Page 31 of Cruel Promise

Five

NIKOLAI

The night began like any other.

I met up with Anton, my second in command, on a supply gun check to count the inventory.

The meetup was in Texas by the border. I fucking hated the heat. It always ruined my suits, which I spent thousands of dollars on.

The tarmac was hot when I left the airplane with Anton by my side, and it was well over a hundred degrees by the time we made it to our drop point.

“Relax, boss,” Anton told me. “It’s the usual. We check the guns. Everything should be there. And then we can go back home.”

“But I don’t see why I needed to come this time,” I muttered, staring out the window as our driver took us through the Texan desert. “Everything is in working order.”

“It’s good to keep a personal eye on things.” Anton stretched his long legs out next to me in the backseat. Around my age, he also had dark hair and an even darker grin. We were mistakenfor brothers frequently. He came from another Russian mob family, and I was happy to work with someone who knew the business as I did.

“You could have checked for me,” I tell him.

“Yeah, true. But you’re the boss.”

I shook my head but didn’t argue the point any more.

We arrived at the spot. An open stretch of highway in the middle of the desert. Two large vans sat waiting for us.

The moment I stepped foot outside, I was confronted by the heat. I could see literal heat waves in the air.

“Let’s get this over with.” I walked over to the first van and motioned for the man, Jose, to open the back of it. The van drivers, Jose and Carlos, had worked for me for years. They didn’t ask questions, which was just what I liked in an employee.

Jose lifted the storage door, revealing at least twenty boxes.

“Open one,” Anton instructed.

Jose took the lid off one of the boxes, and there it was. Guns. Military-styled machine guns. The entire van was full of them and so was the other one.

Anton whistled. “This will make us so much fucking money.”

I ran my hand down my face. There were no ridges. No bumps.

That’s because I didn’t have my scar yet.

“Everything is all there?” I asked Jose.

He nodded. “I counted. All twenty boxes. All hundred guns.”

I turned to Carlos. “Is it the same in that van?”

“Yes. But you can look if you want.”

“I trust you two. You’ve done good work for me before. I say we get back in our cars and leave this fucking place.”

“Sounds good,” Anton says. “But first, there’s something I’d like to say.”

His tone made me frown, and I looked over at him.

He had a gun pointed right at me.

“Anton,” I said slowly, raising my hands slightly. The driver of my car pulled out a gun … also pointed at me. “What’s going on?”

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