Page 10 of The Debt

The gentle family physician who had once saved lives had died that night alongside his family. In his place rose The Dark One, a man who had learned to embrace the void where his soul used to be. He couldn’t even remember the sound of his own laughter anymore, couldn’t recall what it felt like to heal instead of harm.

Dwarfed by the vast hoard of opulence, Jarek’s ghostly reflection, trapped in the massive windows, stared back to mock what he had become.

The violent death of his loved ones and the subsequent journey into darkness had ripped apart his moral fiber. The Hippocratic oath, the very core of his belief system, had been discarded in favor of retribution at any cost.

Those first years in Dublin after his family’s murder, moving among the Southies Irish Gang, he would wake in cold sweats with his hands trembling as he remembered the first time he’d had to hurt someone to get information. He had known exactly where to apply pressure and which nerves would cause the most pain while leaving no permanent damage. His medical knowledge, once used to heal, became a tool for torture.

“You know,” he spoke gruffly, his voice barely carrying across the marble expanse of the penthouse, “I used to vomit after every interrogation in those early days. The guilt made me so nauseous, I couldn’t keep food down.” He traced his fingers along a small scar on his temple. “O’Brien used to say I was too soft, that I needed to embrace what I was becoming.”

Declan remained silent, knowing these rare moments of reflection were precious insights into the man who had become his mentor.

“But then something changed,” Jarek continued. His eyes focused on some distant point in the city below. “I started seeing them not as patients or even people but as obstacles to overcome. The elimination of each and every one allowed me another step closer to Polov. The nausea stopped, and the trembling in my hands ceased.” He turned with a stony look to face Declan.

“The nightmares about what I was doing were always superseded by the lasting images of Emma and Lisbet. The darkness... it didn’t come to me. I traveled toward it, letting it slowly envelop me. It felt oddly soothing to surrender to its power, letting go as if freefalling into a black hole where nothing, not even light, escapes.”

Jarek quietly strode to the bar. He chose a small paring knife from a drawer and briefly heated the blade with a cigarette lighter. With the deft touch of a surgeon, he turned the neck of the bottle to score through the wax seal that protected the cork. Upon opening the fifty-one-thousand-dollar bottle of Macallan single malt scotch whiskey that had slumbered in sherry oak casks for forty years, the release of its elegant and thick nose with spices and dried fruit aromas didn’t escape unappreciated. From under the collimated beam of an accent light, two prismatically cut glasses lost their full-color spectrum as Jarek filled the stout crystal tumblers with the dark elixir. Handing one to Declan, he toasted their success and continued.

“By the time I ordered my first hit, I had already crossed over from a life of knowledge and truth into a dark realm filled with danger and ignorance.” Jarek dismissed his own acknowledgment with a snort of laughter. “O’Brien was right. The healer in me had died and was replaced with the fundamentalist thoughts of a religious zealot bent on the destruction of his enemies.”

The bitterness that nearly consumed him over the years had been somewhat assuaged by a strange irony.

“I’m still practicing medicine, in a way. I’m removing a disease from society, excising the cancerous tumor that is the Bratva. Every death I order, every life I take from those bastards, it’s all part of a prescribed treatment. The doctor I once was would be horrified now by the judge, jury, and executioner I’ve become.” Jarek poured another dram of whiskey and held it up to the light. “Or is it much worse than I care to admit—that in my crusade against Polov, I’ve become unholy and usurped the powers of the fallen angel to exact a terrible revenge.”

Jarek had admitted to himself long ago that he no longer had the capacity for forgiveness. It was taken away from him in an instant when he watched his family die violently, and all because of the homicidal inclinations of one Gregor Polov.

Jarek’s voice darkened. “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds. I let go, although not to accept a higher power, but instead, to become the very instrument of it.”

Moving back to the windows, Jarek’s voice took on a colder edge.

“The darkness doesn’t fight me anymore because I am the darkness. Every shred of compassion, every hint of mercy, has been burned away. All that remains is to wield this dark power as a means to an end.”

Yet one line remained uncrossed. In all his years of building his empire, of spreading fear through the criminal underworld, neither he nor his men had ever harmed an innocent. Criminals, yes—they died by the dozens—but never civilians, never families. It was the one thread that connected him to the man he used to be, the one principle he refused to abandon.

“What’s next, Boss?” Declan asked in an attempt to wrest Jarek from the disquiet of his own introspection.

“Send the package to Simmons first thing tomorrow,” Jarek ordered as he turned to stare out over the city once more. His voice became cold again. “Make sure our people are in place to monitor his reaction. He needs to realize there’s a new boss in charge. I need to know he can be trusted. The wheel is turning, Declan. After twenty years, it’s finally turning.”

“I will be there to personally oversee it.” Declan drained off the last exquisite stains of Macallan and dipped his nose into the empty glass. “I just want to say that I have never in my life been the recipient of such unconditional generosity that you alone have given and the kindness you have shown to me in all manner of things, Boss. I believe you are still that good man. I have witnessed it.” He smiled wryly.

“This gorgeous whiskey has loosened my tongue. I hope I haven’t offended you by speaking my mind. I owe you a debt of gratitude I’ll never be able to repay. You saved my pathetic life. I’d like to toast you, but doing so with an empty glass is bad luck. Shall we indulge one more time?”

“I’m not offended in the least. I appreciate your honesty. You have the heart of a lion.” He snorted. “Polov isn’t prepared for what’s coming, Declan. No one is… least of all his loving family.” An icy glaze reappeared in Jarek’s eyes to put into deep freeze the brief display of innate empathy that had shown through.

“The indiscriminate killing of my family ripped the lid off the darkest of my human traits to animate the demons inside of me. It has shaped and nourished the monster—unleashed it to run amuck. The time has come to turn it loose to tear apart Polov and his criminal empire. They will learn what it feels like to suffer excruciating suffering. There will be nowhere to hide or safe quarter given. Neither mercy nor surrender will be offered. I will erase them from the face of the earth.”

“And after Polov?” Declan asked quietly. “After the Polovskaya Bratva empire is destroyed?”

Distracted once again by the ghostly reflection captured in the large picture window, Jarek stood fixed to peer at it uncomfortably. It stared back contemptuously, taunting him with a provocative sneer embossed upon its ugly face, mocking the slightest gesture to remind him of the monstrous thing he had become.

“Shame is nature’s cocaine, Declan.” Jarek paused, his eyes turning distant as he gathered his thoughts. “It’s insidious, a poison that can reshape the mind and body, sending stress hormones racing through your system until you lose all control. I have built defenses against it, mental walls so thick and high that shame doesn’t touch me anymore.”

His voice hardened. “Whatever monster I had become, it’s a path I chose deliberately. The darkness inside me serves a purpose—to destroy those who shattered my world. Any chance for redemption has been crushed beneath my need for revenge.” He smirked. “I am so far past the halfway point of this crusade, there’s no turning back. What I am now... this is permanent. The wheel doesn’t turn backward.”

Chapter Six

Gregor Polov

The luxurious estate of Gregor Polov, Lakeshore Drive NW, Berkeley Lake, Georgia…

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