LIAM
Our first stop is Russia, to meet with Levin’s old boss. It’s hardly a place I was eager to return to, and I feel a cold knot of dread in my stomach as we disembark from the plane, tension rippling through me. From the expression on Max’s face, he feels similarly.
A driver is waiting for us, and I glance at Levin. “We’re going to leave this place all in one piece, correct?”
Levin smirks, opening the door. “We’ll all be fine. My old boss has a special arrangement with Viktor now. You’ll be in no danger, I promise you.”
I’d never thought of Levin as anything but Viktor’s guard dog, his main enforcer and right-hand man, but as we approach the fortified mansion where we’re meeting with his former boss, I begin to see him in a new light.
Max and I follow as we get out of the car; Levin strides towards the iron gates, his expression tense as we approach the armed men ten deep at the front gates alone.“Smert elo milost,”he growls to the man at the very front, a tall and muscle-bound guard all in black with a flak vest and a semi-automatic weapon in his hands.
“Vladimir is expecting you,” the man replies, and the gates swing open.
Fuck.As we walk down the stone path towards the looming front doors, across the expansive green lawn—more green than I’ve seen anywhere else in Moscow thus far—I feel my skin prickle. The entire place is crawling with armed men, more even than I’d ever seen in Viktor’s security.
“How many enemies can a man have to need an army in his front yard?” I hiss to Levin, who smirks.
“Vladimir does not have enemies,” he says, nodding to the men guarding the front door as it opens. “He has men who do not yet know they are dead.”
Well, fuck me.I glance over at Max, expecting a similar reaction on his face, but it’s as hard and tense as I’ve ever seen it. Every line of his body tells me that he’s not pleased to be here, and it makes me wonder how much of his story I still don’t know. After all, I don’t know him well, only that he’s a former priest under Viktor’s protection.
The foyer is black and white tile in a diamond checkerboard pattern, leading to a mahogany staircase that goes up to the second floor. There are more guards scattered upstairs, patrolling. It makes me feel skittish and on edge as Levin leads us upstairs, turning to the right as if he’s been here a hundred times before, and down to a set of double doors overlooking the lower floor.
Of course, he has. He used to work for this man.
Here, away from Viktor, Levin seems different—more commanding. His blue eyes are flinty as he raps on the double doors, repeating the same Russian phrase he had at the front gates. His voice is rougher and more thickly accented than usual.
“Smert elo milost.”
I narrow my eyes as the doors open, looking curiously at Levin. “What does that mean?”
He glances over at me, his face expressionless. “Death is a mercy.”
I think of our own words, the phrase spoken by the leading King.I do not demand that you kneel, but I ask that you bow.“And I thought our words were dark,” I mutter as we follow Levin inside, the doors closing behind us with a heavy finality that makes my skin crawl.
This entire place feels like a monument to death and torture, and it makes me feel faintly sick. I’ve never been fond of the more brutal side of the life I was born into. I’ve never been a man like Luca or Viktor, who torture with ease when need be. I’d never ripped out a man’s fingernail or cut off a piece of him until the night I helped them torture Alexei, and for all that, I don’t regret my part in ending that man; I still wake in a cold sweat from dreams of it some nights.
Bleeding a man like that was a new experience for me, one that I’m in no hurry to repeat. I don’t quite know what it was that came over me that night, beyond a sheer and palpable rage that he’d sold Ana before I could save her, that he’d consigned her to a fate that I might never be able to rescue her from. I’d helped torture him as much out of anger at myself as rage directed towards him, and I can’t ever forget what we did that night. Every time I look at Max, I still hear his words echoing as he’d started to cut at the man’s hand.
Aren’t you afraid of your God?
I would, if I thought God was in this room.
I glance sideways at Max, wondering if he still has nightmares about it too, or if he ever did. This house feels like another place where there is no God, only the brutality of man against man, for crimes both real and imagined. This is the place that will be sending men and women to Viktor and Levin soon to train, and I wonder just how much better it is than what Viktor did before.
At least they’ll be there of their own choice, I hope.
There’s a long desk spread with papers in the center of the tiled room, art scattered across the walls in heavy gilt frames. Behind the desk is a tall, handsome man, perhaps in his early forties, with blond hair combed back and the icy blue eyes I’ve become accustomed to seeing in the faces of so many of these Russian men, his broad jaw set as he looks up and sees us.
“Ah, Levin.” Although he looks mildly pleased to see the other man, his expression remains stern. “I’d heard you wanted a meeting. Is this about the business with Viktor? I sent word I’d have the first group of students shipped over in the next weeks, just as soon as their papers can be arranged—”
“It’s not about that, Vladimir, although Viktor was pleased to hear it.”
“Hmm.” The man’s thick pale eyebrows twitch, and he seems to notice us for the first time. “And who are these men you’ve brought with you? Not future assassins, from the look of them.”
“No, sir.” Levin gestures, and both Max and I step forward. “This is Liam McGregor, leader of the Boston chapter of the Irish Kings, and Maximilian Agosti, a priest.”
“A priest, eh? We don’t get many of those under this roof. Someone in need of last rites?”