Pay Dearly

by M. S. Brannon

  I felt the remorse when I killed Anna, but I knew it had to be done, just as according to the Vory V Zakone code, what happened to Smith needed to be done. However, that doesn’t mean it should have gone down the way it did. What’s done is done, though.

  I thought the manic state I was in while incarcerated in prison was bad, but it’s a baby compared to how I feel now. All that is flowing through me is pure, concentrated iniquity, a monster that’s drenched in blood, teeth gnashing, waiting in the shadows to devour the men I once called my brothers. There will be no going back for me. I have fallen over that edge.

  The rage has been living in a state of unrelenting evil since yesterday morning. I felt the hate building the longer I stayed at the Smith crime scene, and now I am officially morphed and ready to unleash what’s always resided inside of me.

  I needed to take a day before I had my way with Boris and his friend. One thing I need to have control over is my patience. I can’t afford to be rash. I can’t allow the uncontrollable monster to wreak havoc on anyone and everyone. I have devised a well-thought-out plan, and I don’t want to see it destroyed at the hands of my monstrous state. Therefore, I took the day to get myself together.

  I wandered around the building where Victor resided. The aura around this place is very chilling, but I welcome it. I went beyond the small, stainless steel room which Victor used as his workshop for his victims and beyond the small, brick bedroom. I walked to the other side of the building, locating leather straps, chains, and various sharp objects to use during my interrogation.

  “Mmmmmm!” Boris’s pleas break through my thoughts as the music lulls from one piece to the next.

  I smile at the sound of his distress. I’ve known Boris for a very long time, and after the first job I went on with him, I hated every part of him. He is a monster in his own right, though very different from me. He loves to belittle and break women. That is what he is used for mostly.

  When the organization got into the sex slave trade, I wanted nothing to do with it, but Boris was more than eager to take on that role. His main duty was to prep women for sale. He is a rapist and child molester. He is the lowest of the low, and if he were in prison, he would be dead or raped repeatedly himself.

  His muffled words sound over the gag in his mouth, and when I turn around, I see saliva dripping from the corner of his lips and over the side of his chin.

  I take my case of knives and set them on the wheeled cart I found on the other side of the building. Then I put on a pair of latex gloves I keep in my briefcase for occasions like this, and I unroll the black, vinyl case and expose the different instruments I will use for my interrogation.

  I walk over to the unknown man who is barely hanging onto life. If I were human, I would have killed him back at the hotel. He needed to be put out of his misery a long time ago. But I am not human. I’m a monster, a killing machine that was created by Stravinsky, a machine that has malfunctioned and will be his demise.

  I pull a pair of medical scissors from the case and start working on the unknown man. I run the scissors from the end of his pants and cut the fabric away from his leg. He is trying to move, but the pain in his body is too great and makes it impossible. He is also very sweaty and hot. A fever has set in, and an infection is probably starting to take over. The guy is basically dead, but not just yet. I need to use him to get Boris in the mindset to confess.

  I repeat the action on the other leg of his pants until I get to the waist where I cut them off his body completely. His bloody wound is exposed to me now, shot just above his dick. That looks very painful. How the man hasn’t bled out is beyond me.

  I cut the shirt off his body, as well, needing to see his skin. The man, like many of us, has the infamous stars tattooed on his chest. They look fairly new, and like me, he has a spider crawling up his neck. The manacles on his wrists show me he’s done time, more than five years, and the cross on his chest proves his devotion to the Vory V Zakone.

  I pull the small carving knife from my case and push my hand on the tip. It is very sharp and will do just fine for what I have in store.

  The tables are set up in an L shape with Boris’s feet at the head of the other man. I want to make sure Boris can see what I am doing.

  I pull out a wad of old, dirty towels and unfasten his head. I place the towels under his head, elevating it just enough so he can see what’s in store for him.

  “I don’t recognize you,” I say as I walk down the unknown man’s body, digging the tip of my small carving knife onto his kneecap. “Are you new to the organization? Although I’ve been absent for many years, I have my ways of knowing the men Stravinsky sends on jobs. But you … You are not familiar to me.” I look over to Boris who is bug-eyed, wondering what I am going to do next. I merely smile maliciously at him and turn back to the unknown man.

  I place the scalpel on the stars etched into his knees and dig. Warm, red blood oozes from his skin. It trickles like a small river, running down the side and dripping onto the table as I trace the outline of the star. The color of blood is all I see when I move the blade of the knife up and down with small, precise movements. My latex-covered hand holds the loose skin in place as I finish my cut-out of his tattoo.

  I look down and notice the smell of bodily fluids then observe the man’s chest. He’s dead. He was too far gone when I shot him. Then again, I don’t want anything from him except an example for Boris’s future.

  I pull the first cut-out of skin off his body and hold it up. I turn my waist and hold the bloody star up so he can see it. Then I flip it over in my hand and slap my palm to the wall, sticking the flesh to it. I grab the carpenter stapler and fasten the star to the wall. The heavy duty staples have no problem penetrating the makeshift stainless steel wall.

  Then I turn to Boris and say, “Are you ready for this, my friend?”

  He ignores me, so I continue.

  I finish the other leg, cutting the star from his other knee and stapling the flesh on the wall. Then I move to his chest, repeating the same process. After hanging the two stars with the others, I turn back to Boris.

  He continues to say nothing, and I only smile. Stubborn fucker, isn’t he?

  I keep the stapler in my hand and pull the man’s eyelids up. His fascinating, dead eyes look upward, and they are almost black. They are blank and lifeless, similar to a doll’s eyes.

  I put the end of the stapler on his skull and look over to Boris as I push the trigger, stapling his lid to his brow.

  “I’m not doing this to simply mutilate his body, Boris. You do understand this is a preview for what is going to happen to you if you don’t start talking. The only difference is, you’ll be able to feel every minute of it.” I pull the other eyelid up and staple it.

  When Boris looks up at the ceiling, I regain his attention by putting the tip of the knife in the unknown man’s eye socket. The blood pours from the wound as I extract his eyeball and pop it out.

  I hold it over his face by the fleshy meat that holds it inside your body and dangle it in his sights. Then I staple it with the star shaped flesh. I repeat the process with the other eye and hang it up. My white gloves are now red, covered in his friend’s blood, as I smile down at Boris.

  “He’s watching over you now.”

  I get the scissors from the other table and cut off his clothing. His body is disgusting. He is fat and hairy. I am physically repulsed by looking at him. He is wearing his black bikini underwear, which makes him look even more appalling. Like his friend, he has the Vory V Zakone stars on his chest and knees, as well as the spider and cross. However, Boris has another tattoo that I don’t and would never have—a mermaid. The very sight of it sends me into a boiling rage.

  I want to jab my eight-inch bowie knife into the mermaid and watch him die a slow, agonizing death. I want to twist and grind the serrated blade and saw him open from the inside. But I can’t. I need information, and Boris is my only source as of right now. I need to regain my composure to get the
necessary details to keep my plan moving forward.

  I pull a different, small knife from my case. This one has a notched blade. It doesn’t provide as clean of a cut, but it does well for sawing. In my opinion, I think it hurts a little bit more. I move it over to his knee and push the tip in. He seethes through his teeth, and mumbles something around his gag.

  I relent on the pressure, pull the duct tape off his mouth, and take the rag out of it. He begins gasping and swallowing all the saliva that’s been choking him. Then he spits out, “Fuck you, Petrov!”

  I only smile in response, my eyes still sadistically twinkling at his distress as I push the tip back into his meaty flesh. “No, fuck you, Boris.”

  I begin working on removing the star as I trace the lines of his tattoo with my blade. Boris is screaming in pain. His head is bucking up and down, making it hard to get a perfect cut, but that’s inconsequential at this point. I am getting what I need from him—frustration and agony.

  I yank the piece of skin up and flap it around like a dirty dish cloth. I want him to see pieces of his body slowly and painfully detaching. I slap it up on the wall and fasten it with the stapler, joining it with the others, in plain view for Boris to look at.

  I repeat the process with the other knee, sawing away his skin and hanging it to the wall. Then I turn and move to his chest. Boris is seething with hate, and I’m sure, if he could, he would shoot me dead right now. That won’t be happening, however. He’s going nowhere. He will be leaving here dead, not me.

  “So, are you ready to tell me why you’re in Blythe Harbor?” I push the knife into his chest, just enough to bleed, but not enough to kill him. “Are you ready to tell me why Stravinsky wants me dead?”

  “Fuck you! You’re a dead man, Petrov.” He laughs in disgust, thinking his words will rattle me.

  I only laugh back. I know I’m a dead man. I’ve been living with that fate since I was a child. I’m the one who’s most surprised that I am still alive.

  “Very well, Boris.” I push the knife in deeper as I look fiercely at him. I hold my stone cold glare on his, murdering him with my eyes. He has to know that I will never relent. If he dies, then he dies, but I will get something from him before that happens. I’ve got all fucking night.

  I start to cut pieces of his chest out. The small stars are hard to work around, and the fact that he is wiggling around so much doesn’t help. He is bucking his head up, trying to take a chunk out of my arm. I yank the towels out from under his head, allowing it to slam down on the table with a hard thud, and then strap it back in place. There. That’s much better.

  I work over his skin, removing both stars efficiently and stapling them to the wall.

  I turn to Boris and say, “You know what happens next, old man.” I lean down and get his eye lid in-between my fingers.

  “You’re a sick fuck!”

  I make sure I look only in his eyes when I release the trigger and fasten his eyelid to his brow.

  “Ahhhhhhh!” he screams more than I’ve ever heard a man scream before.

  He will be talking soon. I can tell by the sound of his suffering. It won’t be long now.

  I pull the scalpel out of the case and decide I will work on his eyeball before I staple the other lid.

  Once I slowly lean over and put the blade very close to his eye, Boris freezes. He stops screaming and lies motionless, knowing if he bucks his head, the tip of the knife will go straight into his eye. He is panting as he tries to control his rapid breathing.

  “Okay, okay,” he finally relents. “Stravinsky wants you dead because you’re a fucking traitor, Nikolai!”

  I cock my head to the side and look incredulously at him. “A traitor? That’s his motive for trying to kill me? Really? If I am anything to Stravinsky and the organization, it’s loyal. Loyal!” I bend down and scream in his face. I hold the knife over his head, moments away from slitting his throat. “I have never once disobeyed Stravinsky or deterred from the direction of our organization. I only assisted us. He told me to kill, and I did it. He told me to go to fucking prison and kill, and I did it! I devoted twenty years of my life to that man. I held him higher than any person in my life, and he is calling me a traitor? He’s the fucking traitor!”

  I am seething on the inside. The rage I’ve been trying to keep under control is bursting at the surface, mere moments from exploding from my body. I can’t believe what I am hearing. There is no way I would disobey his orders. He was like a father to me. I was only loyal to him and the Vory V Zakone. I sacrificed and gave up the opportunity to be anything else.

  “Does Ryan Smith ring a bell, Petrov?”

  I stop any other thought and solely focus on what he just asked. He knows about Smith? How … How did that happen?

  “Your little whore you kept hidden away, you know the one with the birthmark? She was very willing to tell us about him.”

  I take a step back and lean away from him. Anna talked? How did Stravinsky know about her? No wonder she was so anxious when I showed up at her door. She was afraid they would kill her, but little did she know who the real threat was. Regardless, I only killed her because I wasn’t going to have that prying bitch talking when, as it turns out, she already did.

  “Ademar was on to you, Nikolai. He knew you were sneaking off to that bitch’s house, and he started following you. When he sent you to prison, we got the information we needed. It was shocking, and it took a lot of research to find what we were looking for, but we did. However,” Boris finishes, “it did take a bit of convincing on my part to get her to talk.”

  I ball up my fist and plow it into his face. I know what his convincing consists of, and I know she was kept alive to alert me to whatever they have going on. So much rage is boiling that I need to kill this asshole before he says another word.

  I pull my bowie knife from the sheath around my ankle and hold it over his chest. Boris only smiles. He knows he’s getting the best of me. He knows how I really feel about him.

  “Awwww!” My growl of fury echoes in the small room as I turn around and thrust my knife into the chest of his friend. “This will be your fate, motherfucker.” I twist the knife. If he were alive, he would be drowning in his own blood, dying a slow and painful death. Blood is starting to pool under his body, draining out of his back like a slow trickle of water coming from a faucet. I turn back to Boris and ask, “You did it, didn’t you?”

  He smiles. “Well, we thought we were closing the chapter on the infamous Nikolai Petrov, but it turns out, you were evading us all along. Clever I will say, but not clever enough.”

  I can’t hear another word. I allow the concentrated evil to fully consume me as I jab the scalpel into his eye. Boris screams, and it’s music to my ears.

  I haphazardly pluck his eyeball from the socket while he wails out in agony. Then I repeat the process with the other eye. I want him alive to feel this pain, just as they were alive when they dealt his.

  I pull my bowie knife out of his friend and run it along the steel table where it screeches, sending chills down my body. I can only imagine what it’s doing to him. Then I begin to sharpen it. The sound alone makes him wail out like the babies he has murdered.

  Finally, I lift my hand and plunge the blade into his chest. The wound is deep, going all the way through his body. Boris begins to choke on his blood. It’s filling his lungs, suffocating him from the inside.

  Before he dies, I lean over and whisper in his ear, “See you in hell, old man.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Josslyn

  August 7, 2015 11:15 p.m.

  Who am I looking at? This can’t be. It cannot be Ryan Smith looking back at me. He’s dead. His face was blown off by a fucking shotgun. There is no way this is happening. I’ve got to be going crazy, or my memory has lapsed from the blow to the head.

  Ryan Smith is dead. I watched his body get rolled out of the house on a stretcher with those of his family. He. Is. Dead.

  My mouth is agape as I study his f
ace—his chiseled jawline; his dark brown, almost black, well-kept hair; but most of all, the piercing blue eyes. I knew when I looked at the photograph in the Smith’s living room that those eyes would haunt me. Of course, I never thought they were going to be alive, staring me in the face as they watch me die. I never thought those eyes would be the last thing I ever saw.

  He stalks his way over to me, moving with the stealth of a panther—predatory and captivating. Just by his simple movements, I can tell he is skilled in combat, agile and deadly. He could destroy me with a single, accelerated move.

  Then he makes his way to where I have my knees tucked up to my chest as much as possible. When he leans down and grabs my shoulders, the smell of his sweat and cologne invades my nostrils. I am attracted to the scent, and the single thought is disturbing.

  He pulls me up into a seated position and rests my back against the wall. His face is so very close to mine, within inches, and I want to scream. I want to run away and hide. I want break free from his grasp and unload my terror on his dangerously beautiful face. However, all I can do is remain captive by his gaze.

  He flashes me a wicked, chilling smile then winks with his left eye. Still, I sit here and do nothing. I don’t move, and I don’t blink. I just stare at him. I’m in awe of him, but why?

  I didn’t even realize he stood up to get the water bottle until he holds it to my lips. The cool liquid feels refreshing as it soothes my dry throat. He lifts the bottle again, and I swallow it down. It’s only two small drinks, but I am grateful for them. I was in need of them. I don’t know what his ploy is or when he will get to the point of killing me, but my gut is telling me that is not in the near future. Why would he bother giving me a drink of water if he’s going to kill me soon? Why bother with any of it? He’s a sick individual. I’m sure this is all a game to him.

  The man gets up and walks over to the cot in the corner. He still hasn’t gotten dressed and seems to be mulling something over in his mind. In fact, so am I. I want to know who he is. Or an even better question to ask was who the man at Smith’s crime scene? Because I am looking at the man I saw in the photograph.