Page 36 of KAI Tortured

“Tell us what you know,” I tell her.

She goes back to the couch, crosses her legs beneath her, and regards us seriously, one by one.

“Right. What I know about them, and what I’ve seen, is that they win by numbers. It seems that they have too many Slavs on their books when they show up, but actually, they don’t. They hire men to do their dirty work, then leverage the completed job against them by blackmailing them, threatening to kill their families, and the rest. You get the point.”

“What you’re saying is that these men are just unwilling accomplices? Stooges?”

“Exactly that. And if you dig deeper, you’ll probably find that they don’t really have anyone loyal to them, apart from maybe a few. And even the loyal ones, Milan treated like crap. I’m sure Rosey is too. He never paid them any good. Apart from Zed. He was his right hand.”

“The fucker!” Logan spits. He must be dwelling on the fact that Zed was the one who struck the final blow to our mother before she died. “I’m glad we were the ones who killed that motherfucker!”

“Me too!” Kai says.

I nod my agreement and glance at Maisy. “By the way, do you have any idea of what happened to her body?”

“Milan was cruel as fuck, but from what she said transpired between them, it sounded like he was really hurt, which tells me that he loved her. She could be buried somewhere in the grounds of the house. But that’s just a theory.”

“One that I intend to thoroughly check out when the time comes,” I say. “Meanwhile, Maisy, you just gave me an idea on how to destroy the Slavs.”

“Let’s just kill them all,” Logan growls.

Kai leans forward, his ears pricked up.

“Divide and conquer,” I pronounce.

Kai frowns. He’s not quite on board yet. “I need more details.”

“You know I’d love to kill every Slav on this planet,” I start. “Apart from Maisy, of course.”

“Of course,” Kai agrees, and Logan nods.

“Well, I’m thinking, why don’t we give the men who are forced to work for the Slavs an option to leave? To relocate to a different city or state with their families.”

Maisy’s interest piques. “How?”

“And why not kill them?” Logan asks, seemingly unhappy with my idea.

“There are too many of them. If we start killing them, there’ll be some kind of outcry and definitely an investigation. We can cover up five or ten bodies, even twenty, but a hundred? It’s gonna be a logistical nightmare. What I suggest we do is approach them, one by one, with a get-out option. If they don’t wanna do it, we kill them and deliver their bodies to the Slavs. This will scare them for sure. For those that wanna do it, we’ll help them disappear.”

“And how, may I ask, will you relocate hundreds of families?” Kai smirks, looking skeptical.

“Isn’t that what the witness protection program does?” Maisy asks, ever the straight shooter.

“That’s correct. All we need to do is find someone on the inside,” I reason.

Logan isn’t convinced. “And then what?”

“Actually, Logan, this might work,” Maisy says. “People will do a lot out of fear. When the opportunity comes up and they see they could get themselves and their families away from this life, they might take up the offer.”

“The witness protection program helps witnesses whose lives are in danger due to their cooperation with law enforcement,” Logan points out.

“Yeah, that would be the catch,” I say. “They’ll have to agree to cooperate with the cops.”

“Ha! Of course nobody will do it!” Kai scoffs.

“Those that haven’t done the most heinous crimes would,” Maisy responds, appearing to stifle a yawn. “For the others, they deserve to die anyway.”

“Great. Just great.” Logan is losing patience. “All you need now is a little thing called a U.S. Marshal and everything will be peaches.”

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