I scream.
“You lying son of a bitch,” Adrik hisses down at his inferior. “You think I’m fucking stupid?”
Rurik is still moaning, grasping at his head and rolling back and forth. Adrik stands over him, gun aimed unwaveringly at his chest.
“Even if Stefan wasn’t my best friend…” Adrik continues. “Even if he wasn’t my right-hand man… Even if I didn’t trust him with my life, I’d still know you were absolutely full of shit.”
Rurik gurgles in pain, unable to form words.
“Stefan knows where this cabin is, Toma knows, my father knows… and Yasha knows,” Adrik explains grimly. “There is no possible way you could know how to find this cabin without having gotten it out of one of those people. And the only person who would tell is Yasha.”
“Y-Yasha must have… told s-someone else,” Rurik mumbles. His voice is slurred and pained, but he forces the words out anyway. His life depends on how quickly he talks and he knows it. “Word got… around. I heard it w-whispered. Maybe someone else—”
“Shut up,” Adrik says in a grunt as he kicks Rurik in the ribs. “On top of that, all of your bruising is on your right side. Only your right side.”
I shake my head. “What does that have to do with—”
“Stefan is right-handed. The worst of Rurik’s injuries would be on the left if Stefan was responsible,” he says. “But you know who isn’t?”
No one answers.
Adrik leans down to hiss the question in Rurik’s face. “Do you know who has a dominant left hand? You should, considering you risked your life to follow him.”
I breathe the answer into the night like a word I was never meant to say. “Yasha.”
“She gets it. You don’t.” Adrik presses the gun to Rurik’s forehead. “So tell me, Rurik, did my brother send you here as some kind of sacrifice? Or did he actually think this was a good plan?”
Rurik tries to sit up, but Adrik forces him back down with the muzzle of the gun.
"I didn't—Yasha didn't send me," he sputters. "I'm here because Stefan—"
"Lie again and I pull the trigger.”
Rurik's mouth gapes like a fish out of water. He tries and fails to find the words. Then, finally, his body eases into the floor. I watch as he surrenders to his don in every way that matters.
"Okay," he sighs. "Okay. I'll tell you the truth, but… for God’s sake, unload the gun."
I'm positive Adrik isn't going to do it. Why should he? But the man never stops surprising me.
In one fluid motion, he slides the ammunition out of the gun and places it in his back pocket. The gun, now useless, hangs by his side.
"Talk."
"Yasha sent me," Rurik admits. He winces as if he expects another kick in the side after this admission. "Stefan suspected there was a rat. He fed me a bullshit line about you having Yasha held captive."
"And you knew it was shit because you were talking to Yasha."
Rurik nods slowly. "Yeah. So I told Yasha."
"What a good little dog you are," Adrik murmurs. "How long have you been working for him?"
"I'm not working for him, I just—"
"That's a lie." Adrik’s hand strays for the magazine in his back pocket.
“Wait! Wait.” Rurik holds up his hands in self-defense. "I started working for him recently. But I've been… sympathetic to him for a while. Yasha talked to me. Complained about not being considered to lead. I know a thing or two about that. I'm the youngest of five."
"Yasha never wanted it."
"He couldn't have it," Rurik corrects. "Because of you."
Adrik isn’t threatening Rurik with the gun anymore, but he doesn’t need to. He’s standing between Rurik and the lamp, casting a long shadow over the traitor. His voice is deep, booming, irresistible. I’m not sure it’s possible to hear him and not obey.
“Tell me where Yasha is.”
“I can’t,” Rurik says. “I don’t know. I have no idea where he is.”
Adrik shakes his head. “The two of you concocted this shitty plan. He told you where to find me. Tell me where to find him.”
“Really, I don’t know, I swear,” Rurik insists. “I called Yasha and told him Stefan was sniffing around. On that same call, he gave me your address and told me to come here and accuse Stefan of being the rat. He told me…” Rurik frowns and glances up at Adrik.
“What?”
Rurik hesitates and then curses under his breath. “He told me you and Stefan were on the outs. He told me you’d been suspecting Stefan of taking a cut of the profits for a long time. He told me you’d buy the story.”
At that, Adrik laughs. “I didn’t buy your story, but you sure as hell bought his. Yasha played you for a fool. Hearing you now, I can’t imagine it was very hard.”
Rurik’s face is turning white. He looks even worse now than he did when Adrik first smashed part of his skull in. “Why would he do that?”
“Because you’re a fucking traitor,” Adrik says. “Yasha knew if you turned on me to support him, you’d just as easily turn on him to support someone else. That’s what disloyal cowards do. He might’ve hoped I’d be stupid enough to buy your story, but if I didn’t, it’s no loss to him either way. One more rat meets its end, one way or another.”
“But I’m not… I’m not—”
“I’ll ask you one last time: do you know where Yasha is?”
“No. I don’t,” Rurik cries. “I swear I’m telling—”
Rurik’s voice is still echoing off the walls when Adrik whips the gun back and cracks it down over his skull.
When he stands up and backs away, blood is pooling around Rurik’s head, pouring out of his ears and the caved-in portion of his skull.
Adrik spits on the body. “I warned him about lying.”