my slacks. On the outside, I was the picture of perfect calm. On the inside? Every word Nik said felt like someone was drilling into my bones.
“You have to give it to him, though,” Nik said. “Him being able to disappear without a trace. People usually leave clues behind unintentionally.”
“He’s not an ordinary man.” And that scared me most of all. Leo wasn’t like the criminals we dealt with daily. He wastoo smart for his own damn good, and men who tried to be smart often wound up dead.
“So, you really got the doc in the sack?”
I halted tucking my shirt in it. “Why’d you think that?”
I never mentioned what had happened between Leo and me to anyone. If I had secrets, Nik was the last person I would tell. Darius was discreet, but Jess was a blabbermouth. She kept nothing from her best friend—my boss’s husband—and the last thing I wanted was for Maxim to find out about my obsession with Leo.
“I admit, before now, I had no idea what went down between you and him,” Nik said. “But it all added up after seeing that tattoo. It made sense why he ran away.”
