Page 2 of Skin Deep

“I’m a monster,” I said coldly. “I am my father’s son.”

There were Russian mobsters, and then there were men like my father, old school Russian gangsters with a strict code. Men in New York and out west called themselves Bratva and thought it meant something, but it meant nothing in the shadow of my father’s legacy. He’d built his criminal empire in the gulags of the old country, a cancer upon the bosom of Mother Russia until even she found him so rotten, she spat him out here, in America.

Bratva? No. Bratva meant brotherhood, and there was no room for such camaraderie in my father’s organization. He was a member of thevory v zakone,the most feared elite mobsters of the Russian underworld. They were the new gods of gold and guns bought with Russian blood on American soil. They were the past, and Warrick was my family’s future. He had to be better than that, better than me.

“The boy must be raised away from me,” I said firmly. “Away from the vory, if he is to have any hope of not becoming a monster, too.”

“Hasthatuglytruckbeen tailing us?” I squinted at the truck in the driver’s side mirror.

It was parked two rows over and three spaces to the right. While I couldn’t see the driver in the dim lighting, I could vaguely make out the shadow of the man sitting behind the wheel. He’d been parked there for the last twenty minutes and still hadn’t gotten out. Neon from the signs in the bar window danced over the rust-speckled frame. It had Ohio plates, Franklin County. No front plates.

“Where?” Xavier hung out the window of the passenger side, straining his neck to see.

I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back in. “For fuck’s sake, don’t look at it!”

“How am I supposed to answer you if I don’t look at it?” He shoved my hand away.

I went back to staring at the truck in the mirror. “You’re not. You’re supposed to be watching the front door of the bar for our mark.”

I was sure I saw that same truck at the last bar we’d trailed our target to, but maybe not. After spending all night sitting in the dirty parking lots of dive bars on the south side of Columbus, every vehicle was starting to look the same.

We had been following our target—a pedophile named Alvin Telaris who dealt in kiddie porn—from watering hole to watering hole, waiting for the right time to grab him. After he spent an hour in the last stop with no signs of slowing down, I made the executive decision to speed the process along by sending Xander in as bait. He was a little old for Alvin, but with a little makeup and the right clothes, he could look a lot younger than twenty. It was Xander’s specialty, playing the lure, and assholes like Alvin ate his act up hook, line, and sinker.

I hated to do it though. It put Xander in the line of fire and out of my sight. If I was sitting in the van, I couldn’t be in there making sure nothing went wrong. No matter how many times we did this and things turned out fine, it only took one wrong move to fuck us all over forever.

I tried not to think about that as I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, still staring at the oddly familiar truck. Of course, trying not to think about it only made me think about it more.

I grimaced as horrific images of my younger brother flashed through my mind. Xander beaten and bloody, lying on a dirty bathroom floor. Xander pinned to a wall, crying for help. Xander dead in the alley behind the bar.

I tried to shake the unwanted images away, but it was no use. It happened a lot, a symptom of my oh-so-fun diagnosis that got filed under obsessions. An obsession with macabre worst-case scenarios, maybe. Worst-case scenarios that I could never let come to pass.

“Come on, Xander,” I growled. “How long does it take to convince a pedophile you’re down to fuck?”

“You talking about that ugly green rust bucket two rows over?” Xavier squinted at the rearview mirror.

I nodded once. “That’s the one. Was it at the last bar?”

Xavier was quiet for a minute, pressing his lips together. He dragged his fingers through his hair, which used to be dark all over. He’d bleached it a few weeks ago and colored the ends orange and blue. It made him look like his head was on fire, but at least no one would confuse him with Xander anymore at a glance. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Helpful,” I grunted and rubbed a hand over my stomach, turning my attention back to the dented front door of the bar.

I should count the cars. My eyes darted nervously to the row of cars across from me. Why had I thought that? I didn’t want to count the cars. It didn’t matter how many cars were in the parking lot, but I’d already started counting without meaning to, and I couldn’t stop.One, two, three, four…

Sweat gathered on the back of my neck as I stared at the fifth car in the row. There’s an empty space between the last two. Why didn’t I park there?Stupid War. Stupid, stupid. Now there are only five cars in that row, and you know that’s bad. Five is a bad omen. A death omen. What if Xander’s in there right now, bleeding out? He could be dead. He might be dead. It’s a sign. You know it is. Maybe I miscounted. I should count again to make sure.

“Maybe one of us should go in there to check on Xander,” I said, forcing my eyes away from the row of cars.

Logically, I knew there was no connection between any particular number and whether my brother was alive or dead, but OCD didn’t work on logic. I didn’t even know where that association had come from. It felt random. In my life, though, there was nothing more terrifying thanrandom.

“He’s fine,” Xavier said with a shrug. “I’m sure he’s just doing his Pinocchio act.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Pinocchio act?”

Xavier exaggeratedly fluttered his dark lashes at me. “Make me a real boy, Daddy,” he chirped in a high voice.

“Never fucking do that again,” I said and gave him a shove.

“Hey, you’re the one that asked.” He snorted and picked up his energy drink, loudly slurping it down.

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