No, as excited as he was by the arrival of the package, his gratification would have to wait. He had other business to attend to first. The cigar hissed as he extinguished it in the bathwater before letting it float away like a tiny, breached submarine.
Molenski clicked his fingers and began to rise. Ivan, who had only just sat back down, got back to his feet in an instant and whipped his boss’s bathrobe fom its hook. It didn’t pay to keep Molenski waiting. The mobster stood, dripping wet and unconcerned with modesty as Ivan passed him the robe.
At 47 years of age, the Russian was in impressive shape, his frame spare but ropy with muscle. His deceptively pleasant face was relatively line-free and, partnered with his thick black hair, made him look younger than he was.
Ivan led the way into the large bedroom. His boss followed, a comical, yet sinister sight with his open bathrobe flapping and Ruger in hand.
Minutes later, Molenski, darkly handsome in a black sweater and freshly pressed chinos, slipped on a new pair of Vans and tucked the Ruger into the back of his pants before turning to Ivan.
“Has he been softened up?”
“Dah, Boss. They kept him awake all night.”
“No one has touched him?”
“Nyet.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
On their way to what Molenski had dubbed the ‘Red Room’ in the sub-basement of the sprawling mansion, they stopped in the kitchen on the ground floor. There were two short blacks, freshly brewed waiting on the counter top. His 10 o’clock shots.
Ivan looked around for the cook Isabella, but she was nowhere to be seen. The mob boss downed the coffees, one after the other.
“Come.”
Molenski scorned the purpose-built lift and ran lightly down the stairs, whistling as he went, his Vans silent on the marble steps. His bodyguard followed, the bigger man just as light on his feet as his boss.
The long staircase was interrupted by a large landing on the basement level. Molenski had converted the whole level into his games rooms and a private cinema. They continued down the stairs and arrived at the bottom, where a large double door opened onto the northeastern corner of the sub-basement.
The sub-basement level of the mansion was huge and ran the entire length and breadth of the big home’s footprint.
Entering, it looked much like an underground car park of a hotel or department store and, for the most part, that’s what it was. On the eastern side, or rear of the home were the cars of Molenski’s staff and security team. Opposite, along two-thirds of the western, or front wall, was his collection of rare and luxury vehicles and a ramp that led up to the driveway.
On the far southern wall, opposite the opening they had just walked through was a guard’s quarters, the armory and the Red Room. The guards on duty were sitting in a circle playing cards and smoking. They stood up eyeing Molenski nervously, as he casually made his way across the expanse of polished concrete.
“It’s fine boys,” he said, good-naturedly. “Continue your game.”
The men slowly relaxed and sat back down.
Molenski’s destination was the bright red door to the right of them. Ivan could almost detect a skip in his walk. Was it the anticipation of his appointment with the man in the Red Room, or the mysterious package?
As per the protocols he had established years ago, Molenski stopped before reaching the door and allowed Ivan to come forward. The mob boss hardly ever knocked or entered a door before Ivan. If there were to be a surprise attack, Ivan would bear the brunt of the assault, allowing Molenski valuable seconds to take action to protect himself or escape if need be.
The protocol had only been tested once, during the ambush at the hotel thirteen months before. It had worked as planned. While another guard had been killed, and Ivan almost shot to death, their misfortune had allowed Molenski and his lieutenant, time to take down the shooters.
Ivan knocked on the door. It was opened by a big man in a white, sleeveless undershirt and black pants. Andre Chichenko, Molenski’s lieutenant.
Chichenko was a scary looking customer. His heavyset frame, hairy apelike arms, and heavy brow gave him the appearance of being a few rungs back on the evolutionary ladder. But despite his Neanderthal-like appearance, he was intelligent, dangerous and quick.
He looked over Ivan’s shoulder and nodded to his boss before stepping back and allowing them to enter. Ivan waited until Molenski was through, then followed him in and closed the door.
3
In the center of the windowless room, facing away from the door, was a timber chair with a naked man tied to it. His head and shoulders were slumped. Another member of Molenski’s security team, a new guy called Marco, stood at the rear of the room, an automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. He was taller than Ivan, though not as well built.
“How is our guest doing?” asked Molenski, pleasantly.
“Tired and emotional,” Andre replied, smiling grimly.
“Excellent.”
Molenski walked to the center of the room and rounded the chair, looking down at his captive.
“Robert.”
The chin of the man in the chair remained on his chest, the thick hair he always seemed so proud of, messy and obscuring his face. He shook his head as if denying the name.
“Robert! Look at me.”
The naked man slowly raised his head. Robert Kittinger’s eyes were red-rimmed, and the normally well-groomed businessman had a line of snot running from his nose to his upper lip. He didn’t say anything but did raise his knees in a futile attempt to preserve his modesty as a fat tear squeezed its way from the corner of his eye.
“I am sorry to see you in this position, Robert,” said Molenski in his clipped Russian accent. “You look terrible. Andre, please, clean his face, the man deserves some dignity!”
Kittinger latched onto the small kindness.
“Mr. Molenski, they’ve treated me like shit since they… since they kidnapped me. I know they’re your men and all, but surely after our history…”
Molenski raised his hand.
“Now, now Robert, just calm down. I apologize for any inconvenience, but we’ll get to the bottom of this,” he said, as Andre handed him a small towel.
The naked man nodded and sighed in relief. The mob boss proceeded to gently wipe Kittinger’s face clean and sweep his hair from his brow.
“There, that’s better. Now, do you know why I had you brought here?”
Kittinger’s eyes were frightened but calculating. After a moment he shook his head. Molenski leaned over and put his face very close to Kittinger’s.
“Now Robert. I need total honesty from you. Your life depends on it. Do you understand?”
Robert Kittinger’s bottom lip quivered, and he nodded.
“Why are you here, Robert?”
“Because…”
“Yes?”
“Because I- I made a deal with the Columbians.”
“Bravo Robert! I applaud your honesty, and what was the deal?”
Kittinger’s shoulders slumped.
“To let them know the route of one of your shipments…”
“Continue!” said Molenski.
“So they could – please Mr. Molenski I-”
“So they could what Robert?”
“So they could intercept it!” Kittinger wailed, tears springing to his eyes.
Molenski clapped him hard on the bare shoulder causing Kittinger to flinch.
“There, that wasn’t so bad was it?” the Russian asked, before straightening and folding his arms. He looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully.
“Now, how do you think I felt when I discovered your… treachery?”
“I- I don’t know- upset?”
“No Robert,” said Molenski. “Not upset… murderous!”
“I’m sorry Mr. Molenski… I can make it right, really I can. Just tell me how much and I’ll pay it – I - I’ll pay anything.”
Molenski theatrically exhaled and looked down at his pr
isoner.
“Robert, it’s not about the money. It’s about the betrayal. There is no monetary compensation that can heal my broken heart. Not only that, with your tiny dick dangling there like that, I find it very hard to take you seriously.”
Kittinger again raised his feet to try and hide his exposed manhood.
“Please! I… ”
“No Robert, it’s too late for please and sorry. You betrayed my trust, and you will be punished. Andre, is my toolbox ready?”
“Da, it’s on the bench.”
“Excellent. Ivan, bring me Bertha.”
Ivan walked across to the bench. Upon it sat a red toolbox. He opened the lid, now an accomplice to the violence to come. In truth, there weren’t a lot of items in the toolbox, just Molenski’s favored instruments of torture. He picked up the claw hammer and closed the lid before taking it over to his boss.
“Robert meet Bertha, Bertha, Robert,” said Molenski.
The man’s eyes widened. He began crying and shaking his head as the Russian turned the hammer this way and that, inspecting it like a master tradesman.
“Oh, look at that, would you. Bertha wasn’t given a bath after her last adventure.”
He used his fingers to pull away a small clump of hair that was stuck in the fork of the claw and held it up for Kittinger to see before flicking it to the floor.
“No please Mr. Molenski…”
Molenski stepped forward and raised the hammer.
“Please! I’ll do anything!”
The Russian lowered the hammer, looking thoughtful.
“Anything?”
Kittinger nodded vigorously.
“Would you sacrifice your wife, Robert?”
Kittinger looked dumbly at him, as if not understanding the question.
“I take it that’s a no?”
With a swift movement, he raised the hammer and brought it down on his prisoner’s right knee cap. There was a terrible, meaty crack and an equally terrible scream.
Molenski let the scream drag on until it ended in a pitiable gurgle as the businessman’s chin again found his chest. There was a deep, rapidly darkening purple indent where his kneecap had been.
“I asked, Robert, would you sacrifice your wife?”
Kittinger didn’t look up, just shook his head hopelessly.
“Hmm… okay.”
Molenski raised the hammer again, bringing it down on the other knee. The noise of the kneecap popping and the shrieks that followed made his men wince.
After the screams faded to heavy sobbing, the mob boss again addressed the whimpering businessman.
“Now, before I smash your dick and balls into a Bolognese, I want you to answer my question.”
The threat to his manhood revived Kittinger, and he looked up at his tormentor. Molenski knew the man had come to the realization that he wasn’t leaving the room alive.
“Tell me, Robert. Would you sacrifice your wife?”
“Fuck you…”
Molenski shook his head, a disappointed father to an obstinate child. He rested the head of the hammer on the wooden seat between Kittinger’s bare thighs, just a few inches away from his shrunken manhood.
“Guess what? You already did.”
Kittinger looked puzzled. Molenski nodded to Andre who went to the back of the room and picked up a container. It was a fancy hat box, white with a red ribbon tied into an extravagant bow on top. Ivan watched with a sinking feeling. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out what was in the round box.
“Show him.”
Kittinger understood without needing to see inside the box. He began to wail, not from physical pain, this time, but the raw emotion of a man who had lost everything. He turned his head away, refusing to look in the box.
“You have to look, Robert,” said Molenski, nodding at Ivan. “I’m sorry, but you must know the consequences of your actions before you die.”
Ivan felt ill but nevertheless came forward. He placed a hand on either side of Kittinger’s sweat soaked head and twisted his head around to face Andre. The man struggled to avert his head but Ivan was too strong.
Andre lifted the lid theatrically.
Kittinger’s mouth opened in a silent scream, before he closed his eyes to shut out the horror in the box. Ivan released him, and Kittinger turned his head away and doubling over and puking the contents of his stomach onto the concrete floor.
Some of the vomit spattered the shoes and pants of Molenski.
Andre’s eyes widened, and he quickly evacuated himself from the area. The rage in his boss’s eyes had been fleeting, but Andre knew that the next few minutes would be… confronting, to say the least.
“Hold Mr. Kittinger’s legs apart for me, would you?” asked Molenski, calmly.
Andre nodded sharply to the new guy, Marco, who rushed forward, eager to please, and grabbed one of Kittinger’s feet. Ivan also stepped forward to grip the other foot. They pried the legs of the broken man open with no resistance. They both looked away, the younger man because the man’s private parts were exposed and rested against the wooden seat, Ivan because he knew what was coming.
And what followed was brutal and bloody, and it didn’t end until the tortured man had passed out.
Molenski wasn’t done yet though.
“Wake him up; I want to see his eyes when he leaves us.”
Ivan let go and moved away, and Marco followed his lead, his blood-spattered face pale with shock at what he had just witnessed.
Andre threw a bucket of water over Kittinger’s head, and the poor bastard spluttered awake.
“Knife!”
Andre pulled out his flick knife and opened it before handing it to the boss.
Molenski stepped forward and gripped Kittinger’s hair before pulling his head back sharply and resting the blade against the right side of his neck. He looked into his victim’s eyes.
“Time to die Mr. Kittinger.”
True to his word, after nicking his carotid artery, Molenski looked into the man’s eyes as his heart emptied his body of arterial blood, in bright, spectacular spurts. When the gouts had finally diminished to a trickle, he let the man’s head drop.
“Get this mess cleaned up,” he said to Andre and headed for the door.
Ivan rushed to make it through the door first, relieved he wouldn’t have to stay in the slaughterhouse any longer than necessary. He paused to allow his boss to take the lead as they walked back across the basement to the stairs.
Molenski would head upstairs to shower and change. As he had learned to do so many times, Ivan put the horror he had just witnessed out of his mind, determined more than ever that within a year, he would be gone from the Russian’s poisonous proximity.
4
While he waited for Molenski to finish showering, Ivan began to think about the delivery. He was curious to find out what it was. No matter how clever his boss was at hiding his emotions, Ivan had known the Russian long enough to realize that whatever it was, he was more excited at the news of its arrival than he had been about anything in a long time.
After he was dressed again, Molenski and Ivan went down to the ground floor. This was what Ivan considered the main level of the huge home. It contained entertaining and dining areas, offices, servant’s bedrooms and a galley style kitchen. It also housed a receiving dock, located behind the kitchen.
Ostensibly the dock was for deliveries of fresh produce and groceries, but unsurprisingly given its owner, it was also used for the discreet delivery of contraband, both large and small shipments.
Even before they reached the bottom of the stairs, the delicious aroma of freshly baked pumpkin pie wafted up to meet them. For the first time since he had awoken that morning, Dimitri Molenski thought of his wife.
The night before, he had ordered Isabella, his cook, to bake Tatiana a pumpkin pie as a welcome home from her trip to New York.
Tatiana, twenty years younger than Molenski and only freshly arrived from Russia, had certainly embraced her
new American lifestyle. Strangely, pumpkin pie was her American dish of choice, although, being the fickle woman she was, it was more than possible she might have decided she hates it while she was away visiting her cousins.
“Good morning,” said the pretty Hispanic woman behind the countertop as they entered the gleaming kitchen.
Ivan smiled and nodded at Isabella, but Molenski ignored her as he looked at his TAG Heuer. 11:23 am, Tatiana was flying in at 2:30 that afternoon.
That would give him plenty of time to check out his new toy, but he would probably have to wait until later tonight before he played with it. It crossed his mind that perhaps Tatiana, who was much more open to his more sinister pastimes than his previous wife, would be interested in playing with it too. No another toy perhaps. This one was something personal to him, something no one would understand, and he intended to enjoy it all by himself.
“Pumpkin pie, dah?” asked Ivan, who had a liking for the cook. “Perhaps save me a slice?”
“Perhaps,” she said, noncommittally but smiling.
“Come, Ivan,” Molenski said, over his shoulder as he headed into the dining room and towards the balcony.
Ivan smiled at Isabella and shrugged before hurrying to catch up with his boss.
Through the floor to ceiling glass, Ivan could see Marina, Molenski’s personal assistant, enjoying a cup of coffee on the balcony that overlooked the rear of the estate and the city beyond its walls. The attractive brunette held a small tablet in her hands.
“What do you have there, Marina?” asked Molenski, sitting down at the table next to her.
Marina was dressed immaculately in a gray business skirt and crisp white shirt. Her dark hair was pulled back in a tight bun.
“It’s the control tablet for…”
She stopped, looking over Molenski’s shoulder at Ivan.
“It’s fine. He’ll see soon enough.”
“Okay. Well, it’s the control tablet for your order.”
The item looked more like a small sheet of glass with words printed in on it than any tablet Ivan had ever seen.
Apex Risen Page 2