Chapter Five
VERA
My hands trail the buildings as I walk the empty streets in no hurry to get home, a smile still on my face from the events of the evening. I have been running this damn show, this cage fighting, for a year now, and it never gets old. It’s because there are always surprises.
I had been so sure I knew which of them would win, but at the final leg, one of them just surged ahead with a will to live while the other clearly wanted to rot in hell rather than work for me. It happens that way sometimes. It isn’t like I go easy on my enemies, even when they begin to serve me. But now I have this old guy, one who was probably close to a nice retirement under Glib's supervision before I caught him and ripped him right off the streets. That’s what I do because they are my streets.
I should be more careful out here alone...no bodyguard of any kind, and it’s early in the morning, the prime time for the slime balls to come out of the woodworks. But who would be dumb or desperate enough to fuck with me, especially after a good fight like that? And if they do decide to fuck with me, then I will fuck them up.
A lot of men think I have too much confidence and too much power, but that’s another reason I work alone and live alone...well...almost alone. I live with my best friend, though she is in and out these days for reasons I’d rather not think about when I am on a high for a good night. It could be harmless; her having a little fun or her seeing a man. And I sure hope it’s that. That she is still clean.
Speaking of men, I saw Rhys, that fucking Romanian asshole, there tonight. I don’t know how he got in my club, how he got the password, who the fuck would dare defy me by helping him out, but the fucker was so smug standing there. He was starting right at me and yet seemed to think he was blending in. I could smell his bullshit from a mile away. I don’t know what he was thinking showing his face there, but maybe it needs some rearranging even though it would be a damn shame. He may be a skeeze, but he is handsome...for a Romanian.
Shit, who cares, though. I despise him for what he has done. Everyone here knows what a pig he is, betraying his own for a friendship of convenience to someone even lower than scum. And then allowing that scum to fuck up everything in Russia. It turned out to be in my favor that the Romanians lost this part of the world because I got a foothold, but it doesn’t mean I don’t distrust him being here. Nothing good can come of it.
I am approaching my street when I hear something, faint footsteps as if I am being followed. I don’t look back, only slow my pace. If that doesn’t fuck with his mind, I don’t know what will.
I am a woman, and I should run, I should know my place.
And I do. It’s at the fucking top.
What I don’t expect is that two men come up to me, one cutting me off form the side and the other at my back. I feel a knife poking up against my back as the man behind me, clearly shorter than myself, tries to get me into the alley. Even better; no witnesses to what I am about to do to these men.
I play the part of the scared, frozen woman and do as they say, knowing what these two want with me. Considering they haven’t covered their faces, I also know they have no intention on leaving me alive. It’s really too bad because I have no intention of leaving them alive.
The moment we are out of sight, I go for the knife, kicking the man behind me to the ground with an "oomph" when my heel connects with his stomach, then the knife slices across the jugular of the other man faster than he has time to react. I watch for a second as he garbles and struggles to talk and breathe, his hands flying up to the stream of red as he collapses.
I turn to the other man, knife in hand, and I smile manically at him. I know he has another weapon on him as he reaches for it, still in pain, but I reach out much too fast, slashing his stomach through his clothes right where I already hurt him. Then, I go for his hands, his chest, his face. He is a fucking masterpiece of bloody cuts when I am done with him.
I don’t need to watch this one die. I would rather be home, so I leave him in the alley with his dead friend, keeping the knife for my own purposes. Maybe a trophy, or maybe I will gut someone else with it. Who knows?
I walk into my little house; little but good, much more than I ever thought I would have. I see Olena still up, her headphones in her ears as she jams to whatever she has playing. I smile at the fact that she is here; here and completely clean and off the drugs. She has struggled with them for years, though she had been clean for a few months, I worry. I worry every time she doesn’t come home at night. I worry when she turns down food and loses weight, when I see the familiar circles under her eyes.
She is probably the only human left in the world whom I truly care about, and I wish I had the tools to save her. I try, but my power is so limited when it comes to the silent killer of the drugs that run these streets as much as I do.
She smiles at me. "Good night, Vera?" she asks, though I don’t even know if she will be able to hear the answer over the noise. So, I nod.
"As good a night as any."