It was the first time he had ever struck her. Inga’s mouth fell open, a red hand mark taking shape on the flawless skin of her cheek almost immediately.
“Dimi!” she said, tears filling her eyes. “Please, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She really didn’t. Inga had been faithful to Molenski the entire time they were dating. Unfortunately for her, the leader of Molenski’s gang, Marat, didn’t like the amount of time his lieutenant spent with her. It was interfering with his ‘work’ and costing the gang jobs and money.
It was easy. All it took was a few whispered words. Molenski’s jealous streak and short fuse took care of the rest. Marat knew the stuck-up Swedish bitch would cop a beating from Molenski, but she’d piss off back to daddy and live happily ever after once the bruises faded. Hell, he was probably doing her a favor.
Even Marat, a career criminal who had spent hard time in prison, didn’t recognize just how deep young Dimitri’s ‘badness’ went.
With her cheek stinging, the young Swedish girl finally did, though. Through her tears, she finally saw in his eyes that something inside him was broken, and when he produced the knife, she knew she was in serious trouble.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Before she could open her mouth, his hand whipped the blade across her left cheek. Inga screamed and clapped a hand to her face, attempting to stem the warm blood that flowed through her fingers. She fumbled for the door handle with the other.
He laughed and stabbed her in the left breast. Inga shrieked in agony and intensified her efforts to escape the vehicle. Molenski laughed harder. The stab wound was not deep enough to do any real damage; he intended to stretch this out as long as he could.
“Dimi please!” she begged her sniggering torturer.
Then he stopped laughing, and it was worse. He put the blade of the knife under her nose. Inga’s hand froze on the door handle.
“First I’m going to make you sorry you were ever born, and then I will send little bits of you back to Daddy.”
In full survival mode, Inga pulled the door handle and simultaneously swatted the hand with the blade away as she desperately lunged from the car. As quick as she was, Molenski was quicker. He grabbed her soft blonde hair before she could escape and began to drag her back into the car.
“I think your ear first,” he growled.
Inga groaned in pain and with a strength borne of panic, jerked forward. Hard. She felt searing pain as her hair was torn out by the roots, allowing her to spill out of the car onto the cold concrete. She scrambled to her feet and ran, leaving a stunned Molenski with nothing but a fistful of hair.
He was out of the car and after her in a flash, but she had a good start.
The terrified, sobbing girl ran as hard as she could, her breath coming in hitching bursts that plumed in the cold winter air. Blood from the wound in her cheek poured down her face and splattered onto the concrete sidewalk, a gory testament to her flight.
His running footsteps were closing on her.
If only she could make it to the main road.
Molenski was almost upon her, his knife in one hand, the other reaching out for the hair that trailed behind her like the ribbons of a fast flying kite.
With one final effort, Inga opened the gap another inch as she rushed headlong into the cross street and… disappeared under a truck.
Molenski skidded to a stop, fast enough to avoid the same fate as Inga, but not fast enough to avoid the truck altogether. He hit the side of the vehicle and bounced, flung back onto the sidewalk even as the driver slammed his brakes, locking up the wheels of the big truck which screeched to a halt, fifty feet down the road.
The stricken driver jumped from his cab and grasped his head in both hands, wailing in shock. Molenski rose to his feet slowly, oblivious to the driver and the scattering of people that came running from their places of work. He had eyes only for the bloody, broken body in the middle of the road.
There was no sadness or loss. Only a deep, raging fury that Inga had stolen his right to torture and execute her for her betrayal.
The distraught driver began stumbling towards him, wailing.
“I’m sorry, it was an accident; she came right out in front of me…”
Molenski spat on the sidewalk before turning and walking away without looking back.
Part 1 – The Delivery
Chicago, USA – November 11, 2029
1
Ivan Petrovic stared at the TV without really watching it. He’d been dressed in his light cotton suit and tie since 7 am. Being up so early was a requirement of the job he’d performed since his late twenties, and even though he was rarely called before 8 am, just occasionally Dimitri Molenski, his boss, surprised him.
Whether to catch him out or not, Ivan wasn’t sure, but it was hypothetical. Ivan had been ready for the call every time. He was diligent and disciplined when it came to his job and apart from his six weeks in the hospital after the ambush, he had eaten and dressed before 7am every single day of his long tenure as Dimitri Molenski’s personal bodyguard.
Ivan stood up and walked to the kitchenette of his suite. The sink was clean. Had he already washed up from his breakfast? If so, he must have done it on autopilot. Then he remembered, yes, he had done it right after he finished his coffee. He smiled. So forgetful of the little things. It was a consequence of his induced coma. As the doctors had told him during his rehabilitation, one simply could not recover from the trauma of multiple gunshot wounds and near death, without some aftereffects.
Still, physically he was fully recovered and if anything, fitter and stronger than before. If a little forgetfulness was the price to pay for escaping death, he was more than willing to pay it. He went back into the living room and sat down in front of the blank television screen to await the call.
Ivan was a large man, tall and heavily muscled, but he moved with the grace of a big cat. His blond hair was shorn into a military cut, and his handsome Slavic face was serious most of the time. He had a year to run on this, his third, five year contract. This time, however, he wasn’t sure he could see it through to the end. It wasn’t the work itself. While it could be boring, there was nothing to complain about. He was earning a good salary, had a luxury suite in his employer’s mansion and got to see from the inside how a big, albeit only semi-legitimate, business operated.
No, it wasn’t boredom or job dissatisfaction that was sapping Ivan’s tolerance for the job, it was Molenski himself. Or more to the point, the things he did or had others do in his name. And it was getting worse.
He owed Molenski a lot. The mobster had taken him under his wing back in Russia when Ivan was only 15 years old. He had given him a job and a roof over his head and then paid for Ivan’s passage to America three years later. The payback had been Ivan’s absolute loyalty through good times and bad, from the early gang wars and struggles to the relative calm ‘business’ that was now the status quo.
His near-death experience had lent him some perspective, though. The bodyguard had seen and done many bad things in the service of Molenski, but in the last two years, he had seen more personal violence, bloodshed, and murder than ever before. More even than during than the five-year gang war upon which Molenski had built his empire.
Briefly, he’d thought things were changing. It had been relatively quiet the last few months, so much so that Ivan began to wonder if he should reconsider his plan. Perhaps the mob chief was finally beginning to mellow?
The events of the previous night confirmed that nothing had changed though, the fleeting, bloodless period of calm was about to come to an ugly end. This morning, Molenski would be ‘talking’ to the man his security team had abducted the night before. If the Russian was true to form, it would end very badly for the man sitting in the basement.