“Why not?” Crazy pouts.
“Because that would draw a lot of fuckin’ attention and bring the heat down on the club. Thanks to Kick’s new bitch, there’s already enough heat baring down on us. We don’t need the Russians fuckin’ shit up too,” I say, feedin’ Prez’s bullshit words to Crazy. I feel like a traitor for even sayin’ it out loud. Like Ivy will somehow find out and hate me as much as I hate me for not bringin’ that fucker to his knees.
I’d finally made that call to my contact last night. She’d done a little diggin’ and I had me a name and an address, but sittin’ on this info about Ivy’s father is killin’ me. And this mornin’, as she said goodbye after I fucked her over my kitchen bench, I came so close to tellin’ her that I know where to find him, and that I wanna ignore my Prez’s orders and rip that fucker’s head clean off his shoulders.
“Seems to me like they’d get what they deserve,” Crazy says.
I glance at him a moment before slowing for the corner. The limo is about thirty metres up ahead. I still have a perfect visual. Not that I really need it. I know exactly where we’re going. I just gotta make sure Ryzhanov doesn’t wind up in the same place at the same time. “What’s your story anyway?”
“I don’t have a story, I’m just a crazy fucker who likes to play with fire.” Unfortunately, he isn’t joking. Fucking lunatic. But there’s more to his story than that, and I have a hunch that’s the whole reason he’s here.
“Bullshit. A lot of idiots come to the club looking for trouble, but you’re not one of them.” I shake my head. I’m good at reading people. It’s a part of what I do, and I’m fuckin’ good at what I do.
Crazy twitches. He covers by sniffin’ and wiping at his nose with the back of his hand. It’s one of his tells. Punk-arsed little fuck doesn’t even realise he’s doin’ it. “Doesn’t Prez make you check into all of our backgrounds before he’ll let us patch in?”
“He does. But I wanna hear it from you.”
“No story. I got no family, and no one else to put up with my shit,” he says, glancing out the window at the city flying by.
“What happened to your family?”
“They died.”
“Obviously,” I say, and my patience is in fuckin’ short supply with this arsehole today. “I want to know how.”
“Don’t you know this shit already?”
“I know what the paperwork says—that they died in a fire. I’d think that someone who lost his entire family in a fire wouldn’t have your little penchant for open flames,” I say evenly.
He shrugs. “What doesn’t kill you—”
“Makes you a suspect.”
“I didn’t kill my family,” he says through gritted teeth. Finally, we’re beginning to get somewhere.
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know. But someone set them alight in their sleep. I had a pizza delivery job. When I turned down my street, I saw the trucks parked outside on my front lawn. I dumped my bike and ran past the barricades and do you know what I heard?”
I don’t answer; I just keep my eyes glued to the road. In my experience, people are so much quicker to divulge their secrets when I keep my mouth shut.
“I heard my mother screaming. And the fire roaring all around me. It was like music. I was convinced I was made of it, and that it wouldn’t hurt me if I just stepped into it. So I did. Only the firemen who weren’t doing jack fucking shit to help my family because the flames were too intense to breach? They pulled me back. They took away the music. Now the only way I get any piece is when my Zippo sings to me again.”
I swear to Christ, the more I get to know people, the more I like my fuckin’ dog.
He’s lying. He knows who killed them. I do too. Crazy wants Ryzhanov’s right-hand man, Lagransky, and Prez needs his head checked for agreeing that Crazy should tag along on this job. And this excuse about not bein’ able to spare anyone else is wearin’ real goddamned thin. That bitch of Kick’s better be fuckin’ worth it.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ. I need a goddamned therapist after listening to the shit you boys go on with,” I say, playin’ along. That little cocksucker’s gonna screw me royally if he moves from this van.
“You asked.” He shrugs, and points to the limo. “They’re turning.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” I say, and take the same exit. I ease on the brakes, because there are only two cars separating us now, and the maniac riding my arse is giving me the fucking shits. Tailgaters make me fuckin’ twitchy.
Twenty minutes later, the limo pulls up to a ritzy whiskey bar owned by Ryzhanov, and we continue driving through Mosman. The houses are huge and have big wrought-iron gates. Nice to look at, but not much help in really keeping people out. Especially not people like me.
We pull to a stop outside a house next to the Cold King’s mansion. Crazy and I don our special blue caps, and I roll the window down and press the buzzer for the intercom, declaring that I have a package for the Robertsons. People really need to stop putting their family name on the front gate of their fucking house. The gate opens, and I give the security guard posted outside the Russian’s residence a salute and drive on through, pulling up in the circular drive in front of the house.
The gates close and I get out in my navy blue and red Fast Send uniform and pull an empty cardboard box from the front seat. I even shaved for the occasion.
We’re not hitting the Russians; we’d need a lot more firepower than me and the geriatric fire bug for that. We’re only gaining access to the Robertsons’ property so I can plant a couple of cameras and survey the Russians’ backyard. We’ll only hit a joint once we know we can get in and get out and that there are several escape routes as a last resort.
“Stay here,” I say to the crazy fucker occupying my front seat.
His dark eyes narrow. “Where the fuck do you think I’m gonna go? Have tea with the Joneses?”
“Just making sure you’re not gonna light someone’s house on fire so you can ‘hear the music’ again,” I say with air quotes, and take the package from the seat between us. I pull the cap lower on my head and angle my face towards the ground, so any outdoor security cameras won’t make a positive ID as I walk to the front door, press the bell and wait.
The maid had answered the door, ready and waiting to take my package. She was a sweet young thing, had that Catholic virgin quality about her, and she’d blushed to the roots of her hair when I’d told her I had a big one for her. She’d still been biting her lip when I’d reached in my back pocket, pulled out the foul-smelling rag and covered her face with it. She’d gone out like a light, and I’d gently eased her down on the marble floor. I’d searched the house and found only an ancient-looking woman sipping tea in the yard by the pool. She’d been just as easy to take care of.
Chlorophyll. The friendly sedative aiding killers and psychopaths since 1814.
But you never know how long someone will be out on that shit, so I’d worked quickly setting up three tiny cameras under the eaves of the upstairs bedrooms, all of them overlooking Ryzhanov’s property.
When I reach the front door, the maid is still laid out on the marble where I left her. I carefully step over her sleeping form and jump into the van, only Crazy’s not here.
“Jesus fuck!” I’m going to strangle that little cocksucker the second I find him. I open my door when a movement in the rear-view mirror catches my attention. I glance up and freeze as something sharp and cold jabs me in the neck. I swing my elbow back, attempting to hit the fucker in the face, but the interior of the van swims and my eyelids grow heavy as I fight the drug coursing through my veins.
“I don’t like it when people touch my things,” a man says from the back of the van. The voice is unfamiliar, and yet there’s something in it, a cadence I know well. And the green eyes that accuse me in the rear-view? I know those too. They belong to Ivy, only it’s not her small hand resting on my neck and easing the needle from my flesh, it’s her father’s.