Page 88 of The Bait

Radovic was pissed, first at Yixing, and then at Yunho laughing at him. The way he strode over with his jaw clenched and his fist cocked, Asher was sure Yunho was about to cop it. But he didn’t punch Yunho. He walked past him and punched Asher right in the fucking face.

Radovic glowered at Yunho. “Every time you say something without being spoken to, your friend here gets hurt. Are we clear?”

Sure, Radovic couldn’t touch Yixing, no matter how much he might have pissed him off, but he could punch the fuck out of Asher.

Asher’s face hurt, his nose, his cheek, his lip, his brain ached, but he could take a whole lot more than that. Hell, Radovic had done worse than this to Asher when Asher was just eight years old. Asher snorted at him and nodded toward Yixing. “You’re still second favourite, I see.” Asher glanced over to Larynx who stood beside Istomin and Yixing. “Or are you third? Like when we were kids. You weren’t good enough then, either.”

Radovic spun to glare at Asher, murder and fire in his eyes. He pulled his knife out, and without a word, still glaring at Asher, he stabbed the knife into Yunho’s thigh.

Yunho screamed through gritted teeth, the sound etched forever in Asher’s mind. “Untie me and make it a fair fight,” Asher spat at him.

Radovic pulled his knife out, red beading at the tip. “Speak without being spoken to again, and he gets hurt. Got it?”

“What do you want us for?” Asher said. He nodded to the monitors where data and numbers were still scrolling on the screens. “You got what you wanted.”

It was Istomin who came over then. He smiled at Asher. “Oh, Mr Garin, we haven’t begun with you yet. I’m afraid your pain hasn’t even started yet.”

Asher sneered at him.

Istomin’s expression was thoughtful. “Do you remember, about six years ago, you took out Sergey Volkov when he was in Belarus. He was a diplomat for the Kremlin. You shot him in the head.” Istomin mimicked a gun with his hand. “You must have been, what? Eight hundred and fifty metres away?”

It was closer to a thousand, but Asher didn’t say that.

Istomin sighed dramatically. “Well, he was in a business deal with two Croat and Bosnian senators and a very dear Russian friend of mine, and they lost a great deal of money. A lot of money, Asher.” He shook his head. “So I made a deal with him—his money back, and you on a silver platter. And believe me, you won’t like what he plans to do with you.”

“And what do you get?” Asher asked.

Istomin grinned like a ghoul. “I get two very well-situated men in the senate.”

Asher couldn’t believe it. He was fucking sick. “For your political agenda, to push the new cold war.”

He laughed. “It’s not a political agenda, you fool. It’s a financial one.”

Asher was stunned. “What?”

“I don’t give a fuck about the politics of it,” he replied. “Do you know how lucrative civil unrest and war is? With this”—he waved his hand at the monitors—“stock markets, weapon deals, and the Balkans in turmoil, with a shove from my Russia, do you know how many billions that will make me?”

Asher wanted to scream at him, to strangle him, punch the shit out of him. He wanted to vomit. “Do you know how many people will die? Do you know how many children end up in orphanages or sold to sick fucking animals?” Asher was almost vibrating off his chair, white hot anger burning in his veins. “The casualties of fucking war that no one talks about? Fuck you,” Asher spat. “The ZBK factions, those pathetic wannabe soldiers,” Asher said, disbelieving, but the pieces were clicking together. “You’re using them to start a war for money?”

Istomin smiled imperiously. “Shall we discuss whatyou and your pathetic friend here have done for money? How many people have you killed? How many people have died indirectly because of you? How many orphans did you create? And you think you can lecture me about ethics?”

Yunho snorted out a raspy laugh. His side was bleeding badly, red staining the side of his shirt from where they’d stabbed his lung. “Every person we killed deserved it. War mongers, arms dealers, drug cartels, human traffickers, pieces of shit like you?—”

Radovic’s fist came down so hard on the side of Yunho’s head, the sound of the crack was sickening. He slumped as far as his restraints would allow, his head lolling forward.

Unconscious, red drool stringing from his mouth.

Radovic grabbed Asher by the face, his fingers clawing, squeezing painfully. “Please let me hurt him,” he gritted out.

Istomin tsked. “I promised him to my friend largely uninjured. Shame.”

Radovic growled. “I want to watch what they do to him.”

Istomin sighed. “I’m sure they’ll allow it.”

Yixing mumbled something and began clicking on a keyboard furiously.

“What is it?” Istomin asked.

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