Page 43 of The Bait

“I absolutely will,” Asher replied.

“He’s based in Belgrade, but if that’s where they took Yunho, I don’t know, I swear.”

Asher sighed. “The ZBK leader. I need a name.”

Daris sobbed pathetically. God, how Harry wanted to kill him already.

“Josip Rozga,” Daris mumbled.

Asher sighed. “And? What else do I need to know?”

“He’s going to kill me,” Daris whispered.

“The moment you went into business with him was the day you sealed that fate,” Harry said. “It’s no one’s fault but yours.”

He nodded pathetically, but then he looked at Asher. “He has three men with him at all times. They’re his lieutenants. The one with red hair, he’s the one you have to watch. He can fight.”

Just then, there was a noise from upstairs. A door opening and soft voices. Daris shook his head quickly, his eyes wide and full of pleading.

A female voice said something about the power inBosnian. Harry could hear her trying the light switches. “Daris? There’s no power.”

Then a woman appeared, wearing a nightgown, her hair in a messy ponytail. She stopped cold, and when a small girl appeared behind her, the woman kept her hands out to stop the girl from seeing. “Daris,” she whispered.

“It’s okay,” he said, trying to smile. “These are some friends of mine.”

“Old friends,” Asher said, smiling. “We were in the orphanage and training school together, which I’m sure he told you all about.” He patted the table, the pistol back on his thigh, hidden from view. “Come in, take a seat at the table.”

Daris gave a wild look at Asher before he tried smiling again for his wife and daughter. The woman kept her gaze on Harry and kept her daughter behind her as she edged to a seat at the table. She sat down and pulled her daughter into her lap, holding her tight.

Cute kid with messy brown hair and pink sparkly pyjamas, and Harry hoped this didn’t go pear-shaped.

God, he hated when there were kids involved.

Then Asher spoke in Bosnian and Harry missed a lot of it. He picked out a few words here and there; orphanage, six years old, training.

The wife was staring at Daris as Asher spoke, and Harry got the feeling she knew nothing about his past.

Daris was pale, his hands were shaking.

Then Asher spoke in English. For Harry’s benefit, or if the kid didn’t speak English and Asher didn’t want her to hear, Harry wasn’t sure.

“I’m surprised,” he said. “After everything we went through, after everything we swore we’d get away from, when we were no bigger than your daughter is right now,that you’d bring that life into your own house where your wife and daughter sleep. You deserve everything that’s coming for you, Daris, but they don’t. If you weren’t so selfish you’d send them somewhere far away. You have no security here. We came in through your front door, Daris. Your front goddamn door. Your house alarm is wired into your main power, and you got a kid’s bike in the front yard, so anyone who wants to hurt you knows he’s got leverage. Did you learn nothing?”

Daris scrubbed at an errant tear, shook his head, and said nothing.

“Tell me something helpful, Daris,” Asher said. “I’m running out of reasons to stay.”

He shrugged, hopeless. “I don’t know. Rozga has a chapter meeting every Wednesday at ten o’clock, at his compound. There’ll be twenty or so men there. It’s out of town, on the R446. He arrives in the final convoy of three vehicles. Middle car, at exactly ten o’clock, every time.”

Asher smiled at him. “Now that is helpful, thank you.” He stood up and both Daris and his wife’s eyes went to the pistol he slid into his waistband. Her hold on their daughter tightened, shielding her tiny face, chin wobbling.

“We’ll be going now,” Asher said cheerfully. “Daris, walk us out.”

Asher and Harry waited for Daris to stand. He did so, reluctantly. His legs seemed a little shaky and his wife was now crying.

Harry felt sorry for them. Not that they’d entered her house and upset her. He was sorry that she had no clue who her husband was, or who he was doing business with.

When they got to the front door, Asher spun on Daris and pushed him against the wall, his forearm to Daris’sneck, the pistol pressed to the side of Daris’s head. “I should shoot you right now,” he whispered. “It goes against my better judgement to leave you breathing. But I promise you, if I hear your name uttered one more time in any fucking circle, I will kill you, your wife, and your daughter. Do you under-fucking-stand?”

---