The memory of the rich young Chechnyan accompanying Sergei at the auction comes back to my mind, of the man that’s currently looking for me — even if he doesn’t yet know it’s me — and my eyes widen. “I think I’ve seen the man. A monster, you say?” I keep a steady expression, but my heart skips a beat with worry.
“Horrible for business,” Boris says in disgust, rolling his eyes. “Killed four of my girls in the few months he’s been here. Can’t control himself, I suppose — boys will be boys, no?” Boris laughs, but this time, my laugh along with him is feigned, anger roiling back up in my heart with renewed vigor. I haven’t forgotten my job.
“Is nobody doing anything about the man?”
“Are you kidding?” Boris scoffs. “The man’s grandfather is rich enough to buy this whole estate fifty times over, and his father is Sergei. Besides,” he adds with an elbow to my arm, “those whores are a dime a dozen, just like the bitch Sergei is trying to shove his stubby little cock into right now. Who’s going to mourn a few dead Hungarian cunts, anyway?”
“More than will mourn you.”
Boris’s glass is halfway to his lips when my fist catches him in the stomach like a piston. He nearly doubles over, the glass falling to the ground as he lets out a short, sharp groan, and before he can react, I grab hold of the back of his head and bring it crashing down into the top of the barrel, smashing his face through the wood and plunging it into the cheap wine within.
The human scum flails his arms, his mind probably still reeling to come to its bearings, totally caught off-guard. But my mind is as sharp and resolved as my muscles as my trunk-like arm holds his head under the liquid, solid and unmoving as a steel girder. My other arm wraps around him as I hold his arms to his sides. He’s a strong man, thrashing as best as he can and giving me far more of a fight as the wine sloshes around him and some spills out onto the dirt, but he’s no match for my sober strength.
After more time than a weaker man would have lasted, I finally feel Boris’s body go limp, his lungs filled with the wine he was sampling just a few minutes ago.
The most inconvenient part of the job is the wine that now stains my jeans.
Wasting no time, I hoist up Boris’s body, checking his now-still pulse before lifting his body over the top of the barrel and prying more of the wood off the top to make room before submerging his bulk into the barrel.
Much more of the wine spills onto the ground as I push him under the red liquid’s surface. Carefully, I drag the barrel to a corner of stacked barrels, moving them around until I can place his new coffin towards the back, stacking a few barrels on atop the open upper side of Boris’s barrel, effectively entombing him in wine casks.
I stand back to observe my work before looking down at my wine-soaked legs and sighing.
Suppose it’s an excuse to take Cassie on another shopping trip.
I make my way back up to the manor — I still have a job to be at, after all. Sergei is probably finished with his deed by now.
Indeed, it doesn’t take me long to find him making his way down one of the lavish hallways, past a few other drunken guests, Ada still under his arm, looking disgusted and downcast.
“Andrei, there you are!” His cheeks are rosy, obviously drunk beyond the point of wondering where I was. Exactly as I planned. “Andrei, you- you’re the besht bodyguard in ALL THIS F-FUCKING PIGSTY,” he howls, slinging half his drink onto the wall as he gestures wildly.
“Good to see you too, boss,” I say, trying not to sound stiff.
“You know what, boy?” he laughs. “You, you take the rest of the night off, I’m going to find that other idiot to do this shit work. Thanksh to you, I’m gonna, I’m gonna be BEST pals with Boris, and his businessh is gonna have me ROLLING in cash! Here,” he pushes Ada towards me, and I catch her gently, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Take this bitch, she wouldn’t let me fucking touch her. Kick her ass for me, will you? Then you take the night off, go home to your, your little wife,” he chuckles, and as he mutters something to himself, he staggers off, leaving me alone.
Ada looks up to me in fear, but I only put a finger to my lips. “Follow me,” I say in a low voice.
Without saying a word, I guide the woman down to my car. Most of the party is too drunk to notice as we slip out, and once we’re out in the night’s air, Ada begins apologizing profusely to me.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to panic, but he was coming on like a mad dog, and after all the stories I’ve heard about his son, I —”
“You’re going to be safe,” I say firmly, and she’s dumbfounded into silence for a moment.