Page 73 of Ten

“Da.” Ten noticed Boychenko on the left side of the room. A flick of the kid’s eyes and Ten realized he had missed Kostya while walking through the door.

Alejandro inhaled sharply as Kostya put a gun to the man’s temple as he entered the storage unit. Stas appeared from wherever he had been lurking outside, cutting off Alejandro’s only means of escape. Stas shut and locked the door, and Ten gritted his teeth as he waited for the violence to come.

Alejandro lifted both hands and held still as Boychenko stepped forward and frisked him. The kid plucked all the weapons he found and carried them to a different toolbox on the other side of the unit. He placed them in the top drawer and then picked up a folding metal chair that he opened and set down in the center of the room.

Kostya grabbed Alejandro’s hand and bent the man’s wrist into a painful position. He pinned it to the small of Alejandro’s back and perp-walked him to the chair. He shoved him down and warned, “You move and I’ll have you tied to it.”

“Understood,” Alejandro replied, his voice calm and steady.

“You made my wife cry.” Nikolai touched his wedding band, sliding it around his finger. “Ten is more than her bodyguard. He’s a brother to her, and you tried to kill him. She’s been upset since we got the call.” Nikolai lowered his hands, the slow movement deceptively relaxed. “When my wife cries, our son doesn’t understand. It makes him anxious and sad.”

“I’m sorry that I upset your wife and son,” Alejandro apologized. “That was never my intent.” He glanced at Kostya and then exhaled hard. “Do whatever you need to do to make things square between us, but do it fast. I don’t know how much longer they’ll keep Kiki in the US or alive.”

Nikolai exchanged a meaningful look with Kostya who had holstered his weapon after putting Alejandro in the chair. Suddenly, and so quickly it rattled Ten, Kostya produced a scalpel, tugged hard on Alejandro’s right ear, and struck it free with one masterful swipe. The ear separated from the man’s head, and he cried out in pain before slamming his hand against the bloody, gaping wound left behind.

Ten swore under his breath and stormed over to a rolling cart with cleaning supplies on it. He grabbed a handful of heavy-duty paper towels and brought them back to Alejandro who smashed them against his ear to stem the bleeding. Ten glanced at Nikolai who silently dared him to protest. There would be a time to discuss this, but it wasn’t now, not in front of an outsider.

Ne vynosi sor iz izby.

Don’t argue outside the shack.

“Explain,” Nikolai demanded.

Alejandro gave a shortened version of his story to the boss. Nikolai listened intently, asking questions when he had them. “So, you think the financiers behind Adrian and Tony are responsible for breaking Kiki out of prison?”

“I do.” Alejandro eyed Kostya who stood at a sink washing his hands. “I kidnapped your man over here because I wanted him to take me to Kiki’s ex-wife. I interviewed inmates and guards who had contact with Kiki. I read letters he wrote to the fucked-up serial killer groupies who love him. I saw and heard the same thing again and again. He fucking hates that woman, and he’ll do anything to see her one last time.”

Ten curled his fingers into fists. The idea of Kiki sitting and daydreaming about torturing and murdering Nisha infuriated him. That sick freak had to go. Period. Full stop.

“I don’t have to tell you how big and nasty a stain Adrian’s connection to that filth left on us.” Nikolai shifted his weight and pushed off the toolbox. He crossed the unit and took a good look at Alejandro’s ear before calling out to Kostya in Russian. “It was a clean cut. Some of your better work.”

“I try.” Kostya approached with a sealed medical kit from a cabinet. Boychenko trailed behind, pushing a rolling metal tray like the ones used in emergency and operating rooms. Alejandro looked at the tray and flinched when Boychenko slipped on a pair of gloves. Kostya chortled. “What? I’m not going to cut on you again.”

“You sure?” Alejandro nervously eyed the kit that Boychenko was opening.

“We’re not animals,” Kostya remarked. “I’m going to sew you up.”

“Why?”

“We’re going to need you, and I’d rather you not bleed all over my vehicles.” He glanced at the kid who meticulously placed each piece from the kit onto the cloth-draped tray. “Besides, the kid hasn’t mastered the art of properly cleaning upholstery yet.”

Boychenko met Ten’s gaze with a lopsided smile. “It’s true.”

Of all the men Kostya might have picked to train as a cleaner, Ten never would have chosen Roman Boychenko. He was young and kind and too nice for his own good. Yet, here he was, preparing for surgery on a man his mentor had just mutilated.

“How far did you get tracing the financiers?” Kostya wondered as he pulled on surgical gloves. Behind him, Boychenko stabbed a needle into a bottle of anesthetic and drew up a good amount into the syringe. He handed it over to Kostya who wasted no time jabbing the medication into Alejandro’s head.

“All the way to Eastern Europe.” Alejandro winced as Kostya moved the needle around the gaping wound where his ear used to be. “Romania.”

“What happened in Romania?” Nikolai asked, stepping aside to get a better view of the man’s face as they spoke.

“I tracked the IP address that was used to upload and sell the videos and photos of my daughter to a house there.” Alejandro hissed as Kostya poked around his wound. “It was abandoned, and whoever had been there was gone. I could tell they had been running a fairly high-end operation.”

“How?” Kostya asked and handed the empty syringe back to Boychenko.

“The wiring and the equipment left behind,” Alejandro clarified. “Servers, meters of co-ax cable, fans, and overrides to the air conditioning units to keep the rooms cool. It was obvious someone had been spending big money to keep the equipment running around the clock.”

“Fucking animals,” Nikolai swore. “The ones selling it, and the ones buying it.”

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