The Debt Read online

  I turn and run. So hard I lose a shoe. The gravel is hard under my foot, but I don’t break stride. The duffel falls down my shoulder, but I heft it up. My forehead is slick as I run faster than I ever have.

  Footsteps pound behind me, much louder than my own before two massive arms wrap around me and propel me forward onto the sidewalk. I feel the burn of the hard scratchy surface as my face slams against it. There is an explosion in my head, but the pain fades quickly.

  “Help!” I scream. “Help!”

  When a hand clamps down over my mouth, my screams muffle. I’m stronger than I look, and I’ve taken self-defence. I struggle so hard, kicking and flailing my arms and legs as the man attempts to turn me over. I can barely see his face in the near-dark. The lamp posts nearby have burned out. He’s like a shadow: dark face, black eyes, and dark hair.

  “I got her,” the man calls out. He smells of alcohol and breath mints, and it makes my stomach turn.

  “No!” I snap back as I manage to free my mouth from his hand. I snatch my bear spray lying on the pavement a few feet away from me, and I squeeze the trigger. The spray hits his face, and he screams like a little girl. I think he’ll let me go and focus on his face and his pain, but it only makes him grip me harder until he quickly moves his hands up to my neck. He grips me tightly and squeezes hard, so hard I gasp and fight for air. I spray more, unloading the whole can, knowing it’s my only chance to force him to let me go.

  “Bitch!” another voice says. Two more hands reach for me, grabbing the spray. I fight hard, but as I continue to fight for air, I lose steam. “I got it,” the other man says. He coughs as he chucks it down the road. “You’re going to pay for that.”

  The man on top of me lets go and rolls off. As I gasp and cough and my eyes burn from the spray, the other man climbs on top of me to straddle my middle. My eyes rain down tears to dilute the spray. I can’t see anything, but I swat at the air, hoping to connect with something. Anything. And then something hard slams into my face. Once. Twice.

  The world fades away and darkness consumes me.

  Chapter 2

  Maxim: “Good evening, Sir,” Josef, my dad’s butler, says as I walk through my parent’s front door.

  “Josef,” I say with a nod. He’s been with my parents since I moved to Canada. As a kid, he was kind to me and I treated him as a friend, but I quickly learned growing up that the world is built on hierarchy, and it’s not okay to get too friendly with the help. How did I learn? Fists, belt, belittling. It really depended on the day and, also, my father’s mood.

  “Your father is in the study. I believe he’s on the phone. Should I interrupt him?”

  I shake my head. “Let me know when he’s done.”

  “Of course.”

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “On the patio, sir.”

  “Thank you.” I walk past the grand staircase, down the long hallway to the French doors. It’s late in the evening, and when I glance outside, the pale moon sits in a cloudy sky. My mother is in her chair, looking out at the garden. She likes to come out here at night, shortly before bed, and have a glass of wine. Or, when she has a lot on her mind, she reaches for bourbon.

  When I open one of the doors, the quiet creak of the hinges catches her attention. She offers me a warm smile. “Maxim, my dear. I didn’t expect you to be here tonight. Don’t you have more important things to deal with?”

  “More important than you?” I ask.

  Her smile widens. “How can I argue with that?”

  I grin at her.

  “Have a seat.” She pats the cushion on the chair beside her. When I’m seated, she pours golden liquid into a glass by hers. Bourbon. I wonder what is going on in that busy mind of hers. Probably nothing good.

  “No, thank you,” I say.

  “That’s probably wise. Your father told me they found the thief.”

  I nod.

  “Make him suffer.”

  “I will.”

  The man she’s talking about is Gus Pyke. He did a very bad thing about two weeks ago. I’d never heard his name before, but now it’s cemented in my brain. He was a stupid addict who broke into one of my dad’s pawn shops and stole a watch that’s worth about fifty thousand dollars. He also killed the woman who worked there. She happens to be the sister of one of my father’s men.

  The man who stole it couldn’t have known who the woman was or how much the watch cost, but each of his crimes are a death sentence. Combined? Well, I suppose he’ll have to suffer more than most. How this asshole, who clearly has an interest in crime, could break into a pawn shop and not know it was owned by my father, Sergei Morozova, is beyond me. No one steals from my father. No one.

  My father wants blood. So does my mother. It’s not that she’s cruel—well, she’s that too—but she’s a businessman like my father. They’re a perfect pair. She knows that this man has to be made an example of so people know what will happen to them if they cross our family. It’s for our survival, and it keeps order in the underbelly of Falmouth City.

  “What’ve you been up to?” she asks me. “You haven’t been around in a few days.”

  “Training. Working.” Six days a week I train for at least two hours a day in the gym and in the ring. I fight in the underground, and I always win. When I’m not fighting or training, I work for my father. Running guns and working at his strip club.

  “How is Niko?” she asks.

  He’s been my trainer since I was just fifteen. Mom’s friendly with him. He might be one of the few people she actually likes, both to his face and behind it.

  “Old.”

  She laughs.

  “Are you dating?”

  “You ask me this every time I see you.”

  “Because you always say no.”

  I lean back in my chair and watch the pine trees sway in the breeze. “I don’t have a lot of free time.”

  “Alexandra’s back. Did you know?”

  “No, I hadn’t heard.”

  She frowns at that. “She’s been back for days, apparently. I thought she might have reached out to you.”

  I shrug my shoulders. Alex and I dated about a year ago. Like me, her father is a powerful man who makes a lot of money illegally. We grew up around each other and we understand each other. When she took an interest in me, I wasn’t myself. She scratched an itch for a time, but she wasn’t for me. I knew that from the beginning.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask her.

  “Your father is nearly seventy. He keeps telling me he needs to redo his will, but he won’t tell me what he plans to put in it. Will you be king? Or will Andrei? We both know he won’t turn his businesses over to me.”

  Andrei is my half-brother, and he’s older than me by nine years. We’ve always been competitive with each other. This is perhaps why. Will my father turn everything over to him when he dies? The son of his first wife and his true love. Or the son of his current wife?

  “What does that have to do with Alexandra?” I ask.

  She grins wickedly. “I was just thinking his decision would come so much easier if one of his sons were to marry the daughter of his greatest ally. Don’t you think?”

  I let out a groan and curl my fingers into fists.

  “You need a queen at your side, and Alexandra understands our world and what needs to be done to keep you on top. She’s not the kind of girl who’ll mind getting her hands dirty.”

  “I’m not interested in Alexandra.”

  “You were before.”

  I meet her hopeful eyes.

  “She’s beautiful,” Mom adds. “You loved her, didn’t you?”

  Love? I frown at her. No, I never loved Alexandra. I’ve never loved anyone in my life. I wouldn’t know how, given how I grew up. At least, not in any way that’s healthy or meaningful. I’ve been raised to keep my emotions in check and to keep people at a distance. Caring too deeply weakens you. People will always exploit your weaknesses, especially when it comes to a ma
n like me. Only once in my life have I met someone who I couldn’t help but care for. With her, it was effortless. But she walked away because of who I am. And because I cared for her…I let her.

  “No, I never loved her,” I say.

  “Well, that could come later. You know how important it is for you and me that you take over your father’s businesses, right?”

  I heave a sigh.

  “Your brother hates you, and he hates me even more. We’ll be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives after your father is gone if Andrei’s left in charge.”

  “You need to relax. Father’s not going anywhere any time soon.”

  “Eventually he’ll die. Men like you and him don’t live to old age. That’s a luxury you don’t get. It could be today, tomorrow, or years from now. Secure your position, Maxim. Before it’s too late.”

  “I don’t need Alexandra to inherit his businesses,” I say.

  “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

  Yes. She has. I lick my dry lips and reach for the bourbon. Yeah, a few sips won’t hurt. I’m not in the mood to battle my mother tonight. The alcohol snakes down my neck, burning my throat all the way down. I enjoy it.

  The doors behind us open, and Josef approaches me. “I’m terribly sorry,” he says to my mother. He leans down and quietly addresses me. “Sir, your father is ready for you now. Also, I was told to inform you they’ve found the fox.”

  My mother smiles before taking another drink. The fox. Codeword for thief. I push out of my chair and lean down to kiss my mother on the cheek. Like always, she smells of lavender and roses.

  I meet my father by the door to his study. He’s in his suit. He’s always in a suit. Black pants and a black blazer with a white shirt underneath. Today, he hasn’t bothered to put on a tie. That usually means he’s stressed about something and wants to get his hands dirty. For my father, violence is a release. It’s the same for me. When I smell blood or feel anger, it’s like a switch turns on inside of me. Like a primal instinct to conquer and destroy. I rage and I rage until I have nothing left.

  “Where is he?” I ask him.

  “Warehouse down by Meager River,” he says.

  “You want me to deal with it, or are you coming?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Of course, I’m coming. This man stole from me. Go ahead, and I’ll be there shortly. Make sure he’s still alive when I get there.”

  * * *

  The warehouse by Meager River is abandoned and has been since I was a child. At one point, it was used as a fish cannery, but after a fire, it never got back up and running. Over the years, the place fell into disrepair. The metal siding is rusted and most of the windows are blackened or busted out. I suppose at some point it’ll be torn down, or maybe it’ll fall down on its own.

  I pull up into the small parking lot beside it. Grass and weeds stand between the cracked lines and broken patches of pavement. Dust motes hang in the air, dancing in the yellow beam from my headlights. A silhouette of a man stands at the entrance with an automatic rifle in his hands, pointed in my direction.

  I climb out of the car and approach him. “Point that at me again, and I’ll shove it down your throat.”

  The man laughs. It’s Tommy, a childhood friend. I hear a loud slap and a man crying out.

  “Sergei wants him alive,” I call out so the men inside can hear me. When dealing with family business, I always refer to my father by his first name. He’s the boss, and I treat him that away.

  “Don’t worry,” Tommy says. “We just started.”

  “Good.”

  I march through the entrance. The doors are hanging on a slight angle on rusted hinges. A lantern lights up the large space, but only barely.

  “I can hardly see my hands in front of me,” I say.

  “We wanted to keep the lights low in case anyone drove by,” says Ritchie, one of Dad’s captains.

  “No one ever comes here. Put another light on for fuck’s sake. I need to see what I’m doing.”

  Ritchie fires up another lantern. The second light is just enough for me to see without squinting. Eyes on my prey, I saunter forward to the piece of shit lying on the ground with his hands tied behind his back. He lifts his head, and his brown eyes widen in terror.

  “Untie him,” I say.

  “Sir?” Ritchie says. He’s used to dealing with my father.

  “I said fucking untie him!” I might be a bastard, but I’m no coward, and beating a man with his hands tied doesn’t sit well with me. Neither does beating on a man who can’t fight back, but other than a few scrapes and cuts, he seems in good condition.

  Ritchie pulls out a knife and cuts away at the ropes on the thin man’s arms.

  “Thank you,” the man says, his voice desperate and high-pitched. He plants his hands on the cement floor and pushes himself up to his feet. He’s maybe five-nine and on the thinner side. He wobbles but manages to stay up.

  With my head tipped to the side, I stalk toward him and then I jump in the air to deliver a perfect roundhouse kick that only years of training could manage. My Italian leather shoes connect with his face. As I land like a tiger crouched to the ground, the man spins through the air to land face down in a puddle.

  “I fucking love when he does that,” Yuri, my cousin, says with a big grin on his mouth. He stands by Ritchie. Side by side, it strikes me how similar they look in the dark. Same long, thin bodies. The only difference is Yuri always looks like he doesn’t own a comb. His light hair, stuck up in every direction, gives him an extra inch. “I think I just wet myself,” Yuri says.

  I roll my eyes at him.

  The man lays unmoving.

  “Check his pulse,” I command.

  “Come on. You’re good,” Yuri says, “but you’re not that good.” He kneels down and lays two fingers on the man’s neck. “He’s still alive.”

  Ritchie spits on the back of the man’s head. “Probably broke his jaw, though.”

  “That’s the least of his worries.” I slowly rise to stand tall and walk over to an old wooden box where I take a seat. I stare at the man lying motionless. I want to hit him. I want to squeeze the life from his body, but I know if I keep going, I won’t stop until he’s dead.

  When my father finally arrives, I make a point of looking at my watch. An hour and a half. That’s how long he took to get here. I guess my time is not as important as my father’s.

  The thief moans and moves his arms and legs on the cement floor until he’s in the fetal position. He must sense what’s coming. My father has that effect on people.

  Dad strides into the building. Tommy has the good sense to keep his gun pointed at the ground. Dad nods to Tommy as he passes. His hands twitch at his sides like mine do when I’m itching to hurt something. He stops just short of where I sit and stares at the pathetic man. “This is him?” he says, his tone calm and even.

  “Yep,” I say.

  “He’s barely moving.”

  “He didn’t have much fight in him, Uncle,” Yuri says.

  My father glares at him, and Yuri sighs and holds up his hands.

  “Get him up! I want to look into his eyes when I talk to him.”

  Ritchie and Yuri grab the man’s arms and pull him up. He’s bleeding from the mouth, and his eyes are bloodshot. His wet shirt is stained a brilliant crimson, flecked with dirt and dust from the ground. His head falls forward as though his neck can’t support it, and my dad yanks his head back by the hair to force the man to look him in the eyes. “You piece of shit. You steal from me?”

  The man moans. “I didn’t know. If I’d known…”

  My father hauls back and punches him in the stomach. An audible whoosh escapes the man’s mouth. I tip my head to the side. I don’t like the man being held like this, but I’m not about to tell my father that. He has his way, and I have mine. Though I think his way is weak.

  “Where is the watch?” my father asks.

  “Please,” the man cries.

  My father sm
ashes him in the stomach again. The man whimpers as his head hangs. Dad grips his hair again. The thief is dead on his feet. He wouldn’t be standing if Ritchie and Yuri weren’t holding him up. I run a hand over my face and stand.

  “I sold it,” the man says.

  “Really? Then where’s the money?”

  “I…I didn’t get his name, but you can have the money. I still have it. A whole thousand dollars. I’ll get it for you.” His eyes are shifty. They look everywhere but at my father.

  My father’s face turns red. “A thousand?”

  “Yeah, the price tag said a thousand, and the guy I sold it to tried to talk me down, but I thought it was worth a bit more. He gave me the whole thing.”

  My father’s lips curl into a snarl, and I think he’s going to rip the man’s throat out then and there. But he surprises me when he starts to laugh before turning away and pacing the room. The others are unsure of how to respond. They don’t know anything about the watch, where it came from, how much it was really worth. Uneasily, they start to laugh too, though cautiously. My father is a tough man to read, and you don’t want to upset him.

  “You have no idea. No fucking clue!” Dad stares murderously at the man. He’s about to unleash or tell me to do it for him. My fingers twitch at my sides, ready, willing, eager…

  “It was worth fifty grand, you fucking prick! You have that kind of money?”

  The man’s jaw drops before he starts to shake his head. “No, it can’t be.”

  “If it was a thousand, I’d take your life and move on. I’d carve you first, make you beg to be killed, but I’d grant your wish in the end. But fifty grand? Well, that’s something else entirely. Everyone you love, everyone you’ve ever touched? They need to die for what you’ve done.”

  “No, I’ll get the money. I swear I will. One week, and I’ll have it.”

  “A piece of shit like you couldn’t earn that in a lifetime, let alone a week.”

  “I swear I will. Please. Let me try.”

  “He’s lying,” I say.

  “Of course, he is! He’s a piece of shit!” Dad screams.

  “No, that’s not what I mean. He never sold it. Did you see the way his eyes shifted when he said he sold it?”