I grab him by the collar and shake him a few times, breathing in the stench of his bodily fluids. Under dusk’s light, he appears monstrous with his face all bloodied and unrecognizable.
“Oy! Look who I found!” Nikolai reemerges from between the trees, dragging a struggling blond guy behind him like a sack of potatoes.
The blond has some muscles on him and he claws and kicks to escape, but he might as well be an ant wrestling an elephant. Not only does he barely land any punches, but the ones he does are completely ignored by Niko.
Our evening bike ride was interrupted by these two. The one he’s currently dragging escaped earlier, but Nikolai is no different from a hunting dog. He can smell anyone, then track them down and trap them.
My friend all but sits on the guy’s back and when he struggles, Nikolai punches him in the face, causing his head to bump against the ground.
He’s shirtless, again. Like me, he was wearing a leather jacket when we went out on the ride, but he threw it down somewhere. The guy is allergic to clothes—it’s a miracle he at least has pants on. It’s also his way of displaying the extravagant tattoos that cover his chest and arms.
Some of his long black hair escapes its binding and flies in the air as he taps his pocket, punches the guy he’s using as a chair again, and retrieves a smoke. He strokes the surface twice as if petting it, then shoves the cigarette between his lips and lights it.
“How’s it going with that cockroach?” He jerks his chin at the beaten-up guy in my hold.
With his face, lips, and eyes swollen, baseball cap and shirt bloodied, all the noise he can release is muffled groans.
I shake him again by my grip on his collar. “Last chance before I bury you where no one will find you.”
He mumbles something and I lean closer to hear him better.
“Fuck…you…”
“I see.” I swing the bat he hit me with earlier and drive it straight into the side of his head.
He falls to the ground, motionless, his body sprawled out at an awkward angle.
“Hey, kid.” Nikolai, who was watching the whole scene with unabashed excitement, flicks the ashes of his cig on the other guy’s bleeding face. “Do you know what your friend did wrong? No? Let me try and simplify it for you. One does not refuse a chance Jer offers. See, he doesn’t do that a lot, so when he says it’s your last, he actually means it. I say, you should do better or your fate will be worse.”
I swing the bat that’s soaked with blood on my shoulder and stare down at the guy.
He’s younger. Probably just started at TKU or maybe he’s a sophomore. Either way, he’s new blood, which makes him scared, unsure.
Usable.
His lips purse, probably unconsciously, and his face is red, due to being crushed by Nikolai’s weight.
“I know you’re Serpents,” I say. “What I don’t know is why you think you can take us out. So how about you clarify that for me and I’ll consider letting you live to see another day.”
“We…” he strains with a hint of a Russian accent. Nikolai is completely oblivious to the struggle since he continues smoking leisurely. “We wouldn’t…know until we try.”
“My, my. What do you know?” Nikolai grins. “Serpents have a suicide squad who are out to get us with guerrilla tactics?”
“Is it worth it when we’ll catch you and kill you?” I say matter-of-factly.
“I say, you guys are not on our level, especially kids like you who haven’t had proper training.”
“It’s the only way to get accepted to the club,” the blond grunts, his voice muffled. “Into the Bratva.”
I share a look with Nikolai. Those snakes aren’t only getting bold, but they’re also spouting lies to younger guys, whispering promises in their eager ears, and taking advantage of their youthful, adrenaline-filled energy to get to us.
That’s both smart and stupid.
It doesn’t matter how many times we’re ambushed. Not only will they never get us, but we’ll retaliate twice as hard.
I applaud the effort, though.
“You want to get into the Bratva, kid?” I shove the bat against his head. “Don't go using sleazy methods to be admitted. That might work at the beginning, but you’ll always be viewed as a cockroach who can be sacrificed at any moment. If you want to sit in the inner circle, be a man about it.”
“And don’t go interrupting people’s rides. That’s the number one rule to stay off assholes' shit lists. I’m assholes. And you’re somewhere in the middle of my list. Can I kill him, Jer?”
The kid stares at me with bulging eyes. Not at Nikolai. Me.
Fucker is smart and probably heard that I’m the only one who can keep him on a leash. If I’d left him to his own devices, Nikolai would be a death-row prisoner by now. Or just dead.
“We did promise to let him go,” I say, and the kid nods once.
“I did no such thing, you did.” Nikolai slides the burning end of his smoke toward the guy’s eyes. “The insolence of this motherfucker pisses me off, and I can’t let it slide. What’s your name?”
“Ilya Levitsky.”
“Russian. I like that, but I don’t like you, Ilyusha. Any last wishes?”
Ilya keeps his eyes open and continues staring at the burning end of the cigarette. Anyone on this island, or even back in New York, knows of Nikolai's crazy episodes. If he says he’ll burn holes where your eyes are, he’ll do it.
This kid must be aware of that, too, but even though his body shakes, he doesn’t close his eyes.
Just when the fire is about to touch the cornea, I say, “No.”
Nikolai’s attention remains on Ilya and his chosen weapon of harm. “Why the fuck not?”
“I gave him my word.”
“Your word isn’t mine. Fuck off.”
“It is. You promised, Niko.” I shove the baseball bat against his shoulder and he finally stares at me with eyes so unhinged that no amount of violence will be able to satisfy them.
A long time ago, when we were kids and Nikolai realized how deranged he can get, he asked me to stop him when he slips out of control.
When his violence starts to mess with his head.
When blood is all I see in his eyes.
I don’t right now, but he’s getting there.
“Can I at least beat him up?”
“You did that already.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Nikolai stands, but not before he kicks the guy in the ribs.
He grunts, but he knows better than to retaliate or stay around. He gets up, hobbles to his bike that Nikolai made him abandon earlier, and escapes in the opposite direction of the descending sun.
“Kids these days.” Nikolai shakes his head.
“You mean you, nineteen-year-old baby?”
“Oh, fuck you. I’ll be twenty soon.” He throws the butt of his cigarette on the ground and steps on it, then he hauls up his bike that he practically threw down and let slide into a tree earlier.
After straightening it up, he leans an elbow against it and pats his pocket for another cigarette. “What are we going to do with these cockroaches?”
“Let them fester.” I hop on my bike. Riding, preferably alone, is the only thing that I like doing for myself. No duties or expectations—just me and the wind.
“Won’t they become harder to deal with when they multiply?”