Chapter Five: The Long Game

Jafer's POV

"Please." The man's voice broke on the word. "Please, I told you, I do not know anything."

I turned the knife in my fingers so the light slid down the blade. "I will not ask again.”

He shook his head hard, and sweat dripped from his chin onto his shirt. "Please, I cannot. I say them, they will find me. They will find my family."

"They are not in this room." I stepped closer. "I am."

His eyes followed the blade and would not leave it. His lips were trembling, and his breath came in short, wet bursts.

"Names," I demanded.

"I... I do not..."

I drove the knife through the back of his left hand and into the wooden arm of the chair.

His wail filled the basement and went on far longer, much to my delight. He bucked against the ropes, his whole body shaking, tears running down his face and mixing with the blood on his chin.

"Names," I said again, in exactly the same voice.

"I do not know all of them! I swear to God, I do not!"

"Then give me the ones you know." I gripped the handle and turned the blade a quarter turn.

"Kuzmin!" The word tore out of him. "Old Kuzmin! It was Kuzmin!"

I stopped turning. "Kuzmin what?"

"He was one of them." He was sobbing now. "He was one of the four."

"Four what?"

He hesitated again. His mouth opened and closed, and his eyes slid toward the door as if someone might be standing there. I pulled the knife free, and he cried out. Then I pressed the bloody edge against the smallest finger of his right hand.

"No, no, no, please. Please, I will tell you. I will tell you." He gasped. "Four men. There were four. They shared a ledger with your family name carved on it. Each of them kept a part, so that no one of them could ever sink the others."

My brows furrowed. "What does the ledger hold?"

"The list of everyone who was involved that night. They split it up to bury it." His breath hitched. "Old Kuzmin kept the first part. He sided with them. He sided with them against your family."

"Why?"

"I do not know!" he wailed. "I never knew why!"

"It does not matter," I said. "Greed, fear, ambition. The reason is always a dull coin, and I have no use for it. Where did the ledger go after the old Kuzmin died?"

"To his son. It has to be his son."

I wiped the blade on his shoulder and stepped back. "Then the son will do."

With that, I learned everything I could about the Kuzmin house. The old man was dead, but his son lived comfortably among the elite, with a wife, a son, and two daughters.

One of the daughters had a file I read twice. According to every page, she had murdered a maid in a fit of mental illness and spent years locked away in a facility for it.

But something did not tally. I looked at my right-hand, deep in thought, as we worked through the puzzle together.

“Isn't it suspicious that she had never had any episodes of mental problems before this incident?”

He also thought about it. But there was no evidence to back that up, aside from our instincts. The newly found lost daughter had enough skeleton in her cupboard, but she was no use to what I wanted.

The other was. A woman with blood on her hands and a family that had thrown her away. It was exactly the personality I needed.

So I made the victim's family drop every charge. Then I went to the house.

I watched the girl from the corner of my eye, as she rushed to the maid one of my men had shot. She did not look like someone with a sick mind.

She knelt in blood and gave orders in a steady voice, demanding for the first aid box.

That told me everything I needed to know. This family was burying something, and she was what they were burying it under.

I could not have asked for a better weapon. Betrayal that old does not fade.

It only waits to be used.

After bringing the girl to my house and sending her back to her family, I returned to the man tied up in my basement.

One eye was swollen shut, his left hand hung wrapped in a bloody rag and his shirt was stiff with dried blood. I had my men beat him repeatedly until he passed out, have him treated, and the fun goes on.

When he heard my steps, he flinched so hard the chair scraped across the floor.

"No," he begged. "Not again. Please. I told you everything."

"The ledger," I said as I strode in. "Give me the exact location.”

The family were not working at the pace I wanted, and I needed to get my hands on that list ASAP.

"I..." His eyes darted from my face to my gun. "If I tell you more, they will know it was me. They will kill me. Please, if you let me go, I can make a deal. I can find you..."

The shot was loud in the closed room. It went through his thigh, and he screamed and thrashed against the ropes, growling through his teeth as the blood spread across his trousers.

"Your next words decide where the next one goes," I said evenly.

"Please..." his whole body shaking. "Please, I cannot..."

I aimed at his other leg.

"There is an organization!" he cried out, spit flying around. "Zolotoy Krug! The Golden Circle! It was built years ago after the Rostova fell! If you get inside it, even without the ledger, you will know who your enemies are!"

I looked at him.

"Too convenient, isn't it?”

"It is the truth! I swear it!"

Fury coursed through my veins as he continued to stall. “You fucking want to set a trap for me, huh? Your fried, rottened brain didn't save your lying ass and now you think I was just going to head to the organization?”

“I'm not lying! I swear on my mother's life.”

I gave no reaction to that. Only continued to glare at him, then tilted my head. "What is the requirement to be a member?"

He looked at me through his swollen eye, half covered in blood. His lips moved, but nothing came out.

"The requirement," I gritted my teeth.

"You..." He swallowed. "You will have to make yourself an ally."

"That is not an answer." I stepped forward and pressed my thumb against his bad eye, and he began to scream. "Speak in a language I fucking understand, or I will pluck them both out and let you see how well you do without them!”

"Mercy! Please! To be an ally, you must marry your enemy!" he sobbed. "That is how they trust you! They will believe you came to start over!"

I took my hand from his face. The room went quiet except for his wails.

"Marry my enemy?” I said slowly.

"Yes," he continued crying.

I tapped a finger against the side of my gun, watching his reaction to catch any lie as I thought this through. I let the silence stretch long enough that he began to shake.

"I have told you what you wanted," he pleaded. "Please. Do not kill me."

I sighed, figuring I got all I needed already and raised my gun.

"Death is mercy. You have earned it, for giving me what I needed."

"Wait, wait!" The words tripped over each other as I cocked it. "If you join them, many will not trust you! But if you let me go, I can buy you their trust! I can speak for you, and..."

Bang!

I shot him in the heart without blinking.

The basement fell quiet at once. I fired again, into his throat, and watched his good eye widen and then empty. I turned and walked to the door.

"Take care of the body," I said to the guard standing there.

"Yes, sir." He bowed.

I had barely reached the stairs when my right-hand man came toward me.

"She is back."

My brows twitched. Her time is not even up yet.

"She is in the living room." He added.

I went in and found her standing in the middle of the room, a guard behind her. Her eyes were clear. There were no tears and no pleading, only blankness, as if she were putting on a show.

I looked at her empty hands. My jaw tightened. "Where is it?"

She said nothing.

I stepped closer, already furious at how slow this was becoming. "Give me a reason why I should not kill you right now."

Her fist clenched at her side, as if she were steadying herself. Then she lowered her head and looked down at her feet.

"No reason," she whispered. "Just make it quick."

She said it so softly, almost like a whisper but I heard every word. I raised a brow.