He gulps visibly and nods. “Sí, sí, sí. What do you wanna know?”
“My cabin was ransacked. No more than a few hours ago,” I say. “What do you know about that?”
“Nothing.”
I sigh and take a casual half-pivot, as if I’m going to walk away. Which is probably why he doesn’t see my fist coming.
He hits the ground hard, with a squelch. Shit flies everywhere. The blood is pouring even faster now. His lip is busted, too.
I stand over him, one foot planted on either side of his fat legs like sausages encased in denim.
“You wanna try that again?” I ask conversationally.
“Now it’s broken!” he cries out.
“I did promise that,” I tell him. “And I’m a man of my word. The next time you piss me off, I’m gonna have to break a leg.”
“What…?”
“Or a hand,” I say with a shrug. “I’ll let you pick. Start thinking now about which way you’re leaning.”
“All right, all right!” Guillermo protests. He’s glaring up at me, mud and shit and blood streaking his face. “I may know something. But I’m just mostly guessing here. Keep that in mind.”
“Noted.” I squat down so that I’m at eye level with the farmer. “Go on.”
“A few months ago, Lobo came around here asking to buy weapons,” he sighs. “He seemed pretty fucking upset because his father has been missing for a while.”
“Lobo?” I repeat. “Am I supposed to know who the fuck that is?”
“Razor’s boy.”
The name sounds familiar, but I can’t figure out why.
“Razor?”
“He is—was—a narcotraficante,” Guillermo replies. A drug dealer. “He controls the trade routes on this side of town.”
That connects the dots for me. The memory resurfaces like an unwelcome ghost from my past.
Razor is the motherfucker who thought he could come for me.
The one who’s bones are still rotting somewhere in the ravine by the cabin.
I see his face in my mind’s eye. That stupid snarling expression that had quickly turned to fear once he’d realized that he was no match for me.
“As far as crime lords go, he wasn’t a very good one,” I say flippantly.
Guillermo’s eyes go wide. “The kid thinks you killed his old man.”
“Then he’d be right.”
“Fuck,” Guillermo mutters. “Fuck.”
“I killed his father and his goons months ago,” I point out. “Why’s the kid all riled up now? Is he as slow as his fucking father or just scared?”
“He’s young,” Guillermo tells me. “Nineteen, I think.”
“Won’t stop me from killing him, too.”
“He bought new guns from me just last week,” Guillermo tells me. “It was like he was preparing for something.”
“How many men does he have?”
“I’m not sure. Ten, maybe fifteen. I recognized only two of them,” he says. “The others were new.”
“Which means he’s hired them,” I conclude. “So he is scared. At least he’s not stupid.”
“Amigo, no offense, but are you?”
I laugh. “No, I’m not stupid. I am Bratva.”
Guillermo’s face goes bone-white with fear.
He knows that word. Enough to be afraid of it. He’s smarter than I gave him credit for, it seems.
I straighten up and look out towards the farmhouse where both boys are now jumping off the porch in turns.
Innocent and fearless. Too young to be as scarred as I am.
There was a time when I’d entertained the notion of a quiet life like theirs somewhere peaceful.
But that was only a fever dream.
I was a fool to think I could leave the Bratva behind.
It is part of me.
Sutured into my skin, as necessary to me as air.
“Where can I find the little bastard?” I ask.
Guillermo stays on the ground at my feet. “They work out of a small farm to the southwest of the mountain range. Right off the highway. You can’t miss it.”
I nod. “You’ve been useful, Guillermo.”
It’s the closest he’ll get to a thank you.
I leave Guillermo lying in the shit and jump into my Jeep. Then I start the drive to the farm he described.
With every mile that passes under my tires, I get angrier.
This fucking kid thought he could fuck with me by ransacking my cabin like some a goddamn cat burglar.
He and his men are about a get a lesson in the art of fear mongering.
You don’t fuck with Artem Kovalyov.
The adrenaline is pumping through me as I drive fast down the rural highway. I see the house rear up in the distance. I stop half a mile away and pull my truck out of sight behind a pyramid of hay bales.
Then I sit and wait for nightfall.
When darkness comes, I tuck a pistol into the back of my jeans and grab my rifle. It takes me half an hour to get within range of the house. I move slowly, stopping and starting often, and always watching for signs of life.
When I come up on the structure, I can see only a few men outside.
They’re smoking cigarettes and laughing. I see a mound of beer cans littering the ground at their feet.
Fucking perfect.
I screw the silencer onto the pistol as I take stock of the situation. I know I have to be fast. There are three men out front, and I have to hit all three before any of them can warn the other men inside the cabin house.
My hands are steady as I take aim. It helps that all three men are sitting close together.
So considerate of them.
Then I shoot.
One. Head shot.
Two. Head shot.
Three. Head shot.
When I lower my gun, I see their bodies lying next to their beer bottles. I might have thought it was poetic, if I were the poetic type.
The silencer has done its job. My bullets barely made a sound. No one inside seems to have heard.
I leave the corpses cooling in the night and set back off down the path I took to get here.
The boy will get my message soon enough. And when he does, I have no doubt he will rally his men and bring them down to the cabin… to my neck of the woods.
And then…
Well, then
