“Where is Reynard?” he quietly asked one of the men at the table. When the guy shot him a contemptuous look, Alek didn’t hesitate to press a blade into the thin skin below one of those windows to the soul. “I’ll pop it out and squash it under my heel if you don’t open that fucking mouth. Three…two…”
Buddy winced and got his finger up and pointing to the rear of the apartment.
“Is there a back exit?” V asked the other one.
“Fuck you. Dead men do not talk.”
“You just did.” V pulled the trigger and splattered brain matter all over the mountain of coke the two had been cutting with an unknown substance that smelled bleachy. What was left after a shot silenced by a suppressor was always shocking, which was probably why the guy at the end of Alek’s blade attempted to spring up and make a grab for one of the guns on the table. Vincente’s hand clamped onto the back of his neck before he could move much more than a couple of inches.
“My advice?” V murmured. “Answer the fuckin’ question. Quietly. Because this one,” he nodded at Alek, “left home without his patience.”
“Second exit?” Alek asked again.
The idiot’s lips remained sealed, and suddenly it was the principle of the matter. Alek beckoned Anton over and had him hold their mute in a tight grip, his mouth covered. Getting one of the guy’s tattooed hands in the air, Alek spread out his fore and middle finger. Without hesitating, he chopped his four-inch blade down into that V. The weight and sharpness had it sinking in about an inch. They repeated the process twice more, quitting when they reached the pinkie.
“Second exit?” Alek repeated as the guy chuffed through his nose behind Anton’s hand.
He got a nod this time.
“To the fire escape?”
Another nod.
“Thanks for your cooperation.” As Alek headed down the short hallway, his focus on nothing but Reynard now, he heard the puff of another suppressed shot go off.
A hard shoulder to the back sent Alek stumbling past a closet. He looked back to see V spin, his duster winding around his feet like a cat wanting to be fed. The Reaper shoved his hand through an opening in the fabric flap hanging in the place of a door, and with one yank, a guy was jerked out of the closet and slammed into the wall opposite. He hit hard and just happened to be head-first, which had him crumpling like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Ashes fell from his hand as it opened.
“There’s always a surprise,” V muttered as he dropped the guy and motioned Alek ahead. “Think the asshat would’ve thought to put out his joint.”
Alek moved faster now, knowing the head bang had to have been heard. He came to a small area that housed a loveseat, a closed door across the way, and a rickety desk. As he got close enough to see what was spread out across its surface, he felt a wave of heat billow outward as if an atomic bomb had gone off within his body. There were pictures of Sacha and Lekzi. A few were recent because Sacha was in winter gear and pushing the large stroller. Two others had been taken last year—and stole Alek’s breath—because they showed Sacha pregnant.
With his heart pounding at the beauty of her, he pocketed them and forced himself to move on after silently vowing he’d get her there again as soon as her body got on board with his plan. There were fake IDs in Sacha and Lekzi’s name, two bus tickets to Boston, a handful of syringes, and two small bottles. One was a prescription sedative, the other a small brown vial with a tree on the front. He picked it up, remembering Yuri mentioning Lekzi could have been poisoned by a plant extract, but he couldn’t read the label because the writing was Chinese. V picked up a chart with doses and two weights circled that were approximates of Sacha’s…and an infant’s.
As they exchanged an enraged look, the sound of someone hitting the fire escape stairs and running for their life came. Alek pocketed the vial and grabbed the syringes. He pointed for V to follow the racket, and then he was gunning for the stairwell inside the building. Reynard had chosen to go up rather than down.
Alek dove by the others—had to knock Anton into a stack of beer empties—and was coming out onto the roof within seconds; the only place to go since the building was only four stories. Sticking to the wall of the enclosure, he popped his head out but didn’t have to bother pulling it back to avoid a shot because V already had Reynard doubled over and backing away as he shook his head at the Reaper’s vicious expression.
Reynard Novik, the man who’d attempted to murder Alek’s seven-month-old daughter, walked right into his arms.
Even though he’d barely had to exert himself, Alek’s chest was pumping, his lungs and heart working overtime to accommodate his rage. To start, he hammered three solid shots right into the middle of Reynard’s face, then for Vasily’s sake, asked, “Where’s Sergei?”