Ulisse tried to pull a gun, but Timur stepped into him and slapped him so hard it rocked the man backward. Timur followed and repeated the slap a second and then a third time until Ulisse was against the wall. Timur spun him around and slammed him face-first into the concrete wall. He was leopard strong and every slap, his grab and the way he shoved Ulisse, took its toll on the man. Timur patted him down, removing weapons and brass knuckles and his cell phone. Only then did he turn him around and, grabbing him by his shirt, forced him to walk to the chair bolted to the floor in the middle of the room.
“I don’t like traitors.” Timur spat on the ground at the crime boss’s feet. “I don’t like that you sold out my family thinking Lazar would give you a better deal when he sent you young girls to sell. There’s not much about you I do like, so if I were you, I’d tell me whatever I want to know immediately, because I know more ways to hurt you then you can imagine.”
“You’re making a mistake …”
Timur shook his head. “I don’t make mistakes. You got greedy. You wanted to be Elijah Lospostos. You wanted his power and the respect the council gives him. They give him respect because he doesn’t sell out his friends the way you did. Lazar Amurov is my uncle. I’ve known him since I was a boy. He’s cruel and vicious and loyal only to himself. He would have eaten you alive.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about …”
Timur’s slap knocked out two teeth. Ulisse nearly choked on his lies.
The crime boss could only stare in horror at the bodies of the two men he’d brought with him, the only two men who knew who had sent him a message. Fyodor had texted him that an informant had said there was a threat against him and one of his security guards was involved. He was sending Timur to get him. Tell no one else, especially his guards, other than his most trusted. Bring them with him. It had been that easy.
Fyodor opened the door and stepped through. He glanced down causally at the two dead men and then walked around them to pull up a chair opposite Ulisse. He was a good distance away so as not to get a speck of blood on his clothing. His silence made Ulisse turn even whiter, his eyes rolling in his head.
“Tell me about the Tregre brothers. Beau and Gilbert. How did you get involved with them?”
“Fuck you, I don’t know …”
Timur punched him, three to the face and several more to his gut. He used half the strength the leopard gave him, but that was harder than any human could hit. He stepped back. “I could go at this all day. A week. A month. I haven’t gotten started. I have my tools laid out, drills, the electrical shock, that’s always fun. I know you’ve seen the results. I can pull all your teeth. That’s fun for you as well but you’ll still be able to answer me. Have some fuckin’ dignity.”
Ulisse spit blood over and over. He sat up slowly. “They came to me. They were the ones who came to me. Said they had a sweet deal going and wanted to expand. I heard them out. They made sense.” He spat more blood.
“They brought you the opium, and you sent it out of the country. To Lazar. You already had the pipeline to him through the trafficking. No one traffics without Lazar’s fingers in it somewhere,” Timur said. “So, you used that same pipeline.”
He nodded. Coughed. Spat more blood. “I think you broke something in me.”
“How did you get the idea to sell our family out to Lazar?”
“I asked Beau why he didn’t take such a sweet deal to his son-in-law. Evangeline is his daughter, so why didn’t he go to Fyodor instead of me? I wasn’t going to get caught in something Fyodor wouldn’t touch. He said there was family trouble in Russia and Fyodor wouldn’t do business there.”
Timur glanced at Fyodor to see his reaction. “You just took it on yourself to point the finger at us?”
“I told Beau that I did business with Lazar Amurov and that Lazar put out feelers, that he’s got them all over for Mitya, Fyodor, you and the others. Beau mentioned to me that sooner or later someone was going to tell him where you all were, which is true.”
“Why would Beau say anything at all to you about the family? All he cared about was the opium getting through.”
He spat again and tried to look at Timur through his swollen eyes. “Both Beau and Gilbert liked to be paid bonuses. I didn’t get the opium unless I supplied them with girls from time to time. They knew Lazar supplied the girls to me because the girls told them.”