The HiT Series

by Margaret McHeyzer

  I step through the door behind Ben and look around. In the middle of the chilly room there’s a St. Andrew’s cross with an Asian man strapped to it. He’s completely bare, looking quite weak and broken.

  There’s a table with three chairs, and on the table there’s an array of knives and surgical equipment, a Glock, and a small propane blow torch.

  I look over at Ben and smile. He returns my grin. I can only imagine what’s going through his mind.

  Gray-haired Old Man taps me on the shoulder as I study the incredibly delicious scene I’m presented with. “One of the men,” he says and tips his head to indicate the man strapped on the cross.

  “And you strapped him to a BDSM device?” I ask with mirth in my voice.

  “I think you might enjoy it,” he says. His thick accent dances merrily with humor.

  Yes, he is just as sadistic as I am.

  And now I’ll have my chance to see how he reacts to what I do.

  I walk over to the chair and drag it over in front of the spread-eagled beast.

  Looking over my shoulder, I watch as Ben and old man each take a seat behind the table.

  “Give him a drink,” I say. My tone is harsh; my words are precise and clear.

  “сейчас,” he orders clearly and forcefully.

  I turn my head toward Gray-haired Old Man and feel my eyebrow lift at him in silent question.

  “I said, now,” he answers me.

  My eyes meet Ben’s. He looks calm, at ease with this situation.

  It’s then I know Ben was never really a cop at heart. He’ll never be on the right side of the law. He’ll always be like me – someone who can blend into society, but whose soul is blackened from the things we’ve done.

  Turning back to face the cuffed man, I cross my legs in a dainty, feminine way and smile at him.

  His eyes are wild with fright. His body has lost all control and he is trembling against his bonds.

  “Who are you?” he asks in a timid voice.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I answer.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” he says. Fear rolls off him.

  “You’re here because I want you to be here.” I sit back in my chair and tilt my head at him.

  “We’ve never crossed paths, or I’d remember a beautiful girl like you.”

  “That’s because you wouldn’t be looking at me. You like them younger.” His face begins to morph into a look of shock. “Much younger,” I say as I look down, studying my nails.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, completely unconvincing in his delivery or the words he’s saying.

  “Well then, I’m about to kill the wrong man. Not that it bothers me. I haven’t taken a life in a few days and I’m itching to get some thick, red blood back on my hands.”

  “I haven’t done anything,” he wails at me, his voice edging into hysteria.

  “What bothers me is I know you’re lying. And because of that, I’m going to draw the pain out, make it last. Wickedly slow. It’s what my colleagues over there are here to watch,” I say as I throw out my thumb toward Ben and Gray-haired Old Man.

  “No!” the cuffed man shrieks. His shoulders drop, just half an inch. But it’s enough for me to recognize that he’s about to tell me what I want to hear. “I like little girls,” he says as he lowers his gaze to the floor. “Really, really young girls, sometimes toddlers,” he whispers.

  Just the thought makes me want to rip his cock off and shove it up his ass. But I’ve got to contain my anger, and let him believe he’s going to get a quick death.

  I hear the scrape of a chair against the cold concrete floor and I look over my shoulder to find Ben’s standing, looking at the instruments on the table.

  Gray-haired Old Man looks at Ben, and then looks over to me. With the smallest movement, I shake my head at him, and we both allow Ben to do what he wants.

  Listening to this shackled beast admit his fondness for children is enough to make anyone want to kill him. A normal person could easily pummel him until he’s nothing more than a pile of shit, something you’d scrape from the bottom of your shoe.

  He doesn’t deserve sympathy. His crimes warrant hell, burning fires to consume his mind, body, and soul.

  Ben picks up the blow torch and lights it.

  “If we can’t get you to hell, we’ll bring hell here,” I say as I sit back in my chair, ready to watch the show.

  “I thought you’d kill me quickly if I admitted to the truth,” he whines. I love it when they plead. They think it’ll make a difference.

  “Did you?” I ask, feigning surprise. “I don’t recall saying that.”

  I know how this tango works. I threaten, they cry like the hopeless shits they are, and I have a great time taking them apart.

  Piece by piece. But this has become Ben’s circus, and I’ll let him run it.

  Ben walks with slow, careful steps toward him, drawing out the movement, adding to the sheer terror the beast must be feeling.

  The man pisses himself. Dark yellow urine runs down his leg and puddles on the floor beneath him.

  “Oh please, God,” he prays in a whimper.

  “He certainly won’t help you. Oh, and just so you know, this is going to hurt a great deal,” I say with a cool, steady voice. “Wait, before you do anything, Ben.”

  I turn to look at Gray-haired Old Man.

  “Is there problem?” he asks as he furrows his bushy eyebrows together.

  “Not at all. Can you have the other two brought out here, please?”

  “Da.” He throws a gaze over to his henchman, and the man in the shadows disappears.

  Within a few moments, the henchman brings in two more beasts and pushes them to stand in front of me.

  He looks at me, waiting for me to give him direction. I smile and slightly nod then flick my hand, indicating he can leave.

  “One on either side of me,” I command the two men. The shorter one of the two looks at the other then shuffles to my right. “Kneel,” I say in a chilly ‘don’t fuck with me’ voice.

  They both kneel beside me, obedient, although their shoulders are stiff with anxiety and their eyes dart around, taking in their surroundings.

  “Eyes toward him,” I demand, pointing to the one on the cross. Both men look at the third, waiting in fear to see what we do to him.

  I nod to Ben, who smiles at me.

  With no trepidation, he holds the blue flame to cuffed man’s right nipple. The man screams in agony, the sound hypnotic and so very delicious as it echoes through the stark factory building.

  Ben drags the blow torch across his body, and holds it on his left nipple.

  The stench of burning hair and skin fills the air.

  The pedophile to my right becomes wobbly. His face has lost all color and his eyes are slowly rolling to the back of his head. His chest is rising and falling heavily, and he’s just about to faint.

  I get up from my chair and walk around behind him, moving my arm to put him in a choke hold. I begin to slowly apply pressure. Just a slight squeeze, making it difficult for him to breathe, and letting him revive a little before I cut off his air completely.

  His hands come up to grab at my wrists so he can pull my arm down, but starvation and thirst have made him weak.

  I keep the pressure around his trachea, as I continue to slowly cut off his air. He’s just about to die. I can feel his body giving up. But I want him to live, so I ease my pressure. I let him take in huge gulps of air and the oxygen flow to his brain resumes.

  Ben has now moved the blow torch down the center of the man’s stomach, frying him alive. Blood is oozing out from his burns, and his voice is hoarse from all his screaming.

  “See what happens when you touch little kids?” I whisper to the man kneeling before me.

  The guy on the cross is obviously in agony. I doubt he’ll be able to withstand this torture for too much longer.

  I walk over to the table, and pick up the hunting knife. I
t’s light in my hand, the blade made from titanium. One side is serrated and the other has a perfectly sharp, smooth edge.

  I turn the knife over in my hand, and it feels great, nicely balanced.

  The handle is made from the same titanium but it’s heavier than the blade.

  I flip it to my left hand. This is a truly beautiful knife. It’s probably one of the most common brands in the world, more than likely bulk-made. But the lightweight feel is just perfect in my hand.

  Turning my head, I watch Gray-haired Old Man studying me while I admire the knife. He gives me an evil grin, one I can imagine resembling my own when I’m about to kill.

  I give him a small wink, telling him without using words to keep watching, because Ben and I are about to give him an awesome show.

  I walk back to the guy I almost strangled, and calmly slit his throat. The blade is so sharp and smooth as it runs across his skin that I don’t even have to put too much pressure on the blade. It slices straight through his veins and arteries as I run the knife from left ear to right.

  He collapses on the floor at my feet, his blood continues to spurt out. He’s still alive if blood is still coming out. But in only a matter of minutes, the fucker will die.

  I take a step back. I really don’t want blood on my shoes. It’s a bitch to clean off, so usually I just burn them.

  His body flops on the floor before his eyes glass over and he quietly dies.

  The second man is still kneeling, looking at the seat of the chair in front of him and avoiding the man bleeding out on the floor and the one being cooked on the cross. I walk around to squat down beside him. His body is visibly shaking. He keeps blinking his eyes, and with every flicker of his lids, more tears fall.

  “Are you enjoying the show?” I ask, smiling as I look over at him.

  “W-w-why are you doing this?” he stutters, whimpering.

  “Haven’t you figured it out yet?” I ask him as I run the palm of my hand down his cheek in a soothing way, seeming to offer comfort.

  At that moment, an ungodly cry of pain erupts from the shackled man, and he collapses against the restraints.

  I can see his chest has stopped moving and his body has become limp. There’s no more life in him. Ben has essentially flayed him with a blow torch.

  “Fuck!” Ben yells as he turns the torch off, and swings around to look at me. “I wanted to burn his fucking cock off.” He lets out a deep sigh, but I see that familiar spark of excitement hit him forcefully. “Can I do it to that one?” he asks as he points to the fucker beside me.

  “No you can’t. You had your fun, this one’s mine.” I pet the pedophile’s head, reassuring him with another beatific smile.

  He whines and mewls, his trembling body giving away just how frightened he is.

  “I’m sorry,” he says as saliva oozes from the side of his open mouth.

  “Oh? For what?” I ask, pushing him to acknowledge the reason he’s here.

  “I th-think it’s ‘cause I like little kids. ‘Cause I hu-hu-hurt that ba-ba-ba-bay,” he snivels.

  Motherfucker hurt a baby?

  My skin prickles as a cold anger washes over me. I feel my body trembling. My jaw’s tightly clenched and my breathing is elevated just slightly. I can feel my nostrils flaring.

  I know I’m beginning to lose control.

  Motherfucker hurt a baby?!

  Red.

  That’s the only color I can see. Rage pumps through me, hate sparking every fucking nerve ending in my body.

  I stand and grab the blow torch from Ben and smash it into the side of the fucker’s head.

  He goes down like a bag of shit, and I don’t stop. I keep pounding the torch into him. Soon his face has no recognizable features.

  He’s one big open wound.

  There’s not much left of his head. I feel strong arms wrap around me, restraining me from doing further damage to a dead man.

  “Motherfucker hurt a baby,” I scream as Ben’s strong arms drag me away.

  “Shhhh. Calm down, Anna. He’s dead. He’s fucking dead,” Ben says in my ear in a soft voice. “They’re all dead.”

  I stay for a moment, shielded in his arms as I look around the cold, sterile room, just calming down.

  Breathe Anna. Henry always told me to just breathe.

  “I’m alright,” I say once I’ve regained my composure.

  Ben lets me go, and I drop the bloody torch to the floor.

  “That was wonderful. I thought you were a robot all these years,” declares Gray-haired Old Man in his thick accent as he stands and claps. “I’ve never known a woman as bloodthirsty as you.”

  I swing around and cut him with a look.

  Fuck his bullshit, too.

  One of the weapons on the table is a Glock. I pick it up and know right away by the weight of it the damn thing isn’t fucking loaded. I look at the gun in disgust, and throw it across the fucking building.

  Without even a moment to realize what the hell I’m doing, I’ve connected with an uppercut and got him in a head lock. He head butts me backwards and swings around to punch me in the eye.

  I grab a pair of pliers from the table and lunge to take his eye out. He lifts a gun and points it at Ben at the very moment I’m about to make contact.

  I stop myself and turn to look at Ben, only to see the henchman with his gun pointed at my head.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I yell, with absolutely no patience left for all these damn riddles.

  “Da, it is time,” he says as he lowers his weapon, rubbing his chin where I punched him. “I am your grandfather, dear girl.”

  Grandfather?

  What the fuck is going on?

  Anna

  I had a feeling we were related.

  It was there, in the pit of my stomach, niggling at me ever since I met him.

  Truthfully, I’m not even surprised. It makes perfect sense. He said my sister and I are very important to him. He never tried killing us, and he’s been there twice to help.

  He may be my grandfather, but he’s definitely more interested in me than just helping me rid the world of the scum I had to deal with.

  I step back and look at him as I bring my hand up and run it over my face. But before I do, I catch sight of it and notice all the blood on my knuckles.

  “You’re my grandfather?” I say, more a rhetorical than an actual question.

  “Da,” he answers. I didn’t really need his confirmation, though.

  “Who are you?” I take the three steps over to the table and sit.

  “My name is Dmitri Petrov,” he answers as he sits beside me.

  “Petrov is a very common Russian name. A quarter of the population has it. What is the name that people whisper in fear?”

  He throws his head back in a huge belly laugh, and clasps both his hands over his stomach.

  “You know, you are very smart. There is a name that terrifies most people.”

  I tap one finger on the table, and continue to hold his gaze.

  I know the reputation I have around the world. Most of those in the underworld have heard of me. They’ve heard of my precision with weapons, my absolute ability to accurately fire a rifle at impressive distances. And yet, I firmly believe this man, my grandfather, is even more dangerous than me.

  “Yakovich,” he says and sits back in his chair, just letting me mull over the name.

  “As in Siyalov Yakovich?” I ask.

  “Da,” he answers with a slight nod of the head.

  Siyalov Yakovich once ruled one of the biggest Bratvas ever known in the underworld. About three years back, though, the Yakovich Bratva began to lose its power and stature because it was said the head of the brotherhood, Siyalov Yakovich, had been killed by one of his own men.

  It was never confirmed, and of course rumors and whispers were all anyone ever heard about it. It was assumed to be true, that he was dead.

  Clearly, it wasn’t true.

  “Why the ruse?” I ask.

&nbs
p; Ben stands beside me, showing Dmitri a united front while offering me his silent support.

  “Hmmm, that is difficult question,” Dmitri says as he taps his finger to his mouth.

  “Why? And who took over the business? The Yakovich Bratva has lost a lot of its clout, and people are no longer as frightened by that name which once resonated authority and inspired terror,” I say. Again my brain knows there’s a piece of the puzzle he’s with-holding.

  I’m missing something crucial as to why he chose not to continue his reign as a leader in the underworld.

  “There was only one reason. But now I know you must come back with me, and take your place as Russian Princess. You belong at the top, and you must lead the Bratva to new heights.”

  What the fuck?

  “Thanks, but I work better on my own.” I say, graciously declining. But I’m sure he won’t accept what I’m saying easily.

  “The business will not survive without you. It is already falling apart, with younger, more aggressive heads thinking they are better rulers than Siyalov Yakovich ever was.”

  “What are you not telling me?” I’m definitely suspicious; anyone can see why. It’s obvious that Dmitri is still holding something back from me.

  “Come, let us go to dinner and then we can discuss.” He stands and reaches his hand out for me to take. I look at it as if he’s a leper and one touch will infect me.

  But I finally accept it, graciously, and keep my judgment of the entire situation to myself.

  For now.

  We drive to a restaurant an hour away from the industrial park. It’s located along the street front, and the name written on the window is ‘The Second Moonrise’.

  I know this place. Frankie DeLuca owned it before she died of a heart attack. She used my services once; her father before her used me, too. She was a damned shrewd underworld boss. She took the reins when her father died and gave her control of the business. I believe her daughter owns the place now. What was her name? Well, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. She won’t know me.

  The limousine pulls up to the curb and the driver gets out, holding the door open for us. Dmitri gets out first and extends his hand to me. I take it and slide out to wait for Ben.