The Mafia Trilogy (51 page)

“Agreed.”

“Always being available for the Bratva is a duty, even if your wife is giving birth or on her deathbed.”

“Agreed.”
Fuck you.

“Appointments must absolutely be respected. Commitment before ego.”

“Understood.”

“Not understood. Agreed.”

“Agreed.”

“Honor the truth. When asked for anything from a member of the Bratva, it must always be the truth.”

“Agreed.”

“When ordered, kill whoever, whenever, without question.”

“Agreed.”
I’m going to kill you without question,
Darwin thought as he continued to drip blood on the skull of a cop long dead.

“Swear to secrecy. Never talk about the Bratva to outsiders. Respect confidentiality.”

“Agreed.”

Arkady laid the paper out over the top of the skull and produced a lighter.

“Stand up,” he ordered.

Darwin stood.

“The last commandment has to be completed while standing. Take the skull in your hands.”

Darwin picked it up and almost dropped it as his blood had collected near the base making it slick.

“I’m going to burn the paper with the commandments. While it burns, you will not let go of the skull. I will read the last one to you. When the fire goes out, you will have joined the brotherhood.”

Darwin nodded.

Arkady lit the edge of the paper. The small flame grew, heat coming off it.

“If you betray the Bratva, your flesh will burn like this paper, as will the rest of your immediate and distant family.”

The paper burned slowly across the top of the skull. His blood kept the flame low, but his anger threatened to boil over when Arkady mentioned his family. Darwin did everything he could to hold the skull and not ram it into Arkady’s teeth.

The whole ritual was so fucked.
How could groups of people act like this?
Such a warped mentality in a civil society. Mothers with children were shopping at the mall a few kilometers away. People were running errands and going to birthday parties while the men around him were performing rituals and killing cops.

In that moment, he knew why he was here. Rehabilitation didn’t stop men like this. Courts didn’t stop men like this. Psychologists couldn’t break down the race barriers or the hatred built up in these men after years of anger and fighting.

What stopped men like the Bratva was death. A pedophile has to be castrated to cease his urges, and men like the ones standing around him needed to have not just their balls ripped off, but also their heads.

He wondered for a second as the flame burned down if that made him the same as them and realized it didn’t. He was a better man because he could walk away and have a good life, never hurting anything bigger than a housefly.

The fire went out and one of the men turned on the lights.

“Congratulations,” Arkady said. “You are now a member of the Bratva.”

He patted him on the back. Darwin set the skull down on the table and wiped at the blood dripping off his chin.

The men circled around him, hugging him and slapping his back. A couple of them smiled.

“We will get you some food and vodka and then you are leaving to handle your first assignment.”

“What’s my first assignment?”

“We have been wasting our time for the last eight months meeting two men in the food court of Sherway Gardens. They had expressed interest in buying over three million dollars worth of weapons. They have been professional and everything checked out. We have proven unsuccessful in following them until our last meeting.”

“You want me to follow them?”

Arkady shook his head. “We’ve done that and found out they are cops. We have a meeting scheduled in an hour before the mall closes. You are to meet them, offer to show them a sample of the weapons they’re supposed to be buying, and once they’re outside by the mall’s loading docks, you are to execute them both with two bullets to the forehead. Are we clear?”

Darwin nodded without hesitation. “Clear.”

What do I do now? Carson didn’t tell me they’d want me to kill cops.

“Good, but you won’t be going alone.”

The door opened and Dolph stepped back in the room. He smiled at Darwin and walked up to him, examining the fresh marks and blood on his face. Darwin expected to be broken in half. He waited for the blows to come, but Dolph only extended his hand.

“Brother,” he said.

Darwin gripped the proffered hand as tight as he could but still felt his bones grind in Dolph’s grip.

“He will join you to watch the kills and report back to us. If anything goes wrong, I will have two other men in a car not far from the van that you take the pigs to. Now go. Clean yourself up first and then kill those filthy pigs. Bring back their heads.”

Chapter 23

Darwin sat in the passenger seat of the van and wondered what the point was. Since he ran from the federal building in Jacksonville, he had been with Arkady. He had toured their warehouse, and went through their blood ceremony, with bruises on his face to prove it.

But for what? He couldn’t kill a cop. He couldn’t kill anybody just because. Kill or be killed was the only way he could take another life. Unless, of course, they were hurting Rosina.

Oh, baby, how I miss you. What kind of life is this?

He pledged to make it up to her. He would escape Dolph’s clutches in the mall, call the authorities and tell them where Arkady’s warehouse was. They were bound to have enough evidence to put them all away for a long time.

The Asian being killed by a thousand cuts would still be there. Blood on the Judas Cradle would leave a DNA trail to its victims. The rape and sodomy performed daily would have numerous charges brought up on the rest of the men present, not to mention all the drugs that were probably on-site.

All he had to do was get past Dolph at the mall.

They wanted him to shoot cops. They would give him a gun to do that. He would make his play then.

“You doing okay?” Dolph asked. “You look a little white.”

Darwin turned to face him. “I’m fine. It just seems like a big job, you know, wasting cops on my first day.”

“You scared?”

“Not scared. Smart.”

“Smart?”

Dolph pulled into the huge parking lot of the mall as rain began to fall. He hung a right and headed for the loading dock at the back.

“This is a chess move. Arkady is being strategic with me and I think I see where he’s going with it.”

“Where’s that?”

“When we’re done tonight, I’ll tell you.”

“If he is playing chess,” Dolph said, “what piece are you right now?”

“A pawn. But if everything goes right tonight, I’ll be either a rook or a knight.”

Dolph nodded, backed the van up to the docks and cut the engine. He grabbed a duffle bag from behind his seat and pulled out a small handgun.

“This is what you will use to kill both men.” He clicked it open and nodded. “Four bullets are loaded and ready to go. Two in each man’s forehead. Got that?”

Darwin nodded.

“Got that?” Dolph repeated.

“Yes.”

“Good. Here’s the safety.” Dolph held the weapon up on its side and pointed. Darwin nodded and took the weapon.

I should just shoot him right now.

“Our backup is right there,” Dolph said as he glanced out the windshield and nodded to the right.

Two skinheads sat in an older model Pontiac 6000, seven cars down.

“Let’s go,” Dolph said.

They got out of the van and entered the mall by way of the back door as Darwin slipped the gun in his waistband at the back. He searched Dolph’s body with his eyes, but couldn’t see a weapon anywhere.

Maybe he’s unarmed.

Could it be a setup of some kind? Darwin decided to keep playing it out until the end. He needed to see what was about to take place and then decide what to do next. If they were delivering him to La Cosa Nostra, he had four bullets in the gun and two legs to run with.

Shoppers bustled by them as they entered the corridors of the main mall.

“Food court’s this way,” Dolph said. “Don’t forget. I’ll do the talking. We’re to show them the product. We escort them to the van. I open the doors slowly. Stay back. When the doors open and the van is empty—in that moment of surprise, shoot both men in the forehead. Do not shoot me.” Dolph looked sideways at him. “That’ll piss me off.”

“The chance that they would come alone is low,” Darwin offered. “Others may be watching.”

“We know. That’s what our backup is for. We hop in the van and leave with our backup guys running interference. The highway is one exit away, the warehouse, five minutes. Once there, the van is stripped and repainted by the morning. We’ve done this before.”

Some shops were already closing their doors as it was getting close to nine-thirty. The food court was almost empty. Dolph headed to the middle where two men sat at a table with four seats near a white railing. Both men were dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts. One had a mustache and two-day growth on his face. The other was clean-shaven and could easily pass as a cop.

Darwin scanned the faces of as many people as he could in the area, but did not see anyone watching them. If the cops had backup in the food court, it was impossible to tell.

They sat opposite the men, who were drinking coffee. The smell of Taco Bell and other fast food restaurants in the food court made Darwin’s stomach growl. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast before going to see Carson, and he’d thrown up what little he had in his stomach in Arkady’s warehouse bathroom.

It had been a long day and it wasn’t over yet.

After the introductions, Dolph got right to the point. Once it was agreed that the buyers would view their purchase, all four men got to their feet and started the long walk back to the empty van.

This is it. Showtime.

The foursome made it to the door of the hallway that led to the van. Darwin entered last, taking up the rear, Dolph in the lead.

He idly wondered what Dolph’s real name was. He’d been calling him Dolph since they first saw each other in the limo at the airport.

I’d hate to shoot a man without knowing his real name.

Dolph stepped out onto the loading dock and pulled the keys out of his pocket. He fumbled with them and wasted a few precious seconds for Darwin to ready himself.

Darwin reached around with one hand to grip the butt of the weapon. Both officers were professionals. They caught Darwin’s move and slowly turned their attention to him.

He waited, holding the gun in his waistband. The second seemed to drag on.

“Got it,” Dolph announced.

With Dolph’s back to them, Darwin motioned the two cops to step back and get out of the way.

As they did, Dolph opened the back door on the empty van and turned to stare at the gun in Darwin’s hand.

“Empty your pockets,” Darwin ordered. “It’s okay, guys. I’m working with the FBI on this. Verify it by calling Carson Dodge at the Jacksonville Bureau office in Florida.”

No one moved.

Dolph raised each side of his lips to smile. “This is chess. You
were
the king on the opposing side.”

“What?” Darwin said as he edged around to the right to be closer to the van. “I told you to empty your pockets. Remove all weapons.”

“Checkmate,” Dolph said.

Darwin lowered the gun and fired point blank at Dolph’s right thigh.

Nothing happened.

He fired again.

“Did you actually think I would give you a loaded weapon?”

Shit!

Darwin grabbed the back door of the van and slammed it as hard as he could into Dolph. It caught him off guard, and he stumbled backwards.

The two men gave chase as Darwin ran for the front of the van. The backup car with the two skinheads squealed out of their parking spot. Darwin caught a glimpse of metal in the passenger’s hand as the car came around to bear down on him.

With three men on foot and two in a car, all bent on killing him, he had no choice but to take cover back in the mall.

He ran through a door on the left and bolted into the mall, running past the bookstore and turning down the corridor toward The Bay department store.

He looked back once and saw the two fake cops closer than Dolph, who ran slower because of his size. The two skinheads in the Pontiac probably stayed outside in the car to head Darwin off wherever he exited.