He toppled.
Reed associated ‘punching it out’ as the true way to fight. He hated wrestlers who used their wrestling to simply ‘control’ an opponent on the floor. The fist of Mr Blond bludgeoned into his cheek before he’d even mounted him—Connor then knew that just controlling him wasn’t his intent. Connor quickly used his hips to twist and scrambled up. The Marine’s mood darkened. He was determined he wouldn’t let himself be taken down again.
Up quicker than Mr Blond, he smashed a knee into his face. Mr Blond stumbled back onto his behind, a weird vertical cut split his left cheek. Connor ran up and tried stamping on his face as Mr Blond rocked onto his back. Thrashing arms thwarted the stamps.
Connor stood over him, feigning attempts to get past his feet but was slyly taking the opportunity of a breather. After a minute, he backed off, and Mr Blond wearily got back to his feet. The Yorkshireman began to jab and step around him, giving him different angles. He started to feint and found himself beginning to hit Mr Blond. Nothing devastating, but he was landing and Mr Blond wasn’t.
Connor sprawled away from a couple of takedown attempts by shooting his legs back as Mr Blond shot in for them. Looking for an opening, Connor found it with a whipping long right uppercut to the face. It landed like a mallet on a slab of meat as Mr Blond stumbled forward with his hands outstretched. Connor took a hard grip of his hair before raining obliterating knees and punches into Mr Blond’s face. Follet dove in to save the unconscious and bloodied Mr Blond.
Bruce drove his M3 towards George’s house, cutting through a quiet residential area. George sat beside him dressed in jeans and his training sweater.
“Anything else?” Bruce asked George after discovering Connor had overcome his two opponents. His performance surprised them both. They had been two young professionals who had regularly paid George for private sessions.
The exercise had been designed to push him to ascertain whether or not he would surrender in the face of a task he couldn’t succeed in. Instead, he’d neutralised both opponents; almost breaking one’s arm and bludgeoning the consciousness from the other. They resembled car crash victims when Bruce saw them, and he had had to financially recompense them.
“He’s got ruthlessness about him. I would say viciousness. He would have kept pummelling that American until I dived in,” said George to Bruce.
“How do you rate him?”
George continued, “It helps he’s had a solid background in boxing and judo, and he responds well to tutelage. I’d back him against most.”
“Thank you,” said Bruce, “a guy who can handle himself tends to be more confident going about this business, and it could save his life one day.”
As Bruce said this, he thought back to when one of his undercover operatives died. It had been in a brawl with a Turkish gangster in the backroom of a club. It hadn’t been because he’d made the gangster suspicious of his identity—it had been because he’d beaten him at the card game they were playing.
Makar Gorokhov sat in a charcoal Skoda Fabia. He was parked on the street overlooking the majestically lit Mandarin Oriental London Hotel.
It was a ‘work’ vehicle; a car he used to keep a low profile. The scene from a film in which Al Pacino’s character impressed the benefits of being underestimated, came to his mind—‘I am a surprise. They don’t see me coming.’ Makar knew the importance of this, realising that it was one of the reasons for his success in this career.
It had gotten harder to be underestimated as the years went by and his reputation grew. He knew he was feared.
This fear was most evident to him when meeting people in this business for the first time. Some hid it better than others, but he’d been able to read people ever since he could remember. The change in body language, behaviour and dialogue of individuals, however subtle, gave away their nervousness.
The surveillance task he was currently engaged in was one others in his position would delegate, but Gorokhov chose not to. It kept him sharp.
He was the Avtorityet (Brigadier). The role of an Avtorityet had similarities to a Capo—Captain—in the Italian-American Mafia. An Avtorityet would oversee a crew of around ten men. There were four Avtorityets to a major city’s Bratva, ruled by one Pakhan.
Ravil Yelchin had made allowances for Makar. London still had the requisite four Brigades, but the other three had five Boyeviks (warriors) apiece and five to six Shestyorka (associates). Makar had ten of each.
The other Avtorityets stayed in line; happy to be a part of the most lucrative Bratva in the entire Solntsevskaya Bratva. They were also aware that one of the driving factors in the London Bratva’s prosperity was Makar Gorokhov’s ruthless professionalism. An undercurrent of fear helped too.
Makar stood six-feet one-inch, appearing a well-built man in clothes. Underneath lay a fearsome physique. The muscles were thick, hard and dense with none of the water-retained size which some steroid abusers carried. This density of muscle was why he didn’t look conspicuous in his standard suited attire.
He had a strong face made up of a square jaw with the alert eyes an unusually intense shade of blue. He would have changed his eye colour if he could—they were too memorable. He had a full head of brown, wavy hair cut into a fashionable but not eye-catching style.
Makar’s gentlemanly manner had prevented anyone who didn’t know him from finding him threatening upon initial meeting. It had been advantageous, causing him to be underestimated by literally hundreds of adversaries throughout his thirty-nine years. Makar rarely exuded any intimidating behaviour, himself preferring to let his actions do the talking. It was the actions that made others talk of him.
The membership of the Russian Bratva revered Makar. Most were acutely aware that he would have been a Pakhan, himself had he held that ambition, including Ravil Yelchin himself. Makar’s long and distinguished past career as a KGB agent had given him a skill set far beyond most of his contemporaries, both in and out of the Brotherhood.
Today he was observing Hassan Saki, the head of the most profitable Turkish organised crime syndicate in the United Kingdom. Saki was a principal in the transportation and distribution of heroin onto the Isles and had been for years.
Makar had followed the hulking Turk as he wandered the local market stall earlier in the day. As he watched him converse with market stall patrons and locals, Makar had admired his apparent common touch despite being worth millions.
Hassan Saki was one of five major crime figures in London that Makar’s Bratva had been surveilling—‘Getting your ducks in a row’, being the English term that the Russian liked.
The time for change was on the horizon.
11
Grace opened the door and shone a smile at Connor. It had been over a week since his last visit.
“Back so soon?” she said. She gave Connor a closed mouth kiss. He liked the warmth of her face and breath just before they kissed.
“I’m just finishing up with a client, will take a few minutes,” she said, leading him inside.
“Client? You on the game finally?”
“If I were, I’d be living in a mansion in Monaco by now,” she replied. He couldn’t hide his smile.
Grace had a small room where she tattooed clients, separated from the living room by hanging wooden beads that covered the doorway. She was sought after as an artist, but her commitment to the hospital prevented her from becoming even more renowned.
From the sofa, he watched her as he pretended to peruse a magazine from the pile she kept for clients. He doubted that Grace herself would read ‘Now’, ‘Woman’s Own’ or ‘Woman’s Weekly’. Her niche of only tattooing women proved popular. He guessed there were some women who found the thought of tattoo parlours intimidating.
She was tattooing the small of a thirty-something-year-old woman’s back, who was sat on a swivel stool. Her upper body leaning on a leather covered rest fitted to it.
Connor watched Grace, her face a picture of studied concentration. Her red hair was u
p in a clip, baring her elegant neck. She was wearing jeans and a willowy white shirt, as her latex gloved hand moved the tattoo gun in small circles.
Connor had read a few books on human brain function. Although people tended to be either left-sided (more logical and analytical) or right-sided (more creative or intuitive), a person could develop both sides of their brain to an equally high degree. One book he read stated that the most famous example of that was Leonardo Di Vinci. On the one hand he sculpted and had painting masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa. On the other, he’d conceptualised helicopters and tanks, as well as outlining a basic theory on plate tectonics, amongst other things.
The best example of a person developing both sides of the brain that Connor had been in contact with was Grace.
She was the most intriguing, mentally stimulating, alluring and sexy girl he knew. She’d the ability to make any person feel special, like the woman she was tattooing now. Despite her beauty, the warmth of her manner could disarm stand-offish women.
She finished, dabbing away at the tattoo with kitchen roll damp with soapy water and let the client know she’d finished.
The lady let out squeals of delight viewing it in the mirror. Grace gave her a broad smile and snapped a few photos with her client’s phone. She showed them to the woman, who gushed with appreciation.
Connor began to silently curse the woman as she began to make small talk with Grace—sense the atmosphere and fuck off!
He had been getting hard in the car on the way over. His head became deliciously light as Grace tactfully shortened the conversation and began leading the woman to the door. Connor got up and followed a few steps behind.
Grace had tried hard to forget Connor was waiting and concentrated on the tattoo.
She had always drawn, ever since she could remember, sketching in lessons as a school girl. Now she would sometimes draw alone in parks or libraries.
For her tattoo work, she would listen to what the client asked for in the initial consultation, perhaps subtly steering them onto an alternative if she wasn’t too keen on it. After this, she would draw a template which she transferred to the body to work off it.
She knew artists, excellent ones too, who would simply draw on the client’s body with a biro and it always made her cringe. After fighting the urge to rush she finished the tattoo twenty minutes after Connor arrived. She cleaned and took some photos of it on the clients’ phone.
“Oh, it’s gorgeous Grace! I’ll post them up. Can I tag you on my wall for advertisement?”, the client asked as she pinched her knees together and bounced.
“It’s OK Shirley. I’m not on social media. Word of mouth is more than enough.”
“Oh…I am thinking of coming off it myself, to be honest. It’s all what people ate for their tea…that and pictures of injured animals. I mean, I just don’t want to see it on my wall, Grace. I just use it to keep in—
“—Shirley, this client has booked in at the last minute, and I have to get cracking, Love,” smiling again to diffuse her interruption.
“Oh yes…. OK Grace…thank you very much.”
Grace’s heart beat harder as she saw Shirley to the door as she noticed Connor stand and follow her.
As soon as Grace closed the door, she felt a firm grip on her arm spinning her around and slamming her against it. She exhaled, either with shock or relief. The fingers on one of his hands gripped her face, and she was physically forced, though mentally willing, into a deep, probing, and open-mouthed kiss. She felt his rough stubble. As her hands came up to clasp his hair, she was spun around again, her wrists grasped by his hands, her palms put against the door.
She felt herself getting wet as the blood rushed to her brain. Her head forced to one side, his mouth was on hers again—hard and insistent. Her belt was prised open, and the buttons of her jeans pulled apart. His hand plunged down her knickers, and his fingers found her wet pussy. It amazed her at how wet she’d become. The realisation fell that she’d begun to ‘feel it’ from the moment he got up to follow her to the door.
As her jeans and knickers were torn down, his mouth left hers, and her arse cheeks were pulled apart, exposing her to the cool air. She gasped, letting out a guttural moan, as his probing mouth mashed against her. He began to lavishly eat her pussy before tracing his tongue to her arsehole.
She pushed back against him like she couldn’t get his face deep enough. His fingers entered her pussy and began driving in and out. Just as she felt the stirrings she craved, she was whirled around with his body crushed against hers. She could smell herself on his face. His hand found her throat. He took a grip of her hair and began to force her to her knees.
She didn’t care about anything else now but him. She received a slap, the noise reverberated and the pain being just right. It was she who liked this—he was a little reluctant in the beginning. It was more the sound of it that turned her on—what it symbolised.
“Look at me,” he said.
She did so, near adoringly. He was the best she’d ever had, being able just to know what she needed. In these moments she fought the urge to go too far with her verbal endearments.
The other men she’d had made her feel weird with some of her requests. Many of them indulged her out of sheer gratitude. With him, slapping aside, she’d never had to ask him to do anything. That was what turned her on about him: a masculine confidence and complete inhibition not born from just how he looked.
She was on her knees, and he prised open her jaw forcing himself into her mouth. She began to suck, letting the saliva spill over him. Her mouth was making lewd sucking noises as he fucked her face. He took it out and spat in her mouth.
Pushing her away, they stumbled through to the living room, kissing as they went. He pressed her onto the Persian rug, tearing her jeans down, and fumbling them over her heels. Taking off her knickers, forcing her legs wide, he plunged inside her as she cried out.
He kissed her hard and deep.
He gripped her hair as she clawed at his back. She came hard around him, and he gave her a moment or two to enjoy it.
He put her shapely leg over his shoulder and drove himself into her again. He didn’t stop, pounding into her until he came with a muted roar. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, staring at him.
The man walked along London Bridge admiring Big Ben, a magnificent landmark of London.
He had a kind face, despite rarely smiling. His short black hair gently receded on the crown. His suit was expensive and well-fitting, drawing the attention of the keener eyed Londoners. The rest were in too much of a rush to notice.
The only clouds in the sky, white and non-threatening, seemed to frame the giant clock tower.
No doubt a student of Freud would make a correlation between his thirst for power and the phallic-like nature of the piece, he thought. Nevertheless, Ravil Yelchin admired all kinds of architecture around the world. The clock tower at the north end of the Palace of Westminster was known to the masses as Big Ben. He knew Big Ben referred to the bell within it and not the entire structure itself.
Yelchin had the sort of enquiring mind that wanted to know everything about anything relevant to his world. At times, information that seemed useless to others had helped him when he least expected it.
He had spent lots of time reading about London’s attractions, even the lesser known ones. It fascinated him to learn of the clock’s mechanism, the design and architecture of the clock tower itself. It was renamed the ‘Elizabeth Tower’ in 2012 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of the current Queen of England. It amused him to discover that in 1949, the clock slowed by four minutes as a flock of birds perched on the minute hand.
He wanted to know every nuance of the city. London would be Ravil’s world, and he’d be the master of it.
Now aged fifty-one years old and although incredibly influential, he felt it was time to stop shifting from place to place. He had to set roots and build a fortress.
The acquisition of this type of power c
ouldn’t be rushed, and it had been a slow, laborious process.
The Russian rarely reminisced as he did not want to waste time living in the past. However, as he was about to rise into a position of true power, he couldn’t help but lament on the journey that led him here.
He had no illusion of what he was—a criminal, and had been since he was young. The ironic part of Ravil’s childhood criminality was that his parents were upper class, with his father being a distinguished banker. At around twelve years old, Ravil began to go out on weekends causing mischief. Eventually settling in a little gang—a banda—made of youths from twelve to fifteen. They stole from warehouses then sold the goods on the street, stole cars and fought vicious running battles with other gangs. He loved all of it.
He often wondered why he wasn’t caught or that his parents didn’t question him. Perhaps the former was down to luck, and the latter to denial.
Still, he did well at school and outwardly had seemed the typical teenager. When he reached the age of sixteen, Yelchin came to the attention of a gawky local waiter named Sergei Mikhailov. The charismatic Sergei wasn’t just a waiter. He was a local criminal. To Ravil’s surprise, Sergei encouraged him to stay in school and afterwards move on to University, saying, ‘Young Ravil, the authorities see what they want to see, they are prejudiced like everyone. Men with real, high powered professions are almost invisible to them.’
Ravil followed his advice and obtained a PHD in Linguistics at the Modern State Linguistic University, specialising in German, Spanish and English. In Ravil’s absence, his old friend Sergei had gone to prison, following a conviction for fraud. He came out and founded the Solntsevskaya Bratva—The Brotherhood.
The Bootneck Page 9