Page 249 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

“That’s not a gesture I recognize,” I tell him as I point the gun at his head.

“Por favor,” he begs. “Razor is the one who wanted to check you out.”

“I don’t care,” I grit. “You messed with the wrong fucking Don.”

Then I shoot him between the eyes.

One more left.

But just as I’m turning to head back and finish off the wounded leader, I see a large form lunge at me out of the corner of my eye.

It’s Blondie.

The bullet I had fired earlier had only passed cleanly through his shoulder. He’s bleeding profusely, but he still has full function of his other arm.

He manages to land a punch, but it’s badly aimed and it only succeeds in pissing me off.

I avoid the next reckless punch by ducking down low. My fist darts out and hits him square in the stomach. He grunts and stumbles back, dazed.

I immediately go on the offensive. Seizing a rock in my grip, I take one step forward and smash it into his face.

Blondie’s eyes roll back in his head.

Before he can recover, I cock back and bring the rock down again.

I hear the crunch of his nose breaking beneath the stone in my hand. His legs give way. He lands on his knees in front of me.

His eyes are cloudy with pain, but I can still see the fear there.

I grab his head. His muscles tense, but he’s too hurt to do much more than scrabble at me uselessly with his remaining good hand.

He whispers, “Dios, no…”

“You picked the wrong man to mess with,” I say.

Then I twist hard and hear the snap of his neck. He crumples to the dirt, lifeless.

I look between the two bodies at my feet.

I can’t just leave them here.

But first, I have one more loose end to tie up.

So I pick up their guns and head back to the mountain edge that slopes into the ravine. When I return, Scarface is the only one left in the clearing. He’s still breathing somehow, so I put a bullet in his skull.

Then I follow the trail of blood that the leader has left in his wake.

It takes me ten minutes to find him limping through the hilly forest in an attempt to escape me.

By this point, I’m really fucking irritated.

He doesn’t see me until I fire a warning shot at the tree he’s leaning against. At which point he jumps and then falls to the ground just like his sniveling, cowardly companions.

I walk over to him. He’s trying to crawl away from me, one bloody, dirt-stained inch at a time.

“Please,” he says. “Please…”

I shake my head at him. “This is the big leagues, my friend,” I say harshly. “Did you really think you’d get to walk away from this with your life?”

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