Shakily, Tonya raised herself onto her hands, her head dropping in defeat.
Mikhail grinned with true happiness at me.
“Come. I am excited to get this tattoo finished.”
I nodded and followed him back into his room. Two more thugs were waiting for us, and I handed over my equipment for inspection. They were looking for weapons, not intelligence, and they handed back my hardcover case a few minutes later.
Like the first time, Mikhail had all the things I’d asked for waiting for me. A card table to place my machines, power pack, inks, and wells. A padded swivel stool. A massage bench for him to lie on.
The stone-cold killer inside me had taken over. Every move and every thought was calculated and controlled. Dark and silent in my head, I sat down and began setting up. Everything within me was calm, just…waiting.
The bench creaked beneath the Knight of Mercy’s weight as he lay down.
“
What is your real name?
” he asked in Russian.
“It’s Ricki,” I replied.
“No. No Russians are named Ricki. What did your mother call you when you were a child?”
“Why do you care?”
I asked. My tone wasn’t disrespectful, and Mikhail knew that.
“My life up until I left was not a happy one.”
“I’m curious,”
he replied.
“I don’t see why you should be. I’m a tattooist. My life isn’t spectacular. It just is. I wake up and piss like everyone else. I go to work. I go home. End of.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said in English. The machines were hooked up to the power, and I pressed down on the pedal to check. The buzz whirred through the air, comforting me.
He would be in pain soon. I was looking forward to it.
“Start with your real name,”
he stated.
Lifting my eyes to meet his black ones, I stared hard into those hellish pits. What I saw wasn’t soulless. The soul of Mikhail was
there
—mutilated and disfigured into this disgusting lump of inhumanity. Pitiless, uncaring, the Knight of Mercy had been corrupted a long time ago, molded by the hands of those who were the monsters before him.
I was staring at what could have been me.
This thing and I…we shared some common bond. Once, Mikhail had been an innocent boy, a kid with dreams and hopes of his own. I
saw
that, looking into his black eyes. Staring back into mine, I knew he had sensed that about me from the beginning. He regarded me and saw what perhaps he could have been.
“My name was Roman,”
I replied.
“Roman.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you change it?”
“I wanted to change everything. When I left, I fucking left.”
My gaze dropped to his chest, and I cleaned off the skin with a mixture of green soap and water from a squirt bottle. The outline had healed nicely. Taking a one-time-use cheap plastic razor, I lightly scraped off the regrowth of chest hair. Another squirting of soap and water cleared off the debris.
“I wanted to make music,”
said Mikhail.
“My father did not mind so much until I became obsessed.”
“Oh?”
He nodded.
“It was one thing to have a hobby, but I was losing sight of what I was meant to be.”
“And what is that?”
I asked. I didn’t really care. I already knew what he was. The silence in my head kept my focus though, and I sounded sincere.
“A Vasili.”
A memory penetrated through the dark stillness of my brain. Tied, roughed up, bleeding on my pant leg in The Godwin’s palatial office. I knew what the Knight of Mercy meant. I was supposed to be a fucking
Godwin
. If, for one second, I had doubted myself, my cause, I could’ve been right where Mikhail was now—feared, respected for all the wrong reasons, and staring into the eyes of the man who would one day end my life.
Because I
was
going to end him.
“You said you had a woman,”
he stated.
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
I remained silent. He would not be polluting my joy.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“Are you afraid of me? Do you think I might harm her?”
“I know you would, if it got you what you wanted.”
“You love her.”
I said nothing.
He nodded.
“I loved a woman once.”
“What happened?”
I asked.
“I found her in bed with my best friend. I killed her. I killed him, too. After that…no more love.”
If I ever found Jaime in bed with another man, I’d be asking myself what I hadn’t done to keep her satisfied. I didn’t mention this to the Knight of Mercy, but it did make me stop and consider such a situation.
“So, you just use women now,”
I stated, thinking back to Tonya.
“It’s what they are made for in my world.”
That he even made that statement—
in his world
—gave me pause. It meant he recognized his view wasn’t the only one that existed. He understood women were loved, adored, had a role and a purpose in the lives of other men.
It made him even
worse
. To be able to know the value of a person’s life and to still hold no regard for it…he truly was a monster.
Mikhail didn’t know it, but he was ensuring his ultimate nightmare was coming after him.
“Were you uncomfortable when you came in and saw us fucking Tonya?”
he asked.
Filling the last inkwell with watered-down black ink for shading, I shrugged.
“I think you were.”
“It was
just
sex. It was never
this
.”
Jaime whispered in my mind.
Sighing, I pressed down on the power pedal and dipped the buzzing needles in the ink. “Ready?”
Mikhail nodded, and for the next thirty minutes, I was blessed with his silence. As I worked his flesh, I cherished each hiss of pain, every grunt of discomfort. Before my eyes, my work took on contour, shades of gray creating a piece of art I’d have been proud to display if it wasn’t an omen of what was to come.
“Why do you love your woman? What makes her so special?”
His voice sawed through the quietness as I dipped my needles in fresh ink.
“She just is,”
I replied.
“I think my wife is special, but I don’t love her,”
he informed me.
“Why not? Are you afraid you’ll find her in bed with another man?”
“No. My father would murder her himself for polluting what is Vasili.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he bother?”
“He is The Vasili,”
he mentioned.
Hold on a bloody fucking minute here.
“The Vasili?”
Mikhail nodded.
I sat back and stared at him. He tried to read me, but I showed him nothing of the thoughts churning in my head.
Piotr is the supposed son of The Vasili. Not Mikhail. Not Nikolai. Our intelligence—fucking Ronen—had dug deep and had uncovered their identities. Had it been a mix-up? Or is Mikhail trying to throw me off?
I shrugged and once more pressed the power pedal.
“Does that surprise you?”
he asked as I bent over him once more.
“I thought I was tattooing a Vasili thug.”
He laughed, and I stopped tattooing.
“Well, in a way, you are right. We all must get ourselves dirty at some point. I’m here, cleaning up a mess one of our thugs left. If people think I am no better, it just helps the persona.”
The
fucking Vasili. The fucking heir to the Russian Mafia.
“So, your father would personally murder your wife if she cheated on you?”
“Oh, yes. As much of a dishonor it would be to me, he would be her executioner. It would be a greater dishonor to him. She was handpicked to carry my seed—
his
line, after all.”
“You have children?”
“I have many children.”
Hmm…
“Most of them, not from my wife.”
He grinned
. “If I were to love anything, it would be my children. For them, I feel the most. But, in this world, one cannot feel too deeply. Feelings can be used against you. Do you have children with this woman you love?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t have children.”
Mikhail pierced me with a hard gaze.
“You are sterile?”
I nodded.
“How is that?”
“A childhood injury,”
I replied.
“How sad. Your immortality is lost to you.”
“I don’t need immortality. I’m happy as I am.”
“What of your woman? Is she happy, knowing she’ll never carry your son?”
I rolled my eyes.
“It’s not what we’re about. I don’t live a life where I have to fucking procreate to have some sort of status.”
“Every woman wants a home and children.”
“Maybe every woman
you’ve
met,”
I countered.
“I know plenty who are more than happy with not having a houseful of snot-nosed little shits.”
Another bout of silence stretched between us. Mikhail seemed to have drifted off, but many people zoned out while getting inked. The brain would simply go elsewhere to cope with the pain, and the chest wasn’t an easy place to get tattooed. It bloody hurt.
Sitting back, I set down my machine and grabbed the squirt bottle and paper towels. He twitched when the cool liquid touched his raw skin, and I wiped up the traces of blood and ink.
“I need a break,”
I told him.
“Another hour, and we’ll be finished.”
“Good,”
he grunted as he sat up.
“Hungry?”
I knew I should eat. I was lagging. But the thought of sharing a meal with this man did nothing for my appetite. However, I nodded, and he gave a chin tilt to one of his bodyguards sitting next to the door.
From my knapsack, I pulled out a bottle of water and started chugging.
“What do you want?”
he asked me.
“A sandwich is fine.”
“You can have anything you want. Steak? They have good seafood, too. Even real caviar. I’ve tried it.”
I shook my head.
“If it’s too heavy, I’ll get sleepy.”
The bodyguard opened the door to the living room, and the sounds of violent sex made their way into the bedroom.
Fucking hell, still?
Mikhail watched me, seeing my disgust before I could mask it.
“We’ll eat in here, Sergej,”
Mikhail said.
“And bring champagne.”
“No alcohol,”
I stated.
Mikhail swung his gaze on me, his eyes hardening.
“Then, don’t drink.”
“If you have alcohol, you’ll bleed the fuck all over me. It thins the blood. Wait until we’re done.”
I wasn’t lying. At the shop, if clients came in drunk or even hungover, I’d turn them away. I might’ve been pushing my luck with telling the son of The Vasili what to do or not to do, but I wouldn’t compromise my work for anyone.
His face relaxed as he stared at me. I held my breath, meeting his eyes, unflinching.
“No champagne then.”
“Thank you,”
I said.
Mikhail had room service deliver two steak-and-cheese sandwiches with mushrooms and onions and chips. I didn’t think he understood that food
could
be fucking heavy, and halfway through the massive sandwich, I was ready to bust.
I leaned back in my seat in an attempt to make room for the food.
“You’re very strange for a Russian,”
said Mikhail.
“I’m no longer Russian,”
I told him.
“I’m Dutch.”
“You don’t drink—”
“I most certainly do,”
I corrected.
“But not while I’m working.”
“You are a Dutch citizen then?”
“Yes.”
He took another bite of his sandwich, chewing slowly, looking thoughtful. Then, he swallowed.
“I need your help.”
“And just what is it do you think I can help you with?”
I asked.
“You know that mess I’m cleaning up? Well, there’s more to it.”
“I don’t want anything to do with whatever it is you…do.”
“It’s nothing big. I won’t need you to do anything that would get you in trouble. But I need a Russian speaker. I have some…things…arriving in a little less than two weeks. We’ve had some problems in the past with people coming in and taking our shipments. It’s why I’m here.”
“What sort of shipments?”
“You don’t need to concern yourself with it. The less you know, the better it is for you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I need someone to man the warehouse before the cargo comes in.”
“You have men with you. Use them.”
He shook his head.
“We’re being followed. I need someone who isn’t known to the authorities, who won’t raise suspicions. The cargo comes in at three in the morning. I need someone who can speak Russian and guide my men with the cargo inside. You go in and speak into the radio, and when they show up, you leave. Easy.”
This motherfucker just handed me all the information.
We had info telling us the shipment was coming in three weeks.
Is this the real shipment, and the second one is a trap?
It was the only thing that made sense.
“What makes you think I won’t go to the authorities?”
Mikhail’s smile was pure evil—amused, too.
“You value your life, your
way
of life. You do this, and I’m in your debt,
Roman
. A Vasili never forgets his debts.”
“You could easily kill me afterward and have that debt erased.”
He nodded.
“True. But I wouldn’t. Your work is some of the best I’ve seen, and I plan on getting much more of it.”
“I’ll have to think about it,”
I told him.
“What is there to think about?”
“I don’t want to be involved with anything you are doing!”
I snapped.
“I didn’t fucking ask for this! I brought my friend to a fucking club because he wanted some damn pussy, and now, you think my life is yours to use as you will.”