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In the basement under the bar in Mexico City, the man with just one eye left and no teeth looks up at me with a pitiful, hollow expression. Yet, through the ruin of his face, the torment of his soul, and the utter hopelessness in his heart, I can tell.
He knows.
And he remembers.
The man wallowing in a puddle of his own blood, piss, and excrement is Daniil Gorav, a mid-tier Bratva strongman with a pathetic little fiefdom of “power” in St. Petersburg. He’s a nobody. A shitstain the bigger Bratva families in Russia would wipe off the sole of their shoe without a second thought.
But I’ve given Daniil plenty of second thoughts. And third, and fourth, and fifth thoughts.
It’s hard to forget one of the men who held you down, laughing and forcing you to watch, as your mother’s throat was slit in front of you.
Fifteen years ago, Daniil thought his star was on the rise. He was two tiers down from the Iron Table and might have eventually risen to the higher ranks, alongside the Bratva kings he idolized and worked for.
But then he made the gravest mistake of his life: he helped those larger Bratva families betray and murder my family.
Since then, I know he’s woken up plenty of nights worrying if it’s me he’s just heard outside his bedroom window. Wondering if his wife is late getting home from her shopping because I’ve gotten my hands on her.
There’s a reason I’ve left him alone for more than a few years, even after tracking him down and discovering every single thing about his life, his schedule, his hopes, dreams, and family.
I’ve wanted him to fear this day for as long as possible.
I’d have let the horror his life has become over the last four years go on for another decade, if I could. He wouldn’t be the first of my prey to throw themselves off a building or swallow the barrel of their own gun to end the suffering. Of course, I do everything in my power not to let it come to that.
That’s cheating. And I hate being cheated out of my prize. My vengeance.
Unfortunately, Daniil’s just forced my hand. I got wind late last night, back home icing my fucking balls after she kneed me, that he was enroute to Mexico City to undergo major reconstructive facial surgery.
The pussy couldn’t even take his own life after I ruined it. He thought he could escape me by changing who he was.
He was wrong.
“Remind me, Daniil,” I growl quietly, pacing around him, careful to avoid the stinking, spreading puddle of filth. “Which hand was it you used to hold me down that night?”
His one remaining eye widens just a little bit. I smile widely, inhaling the intoxicating scent of fear emanating from his mangled body.
“Was it the left?” I muse, continuing my slow walk. “Or, no, it was the right, wasn’t it?”
“P-p-p-please…” he burbles. “Please, Drazen…”
“Begging will get you nowhere,” I smile icily. “Begging got me nowhere fifteen years ago. But I do so enjoy the sound of your blubbering. So, please: continue.”
He shudders.
“Drazen,” Daniil chokes. “I—I have money?—”
I laugh uproariously.
I don’t want whatever pathetic table scraps this fuck could scrounge together. It could be all the gold in the world, and it still wouldn’t bring my family back.
Daniil seems to immediately realize what a ludicrous gesture that was. So he decides to appeal to my emotional side.
“Please, Drazen,” he whimpers. “I—I have a son…”
Too bad I don’t have an emotional side to appeal to.
Oh, and he’s mistaken about his status as a father.
“Not anymore, you don’t.”
