Page 7 of Alik

The mole above his lip shifts as his lip curls, and he faces forward while he processes this. “Maybe it’s time we make use of the princess.”

The princess. As in, the special agent’s daughter.

Her image comes into my mind, and the first thing I see is cinnamon hair that so skillfully hides her face. She’s a nervous thing and is always looking at her feet, so I’ve only caught brief glimpses of her bluish-gray eyes that look at me like I’m a strange new species she’s staring at through a thick glass plate ata zoo. It isn’t that uncommon. The scar on my iris freaks some people out.

“She isn’t much of a princess,” I reply, remembering the letter.

Normally, her mail bores me. It’s nothing but junk. Six months ago, when her father was put in charge, I moved into the same apartment building to keep her in our sights, but it wasn’t until the other day that something interesting showed up in her box.

“She’s a junkie,” I go on. “And Daddy’s tired of footing the bill. There won’t be any information I can get from her, if that’s what you’re thinking. I doubt they even speak regularly.”

Nikita shakes his head. “That isn’t what I was thinking. I don’t give a shit about getting information on the bastard, but I do want to make him hurt.” He runs his hand over the ball of his cane and turns to me. “Can she accomplish that?”

Make him hurt.

I consider it. She’s a junkie, who from the sound of it has been a pain in his ass, yet he’s paying for that apartment and probably for her drugs. If she was dead, I’d be doing him a favor.

But would it hurt?

Probably.

Well, yes, definitely. Their relationship may be strained, but he wouldn’t be paying for the apartment if he didn’t love her.

“Yes.” I nod. “An overdose would be most believable.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t care about believability. I care aboutpain. And the more she feels, the more he’ll feel. Cause of death needs to be slow and brutal. Find some more rats to feed her to if you’re not feeling creative, I don’t give a shit.” He looks off, but not before I see his eyes ignite like he does in fact give a shit. “It would be a fitting death… Kill all of them that way, but pay special attention to the girl beforehand.”

His lip is no longer curled. Instead, it’s lifted in a slight, sick smile while I stare at him, thinking through my response. Nikita Petrov is not a stupid man, but sometimes, when his eyes look like this, his fantasies make him do stupid things.

“With all due respect, sir, I think we should be concerned that it would only pour gasoline on the fire we’ve already started. We left the informant’s body to be found to send a message. If we leave our calling card on the SAC’s daughter, they’ll retaliate with a force we’ll need to be prepared for.”

Tension coils in the car, and if I were to glance at Nikita’s hand, I know I’d find it white-knuckled on his cane. It’s better not to disagree with him. I am the weapon, not the voice of reason.

But this time, I have to speak.

“If, however,” I continue, “We leavesomeone else’scalling card, it could take the heat off us altogether. Pain is a great distraction, sir, but the need for revenge is even greater. I can use another organization’s heroin to overdose her. The Armenians, perhaps.”

The tension doesn’t dissipate. His jaw doesn’t slacken. If I have to feed that girl to rats, I will, but right now, I’d rather feed Nikita to them for the sake of making room for more reasonable leadership.

He nods at last, but he looks no less pissed. “That’s good thinking, Alik.” Sucking in a long breath, he cracks his neck. “Use the Irish’s supply, and make it painful.”

The Irish. One of many rivals, one large enough to cause big problems for us if they find out what we’ve done. I don’t like it, but I don’t dare argue. I’m not afraid of Nikita, but I know better than to push it.

“Understood.”

The driver pulls the car over a couple blocks from my apartment building, letting me out to stop at a liquor store to pick out a bottle of wine for this evening’s job.

I see the girl in my mind again and wonder what the night will bring.

3

OLIVE

The man in 3B stands at his open window with a cigarette perched between his fingers.

He’s freshly showered, so his damp hair must be turning to crystals as he leans slightly out his apartment, blowing smoke from the second story. But he doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t even seem to register the winter chill.

He can’t see me… He never does. I’m slumped in a plastic chair across the street inside a laundromat with my sketchbook blocking most of my face. My hood covers my hair, and in case all that isn’t enough, I’m wearing white-rimmed sunglasses so he’d never be able to tell where I was looking if he bothered to glimpse inside the laundromat, which he never has.

---