Anatoli
I walk into the warehouse and find the back office.
Leo and Kill are standing by the large metal door.
Leo is nearly as tall as the door and looks like the typical Bratva man with tattoos covering his arms and neck. Kill is tall, too, but is more built and has elbow-length black hair with shaved sides. He reminds me of a Viking warrior, especially with the runes for death, war, protection, and justice tattooed on his neck and arms.
"We're back here," Leo says, motioning through the door.
"Is our new friend still functional?" They were still trying to interrogate the guy while I was on my way.
"He is, and still not talking."
No surprise there.
They lead me inside, where I find Zakh and Malik standing together with their guns at their sides. Both acknowledge me when I walk in. I do the same then I take in the bald-headed Chinese guy sitting in front of them. He's covered in blood and tattoos from head to toe. He has so many tattoos, I can't tell the blood and ink apart. I also can't tell how old he is.
The guys have him chained to a metal chair with shackles on the arms and feet, holding him in place. The chair looks like it was stolen from the set ofThe Green Mile but I see why they needed it. The guy has so much muscle on him he could pulverize a man with just one look.
I can also tell why they had trouble getting him to talk. He seems to be the type to hold his silence. I haven't had many dealings with the Triads, but the encounters I've had haven't been good. I imagine, like most of us in the criminal underworld, they're keen to hold on to information.
"Who captured him?" I ask.
"Me," Leo replies. "I had to hit him with a tranquilizer powerful enough to knock out an elephant."
"Then I hog-tied him and brought him here for the roasting." Kill pushes his elbow-length hair over his shoulder, revealing the rune for death tattooed on his neck.
"What's his name?"
"Xiou Miu. That's all we have on him at the moment."
I move closer to Zakh, and he points to the table beside him that holds a set of pictures laid out across the top.
"There were more pictures, but these were the most relevant," he explains.
The pictures of Avrora and me are the first I see. They show us in different places over the last few weeks. Some together, others by ourselves. Rage fills every cell of my body when I find the pictures of my mother next to those.
There are five of them and part of my life drains when I realize she's wearing the same clothes she died in. A red jumper and a pair of black jeans, her hair in a ponytail.
The pictures are of her at a gas station in Russia. One I remember us going to when we were on the run. When I run my fingers over the image, Zakh moves closer.
Something sinister dawns on me, and I cut the guy a sharp glance before looking back at Zakh. "These pictures had to have been taken hours before my mother died."
Zakh's eyes go wide, and Malik inches closer.
"Are you sure, Anatoli?" Malik asks.
"I will never forget. This guy is a tracker. He must have tracked us down."
I remember how we ran to the old farmhouse in the Moscow countryside. No one was supposed to be able to find us there, but Uther did. He came with men. It looks like this guy was one of them.
Fury makes me reach for my gun. I'm about to rain hell on this motherfucker's ass, but Zakh grabs my arm.
"Anatoli, we need him alive."
I shove him off. "I'm going to make him talk one way or another. I don't-"
My voice cuts when I catch sight of another set of pictures on the other side of the table. They're of Pavel and Vittoria Butyrskaya.
"He has pictures of the Butyrskayas as well," I say more to myself than to Zakh.
"You knew them?" Zakh looks from me to the pictures.
"Yes."
I move around the table to get a better look at the photographs.
Pavel's dark eyes stare back at me. He looks exactly like I remember him. A long beard, light blond hair, and that air of authority. Vittoria looks as gentle as I remember, too, with her kind blue eyes.
"This asshole has a lot to answer for." I look at the man again and take in his expressionless face. He doesn't even look like he's in pain from whatever the guys must have done to him to cause him to bleed.
What is this man doing with pictures of these ghosts?
And what the hell is going on? I actually didn't feel like I was involved, until this.
I move over to our new friend and stare him down. I want to kill him, but I want answers more.
"My name is Anatoli Scarfoni, but you already knew that." I'm only telling him my name because where I come from, it's polite to give a man the name of his killer so he knows who sent him to hell. "I won't hesitate to fuck you up if you don't tell me what I want to know."
Xiou gives me nothing. He doesn't even blink.
"That's all we've been getting from him." Zakh looks at me with sternness. "Silence and a few snide remarks here and there. I'm trying to find something that will make him talk."
"Good luck with that," Xiou mumbles, but he's looking at me. I keep my gaze trained on him, too.
"You don't know me, friend," Zakh spits. "I don't need luck. I just need time, and you are running out of yours."
Xiou switches his gaze from me to Zakh momentarily before he's looking at me again.
"He might not know you, but he knows me. He was following me after all." I tap the side of my head with my gun and smile like the psycho I am. "I'm going to give you a chance to tell us what we want to know. If you don't take that chance, you get to discover the real me."