Page 29 of Skin Deep

“Fuckin’ pussy,” he spits. The gun goes off.

Blood everywhere.

I flinched in the present like it was happening in real time, but I hadn’t thought about that day in more than a decade. I couldn’t. If I started to remember, I might fall apart.

The need to wash my face was suddenly overwhelming, but there was nowhere to do it, so I picked up the napkin and mopped up eighteen-year-old invisible blood staining my face. “That fucker’s still alive?”

Nikita nodded once and picked up his tea. “Simeon has him in charge of the whores, but he fucked up. Got picked up. I was paid well to keep him from going to trial. I did my job, but not before he talked to someone he shouldn’t have. It’s time for Bowen to go away, and we want Paxton to make that happen.”

I narrowed my eyes. It was rare for the vory to put a hit out on one of their own, and that was usually handled in house. “Why are you passing it to an outsider?”

He leveled a hard stare at me. “This is not the sort of job where you get to ask questions. Do you want to secure your man’s safety or not?”

“Anyone could do it,” I said. “Let me do it instead.”

The offer wasn’t just because I’d dreamt of peeling Bowen Ivanski’s face off for years after what happened, although that was part of it. That fucker deserved it and worse after what he’d done. I didn’t want Pax mixed up in mobster business. At least if I did it, it would stay in the family. Some feathers might get ruffled, but no one would be pissed enough to do anything. I wasn’t in the vory, but the vory was in my blood.

Nikita shook his head. “We need to know Paxton can be trusted to obey if an order comes down. If he’s worth your time, son, he can do a little work to secure your affection.”

I snorted and shook my head, but this wasn’t entirely unexpected. One of the reasons I’d moved to Florida with Ken was exactly to avoid this shit. Just because they wanted Paxton to finish this didn’t mean I couldn’t be involved, though.

“One more thing,” he said, folding his hands on the tabletop. “Bowen has some…let’s call them shady associates.”

“Doesn’t everyone you associate with?”

“These men are not the same,” he said firmly. “They have violated our code, making their oath null and void.”

Ah, the mythical code of conduct. The one nobody followed but everybody invoked when it suited them. It harkened back to the mythical ancient days of thevory v zakone, the founding fathers of the first Russian mafia born in the gulags of Russia almost a hundred years ago. Everyone wanted to trace their lineage back to that, including Simeon. Whether it was true or not that he’d done time in the gulag, I couldn’t say, but I somehow doubted it. He only kept to the code because he wanted to believe it made him more than a petty criminal clinging desperately to the last dregs of life. He wasn’t. Simeon the Immortal was a bully whose days were numbered.

I didn’t need to ask which rule Bowen had violated. I didn’t care. All that mattered was securing safety for Paxton and his girls.

“At any rate,” Nikita continued, “we need to know the location of these associates and the safehouse they’re hiding in.”

I shook my head. “He’ll never give it up.”

“Not to anyone, no. But you are not anyone. I have heard you’re an excellent interrogator when you’re motivated. Be motivated. Find this information and give it to me. Only to me, Warrick. I will pass it to Simeon. Trust no one else. This matter is more delicate than you know.”

Something about the whole job didn’t sit right with me, but what choice did I have? If I wanted Paxton and his girls to be safe, I had to take it.

Nikita grabbed the USB and slid it into his pocket. “I will poke around and see if there are any rumors about this ripper. If you need anything in the meantime, please call me. I know you hate me, but you must not let your feelings make your decisions for you, Warrick. Think with your head, not your dick, eh?” He stood and threw several twenties on the table. “And eat some pierogi or I’ll tell your mother.”

I sighed and speared one of the potato filled dumplings.

Nikita waited until I bit into it before he nodded and patted my shoulder, muttering, “Good boy,” on the way out.

I sat in the booth long after he left, picking at the pierogi and trying to decide how to tell Paxton that he was going to have to kill a man or my family would kill him. The man in question was a piece of shit who deserved it, and I imagined Pax would have no qualms about taking him out. Still, if Nikita asked him to do it once, he’d ask again. There was no walking away from an exchange of favors with the vory. I had tried to warn him, but the stubborn bastard wouldn’t listen.

And for what? Because he wanted to fuck me? It wasn’t worth it. No piece of ass was, certainly not mine.

I should have stayed in Miami. I should’ve stayed far away from Nikita Volkov and away from my family. This was what I got for thinking I could havenormal.

Maybe I should embrace what I was born to be, I thought, taking another bite of the pierogi. Unfortunately, I was so far removed from all of that now that I didn’t know what my place was. Annie and Tatty wanted me to step up to lead the Laskin family, a family of ruthless killers who fancied themselves vigilantes. Sure, we killed people who deserved it, but we were all still murderers. We weren’t any better than the vory.

I got out my phone and scrolled through the contacts until I found Paxton’s number. I thought about deleting it. If I stopped seeing him, none of this would have to happen. I didn’t need him to take down the ripper and I could pass his daughter’s case to someone else.

All I had to do was delete Paxton’s number and he’d be safe forever.

What are you so afraid of?Pax’s question taunted me.

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