Cold Winds of Fate
Fayroll
Book Three
Andrey Vasilyev
Copyright © 2017 Litworld Ltd. (http://litworld.info)
All rights reserved.
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Contents:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
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Chapter One
In which accounts are settled.
“Well, what can you do, babe?” I gave Vika a quick peck on the cheek. “It’s always the good, smart ones that die young; lazy idiots live forever. That’s just the way life is.”
“I don’t want you to die.” Vika’s lip quivered. “You and I are good together.”
“You think I have any say in it?” I responded sadly. “Some old guy with a scythe will walk up one day, knock on the door, ask for me, and that’ll be it. But I appreciate the compliment.”
“Moron.” Vika pulled her chin off my shoulder. “You'll jinx yourself talking like that. Are you going to write the obituary?”
“What, you want it?” I asked with surprise.
“Not in the least. I’m afraid of things like that…” Vika shivered. “You go ahead and write it, okay?”
“Sounds good,” I answered amiably. “I just have to go somewhere first.”
“Where?” Vika frowned and put her hands on her hips teasingly. “Where are you running off to, hmm?”
“Hey now, it’s all for you. Look out the window—do you see the car near the entrance?” I pointed at the Impala.
“Yeah, nice. Retro.”
“‘Retro’!” I laughed. “Ah, you kids all grew up on your little Jeeps. That’s a Chevy Impala, a four-wheeled legend. And as of right now, it’s our trusty steed that will take us to and from work. Well, and anywhere else we want to go.”
“A-a-ah,” Vika squeaked. “You bought a car!”
“What do you mean, ‘bought’?” I said, momentarily taken aback. “It was a gift. For a job well done!”
“From them?” Vika jabbed her index finger upward.
I nodded.
“Nice. How much did it cost?”
“A boatload of zeros,” I said for lack of a better reply. “Handmade, one of a kind. I can’t imagine how much it cost.”
“What did you do for them?” asked Vika, her eyes wide. “Kill someone?”
“You bet,” I answered ironically. “A whole crowd of someones.”
“Boss,” said Yushkov, unceremoniously barging into our conversation. The guys no longer had any problem with how close Vika and I were—they understood our relationship and had made their peace with the fact that Vika was irrevocably my assistant. “What should we do with the lead article? The obituary is going to take up page one now, right?”
“Let’s save it for the next issue. They’re going to be sending us pictures, so pick one where the dead guy is smiling. All right, I have to go. I’ll be back in a couple hours.” I threw my coat over my shoulders and started down the stairs.
The man in the car turned out to know just about everything. He gave me an express tour through all the different stops we had to make, from the traffic police to the insurance company, occasionally asking me questions.
“Do you want a special license plate number? Or just whatever? Which insurance company do you want? Do you have a preference?”
I languidly responded that I didn’t care about the number. Sure, it would be nice to have the kind of license plate that tells people not to play games with the driver, but those are expensive, no? I wasn’t sure if that was included in the deal. Insurance didn’t really matter to me either, given that there wasn’t an insurance company out there who would compensate for the full value of the car if something happened to it.
Once everything was set, we turned around and headed back toward the office. The guy next to me was quiet and left me to my thoughts.
Needless to say, they swirled around the news I’d gotten that day about poor Stavros. Okay, maybe not “poor” Stavros. He was a rat, God rest his soul, and he got his just—if harsh—deserts. I figured it highly unlikely that the company paid him so little that he had to sell secrets on the side. If I—nobody that I was—made the kind of money they were paying me, then someone important like him must have been on par with the annual budget of your average African country. Or maybe even the budget of a former Soviet Union country like Moldova.
It may not do me much credit, but I didn’t feel the least pangs of conscience about the part I played in writing his death sentence. I wasn’t even the reason for his demise; I was more a minor catalyst. That is not to say that I’m some kind of soulless monster who couldn’t care less about human life. It’s just that my profession had taught me the value of moderating my responses, not to mention the fact that we all pay for what we do in this life. Stavros had paid in full.
The car I’d been given was there to put me in my place. Do a good job and keep your nose clean, Nikiforov, and you can have it all—money, your job, and a new car. Have your eye on a pretty girl? No problem; make her your assistant. I figured they’d give me a chalet somewhere in the Alps if that’s what I wanted.
On the other hand, it was perfectly clear that if I tried to play games with them, I’d get a heart attack of my own, if not a much simpler solution. I wasn’t the same kind of person, and so a bullet to the head or a rope around my neck would probably work. The possibilities are endless.
There wasn’t much of a choice. Being fed and healthy is always better than being poor and hungry, especially since they weren’t asking me to do anything illegal. They just wanted honest work from me, so I made up my mind to give them exactly that.
By the time we got back to the office, I’d almost completely convinced myself that everything was okay and going according to plan.
I walked in to find one more surprise: a woman from Raidion who’d been waiting patiently for almost an hour. It turned out that it was payday, and she was there with our money. The feel of the fat envelope she handed me was enough to push me over the edge; my decision was the right one.
“Why are they giving us our salary in envelopes? Why can’t they just transfer it to our cards?” mused Samoshnikov in surprise.
I was about to open my mouth when Vika stepped in.
“Samoshnikov, you’re crazy. Where do we officially work?”
“At the Capital Herald,” answered Samoshnikov.
“Exactly,” said Vika. “And we’re paid here, where we sign for the money we get. So, how is Raidion going to send us money? I mean, sure, if you’re not happy about getting a wad of money i
n an envelope, you’re welcome to call them up—”
“And we’ll have a second obituary on our hands,” said Yushkov, finishing her sentence.
“Can you hear yourself?” I jumped in, happy that the woman who’d brought us our money had left before she could hear the idiot in front of me. “Words have consequences, and sometimes serious ones.”
“Oh, come on!” Yushkov blanched. “I was just kidding.”
“Next time, think about who and what you’re kidding about,” said Vika pointedly, with a glance in my direction.
“Exactly,” I said. “Use your brain every once in a while—and that goes for all of you. Okay, get back to work.”
I quickly threw together the obituary using the text I’d been sent and all the usual clichés, checked my team’s work, saw that they were slowly starting to round into form, and left for home in my new car.
What is there to say about the Chevy Impala? It’s a Chevy Impala. I was just afraid that some daring car thieves might think the same; their kind didn’t care about fancy alarms, special license plate numbers, or the law. With that in mind, I dropped Vika off at my building before driving to a new parking building and paying for the 101 spot. It may not have been the cheapest option, but it was good enough.
Autumn was in full swing, though the street lights hadn’t yet been adjusted, and so it was dark near the entrance to my building by the time I got there. That may have been why I didn’t see the three young men standing by the entrance until I walked up to them.
“Are you Nikiforov?” asked one of them.
“Yes, and…?” I answered, receiving a shot to the solar plexus in reply. There was barely enough time for me to gasp for air before I saw stars. As I doubled over in pain, one of them smashed his knee into my face.
From there it was simple; they worked me over with all the due diligence and effort they could muster. They started by kicking my legs, two of them picking me up while the third, who had asked who I was, reared back and put his weight behind a shot to my crotch. Thank God, he wasn’t exactly on target. I’ll have to have Mom light a candle for that. Any farther to the left, and she wouldn’t have seen any grandchildren. After that ordeal, the barrage of punches to the face they wrapped up with felt like a light tickling. Two last kicks to the kidneys, and they were done.
“That’s for my sister, bastard. I told her to stay away from Russians, but she didn’t listen.”
“Hey, Raville, look what fell out of his pocket!”
I was interested to hear what had fallen out as well, but I was in no hurry to open my eyes. One of them had a ring on his finger that had left a gash on my forehead. The blood dripping down my face left me effectively blind.
“Money, Raville,” chattered one of the attackers in excitement. “Seriously, money—and a lot of it.”
“Take it. We’ll call it compensation for my sister,” announced Raville imposingly. He had apparently leaned over me, as I heard his voice right next to my ear. “And you remember, this is just the beginning.”
“Hold on,” said the third member of their posse. “Beating people up is one thing, but robbing them is another. That’ll definitely have the cops after us. Do we really want that?”
“Oh, come on. He won’t tell anyone,” said Raville soothingly, bending over once again and pulling my head up by the hair. “You won’t, will you? You get it, right?”
I decided to keep my mouth shut.
“What did I tell you? He’s a smart little coward. What did my sister see in you?”
He let my suffering head down, leaving me lying on the asphalt once more.
“We’ll be back once this is spent,” Raville said with a laugh. “Let’s go, guys.”
His sister’s honor avenged, he ran off with his friends, laughing and cackling about a job well done.
I lay there a little while before trying to get up. It took some time, but I was finally on my feet. I worked my way to the elevator, blood dripping and legs buzzing as I went, and pressed the button for my floor.
Vika surprised me once again. Her first reaction at seeing my bruised and bloodied face wasn’t to pace around the apartment, screaming about how we needed to call the police or ask what happened. Instead, she quickly gave me a shoulder to hold onto and walked me over to the bathroom. She turned on the cold water and dipped my suffering head under it.
“Wash off, but be careful, and don’t rub anything too hard with your hands or you’ll get an infection. Where’s your first aid kit?”
“There was an old one from my car in the pantry, but I don’t usually keep much at home,” I mumbled.
My mouth was nearly swollen shut, making it difficult and painful to talk.
Vika made a noise, similar to how Marge Simpson sounds when she’s frustrated, and walked out of the bathroom. By the time she got back, I’d washed myself off and apparently stopped looking like the end was near.
“This is going to hurt,” Vika warned me. “I found some hydrogen peroxide, so you’re going to have to get through this. Sit on the stool there, so it’s easier for me.”
I did my best, though I spent most of the time squealing as the liquid seared its way through my many scrapes and cuts.
“They really did a number on you,” Vika noted when she was finished. “Did you at least see who it was? We need to call the cops.”
“No cops,” I responded. “I know exactly who it was, which is why we won’t be calling anybody.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Vika. “You know who beat you to within an inch of your life, and you’re not going to do anything?”
“They took my money, too,” I said, filling her in on the details.
“So, they robbed you, too. What are you, a little Jesus going around forgiving everyone? Why don’t you just hand over your apartment the next time they drop by?” The undisguised anger in Vika’s voice mixed with sarcasm.
“Calm down,” I said with a grimace. “I told you—no police. But I didn’t say we weren’t going to do anything. Give me a couple days, and we’ll see who comes out on top.”
I tried to get up, my failed attempt accompanied by a gasp of pain. My muscles spasmed, and I felt my kidneys begin to ache.
“Damn, they just had to go for the kidneys.” I grabbed my low back. “They’re screwed up as it is…”
“What do you mean?” Vika crouched down in front of me.
“It’s normal after the Army,” I said. “The water was awful there, and it screws up your kidneys when you don’t always have the chance to boil it. Those bastards out there gave me a nice one-two right there as a parting gift.”
“Unbelievable,” Vika said, her eyes narrowing. “So who was it?”
“El’s brother and his friends, which is why I’m not going to call the police. If they throw him in jail, all I’ll get is a bullet to the head. Elvira was a Candidate for Master of Sport in shooting, and she’s Tatar—family is everything to them. I’ll have to do something, though, since kids like that won’t leave you alone once they get a taste for your wallet. They’re young and crazy; life still hasn’t gotten through to them. But that’s for later. I need to go lie down.”
“Of course,” answered Vika, turning something over in her mind. “I’ll make an iodine grid for you. And wake me up tonight if you need anything, though I doubt I’ll get any sleep.”
The next morning, things hurt that I didn’t even know I had. I had been particularly worried about two parts of my body, but things turned out okay. One worked fine and, as far as the other was concerned, I didn’t see any blood when I, well, you know. My kidneys were all right, as well. I wasn’t about to leave the house looking like that for fear of everyone who saw me calling the police. There was also no point in scaring (or, in some cases, making the day of) the people at the office. I hadn’t looked in the mirror, but I had a feeling I looked like some kind of hideous sea monster—or maybe like dead Captain Flint, my face all blue and puffy.
“So have you decided to ca
ll the police?” Vika asked as she was getting dressed. “Or, even better, there’s someone else you can talk to. I’ve seen little bastards like that, too, and you’re right; they always come back. I kind of like you, and I’d rather not be carrying flowers to your grave.”
“Come on, Vika, give it a rest. I’ll figure it out,” I answered, grimacing from the pain in my lips.
“Oh, sure. If you only saw yourself…” A shadow crossed her face. “You relax here and don’t go anywhere.”
“Very funny. Where am I going to go looking like this?”
“Exactly. And if those animals start doing this every week…”
“Okay, okay, get out of here. I could use some sleep.”
Vika frowned as she left the room, and a second later, I heard the front door close.
I was obviously not planning to let the little idiots get away with beating me up or taking my money. But I had to figure out who I would start hunting them with—old friends from school or the newer, well-placed ones I’d made in the past few years. You can’t help but pick up a wide range of contacts when you spend your professional life hanging around clubs. I slipped off to sleep without even noticing it, my mind swirling with thoughts of revenge.
A phone call woke me up. My phone had survived the events of the previous day and was lying on my desk. I set off on the arduous journey to retrieve it, moaning and groaning as I did. The screen read “Zimin.”
“Hey, Kif, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me.” He was the last person I was expecting to hear from.
“Kif, do you remember our conversation in your boss’s office? When we first met?” There was nothing promising in his voice.
“More or less,” I mumbled, trying to figure out what he was hinting at.
“Maybe that ‘more’ includes what I said about you being under the protection of the company?”
“Well, I didn’t think…” I wonder how he found out. Although, I guess it’s obvious…
“That sounds pretty clear to me. Very clear, in fact.” There was steel in his voice, and I didn’t like how formal his tone was. “If you’d have thought about it, you would have called me yesterday or at least today. You would have called me yourself since that would have been faster and easier. It’s just a good thing your girlfriend turned out to be smarter than you are. She called our security, and they filled me in. So, I had to hear from them how you were beat up and robbed—from them; not from you.”
Winds of Fate Page 1
