The World in Reverse (40 page)

“Dad,” Collin cried. “Please forgive me. I had no idea.  I promise you, I had no idea that Carmen was there.”

Magnelli ignored his cries. “Bobbi told me the day that I brought you home after your mother overdosed that you were trouble.  And I promised her that you weren’t, even though I knew that you were born out of sin.  Even though I knew that I didn’t love you, no matter how I tried!” He pointed the gun at his son.

Nicola stepped back and listened on like the rest of the men in the room, shocked at the reality of their relationship.  But no one would stop him. His revenge was just as needed as everyone else’s.

“You have to believe me, Dad,” Collin cried.

“I promised Bobbi that I’d find the man responsible for her only child’s death and I’d put a bullet in him.  Do I look like a liar to you?” Magnelli screamed.  “Do I?”

Collin stopped crying and looked up at his father in pain. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice crac
king.

“So am I,” Magnelli said, pulling the trigger.  He shot his son three times.  Once in the head and twice in the chest.  Lowering his weapon, he looked over at Ferris who wept for himself.   “You make him pay, Agosto, or I will,” he said, walking to the staircase.  He had to leave, get away from what he had done and what his son had done.  Jetting up the stairs, he left the men to do what they needed to do.

“Next question,” Nicola said, ignoring Ferris’ sobs.  “What is Cane’s next step?”

Ferris didn’t hesitate this time. “He plans to distribute day after tomorrow to all the clubs that Twist owned, to his pharmacies where his men will sell to the locals and through the trucking line that he recently bought.  It’s being produced in mass quantities at the farm.  If you just go there?”

“Where?” Nicola screamed.

“I don’t know the fucking address. I just know that it’s in Millington,” Ferris said afraid. 

Nicola stepped closer.  “Where is your playground?  I know that you have one. You wouldn’t have killed those children at your house, so where do you play?”

Ferris shook his head. “I didn’t kill those kids.”

Nicola pulled out his gun and shot Ferris in the knee that had not already been injured. “Now is not the time to fuck with me!”

Ferris screamed out in pain.  “I don’t…”

Before he could lie again, Nicola shot him in the arm.  Unable to take the pain any longer, he confessed. “I bought a dry cleaners on Stage Road. It’s been closed for years.  In the back.  The playground is in the back,” he cried.

“What’s the address?” Nicola said, dete
rmined to keep his promise to Mrs. Naples.

“555 State Road!” Ferris screamed.

“How do you get in touch with Cane?” Nicola asked, turning his back on Cane to look at Cory. 

“I use the track phone in my bag,” Ferris cried. “Just please don’t kill me.  Please.”  He begged.

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you,” Nicola said, putting his gun back in his holster. “But I’m going to make damn sure that you never hurt another child in your life.”

33

After six long hours of torture and interrogation by Nicola, Magnelli, Maurice, and Cory, the dark basement of the stash house stunk of blood, shit and piss.  At first when the esteemed councilman felt untouchable, he had tried to play stupid, but after some rigorous encouragement with a cattle prod and blowtorch, Ferris had given them everything that they needed to go after Cane. 

They knew the
warehouse vicinity, location of the drop points for the Molly, the players involved minus the supplier
who was still a mystery to everyone accept Cane
, the reason that Twist was killed, who had put the hits on Johnson and Steele and who had put the hit on Nicola’s family.  They even knew how and why Nicola had been set up.  

Hearing the elaborate plan come directly from the serpent’s mouth had been a sobering experience for everyone in the room.  They listened on speechless as Ferris revealed ever
ything one sordid fact at a time. 

When it was all done, everyone was e
xhausted. 

There wasn't a calm heart in the room, esp
ecially since they all had families of some sort.  It could have been any of them in Agosto’s place, any of their families put on a hit list, any of their jobs in jeopardy. 

Nicola had to give it to the
self-proclaimed
Three Wise Men;
they had planned out their strategy very well. But they had not accounted for one thing.   Leaving him alive.   And now that he had survived their botched attempts, he planned to make good use of his existence by ending theirs. 

Glowering down at Ferris with his large, muscular arms across his wide chest
under the hot halogen light, Nicola decided he was done for now with his interrogation.  It was dawn and there were other things to handle. 

Ferris
drooped over in the wooden chair, exhausted, weak, and nearly unconscious.  Mumbling something to himself first, he let out a pain-filled gurgle and then threw up green bile that spilled out of his swollen mouth onto his torn shirt. 

The sight of what Ferris had been reduced to didn’t make Nicola as sick as he had first thought it w
ould.
Maybe because the bastard deserved it.
He was a man who didn’t exactly believe in the methods he had used to get Ferris to talk, but he was coming to see that sometimes rules needed to be broken to get things done. 

“
I’m starving,” Cory said, standing beside Nicola. His stomach growled loudly.  He spit on the concrete floor beside Ferris.  “Worthless piece of shit.  Should we cap him now so that we can get going?”

Nicola had never had a hard on to kill som
eone more.  But he had made promises, promises he was sworn to keep. “No,” he finally answered regrettably.  “Leave him for the time being.”  He walked away from the man, needing to get some distance before he changed his mind. 

“You have the proof that you need,” Cory said, pulling out his weapon and stepping closer to Ferris. He covered his nose and looked back at Nicola.  “Why are you letting him live?  Magnelli killed his son for killing a grown woman.  You’re really going to let this baby killer live? He raped and murdered at least four children.”  He pushed the muzzle of his gun to Ferris’ head.  “He doesn’t deserve to take one more breath.  Am I right, Maurice?  Tell him.”

Maurice was in the corner on the couch nodding.  Hearing his name, he sat up and looked over at Cory.  “What?”

“Shouldn’t we kill him already?” Cory lo
bbied.

Maurice set his head back on the couch again.  “I thought that was what we were d
oing.”

“Look, I know that he deserves it.  You don’t think I want to kill the motherfucker right now for what he’s done to me, my family and three other families?” Nicola’s voice rose in frustration as he turned back around, veins popping out of his neck. “But that would just be doing him a favor.  He needs to suffer beyond any measure of the word that he could have ever fathomed.  He needs to be publicly fucking humiliated and stripped of every single recogn
ition and every ounce of respect and then thrown in with the rest of the animals to spend the rest of his life being fucked up the ass and treated like the dog shit that he is.  Tell me if you think hard enough about it that you don’t agree?”

Cory put the gun down.  “You know how broken the system is.  Hell, if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here.  So, what are you going to do when he walks away with no charges and starts giving names and ranks on everyone in this room?  Then who will be getting fucked in the ass?”

Maurice looked over at Nicola and waited for an answer. Cory had a point.  

“We don't hand him over until the case is concrete,” Nicola said, looking at Ferris, and if Nicola didn’t counter offer something better, then they’d make an executive decision to kill Ferris themselves. 

“He’s beaten to shit,” Cory said, pointing at him.  “And he witnessed the murder of another cop.” He pointed to Collin’s lifeless corpse still tied to the chair in the corner. “Tell me how that shit will stand up in court.  He’ll pay one of his high-price lawyer friends to get him off on temporary insanity and he’ll be back at home fucking ten-year old boys before you know it.” Cory knew that would piss Nicola off. 

It worked.

“I made a promise to deliver this son-of-a-bitch with a bow to the families who are now forever ruined because of him.  What about their justice? What about their peace of mind?”

“Him being dead is justice and peace of fucking mind enough,” Cory pleaded.  He pointed the gun one more time at Ferris and whined. “Just…” He stuttered in anxiety. “Just let me cap his ass, Agosto.  Live for once.”

Nicola almost gave in, knowing that he had to keep the men in this room on his side in order to get the job completed, but the interruption saved him from having to make a decision right then. 

“There
is
a way to keep your captive silent for good but keep him alive for your public humiliation plan,” Anatoly mocked, walking down the staircase.  He had been quite intrigued by the exchange between Nicola and Cory. Evidently, the young cop had grown some balls over the years working for him, because when they first met, he was a sniveling little pussy, scared of his own shadow and eager to keep his hands clean. 

“How?” Nicola asked, leaning his hands on the end of the wooden worktable in the corner.  He heaved a heavy sigh, growing more and more tired of dealing with Ferris. 

With Gabriel and Boris behind him, Anatoly stepped off the bottom step and down in what had become a makeshift dungeon in a black leather suit completely unfitting for the hour.  Evidently, the man had been out all night and decided to stop in and check on everything before retiring back to the compound. 

Gabriel’s face instantly turned up at the foul odor radiating from Ferris, but Anatoly was used to this form of retribution, was unaffected by the smell of men losing their bodily fun
ctions.  He cracked a smile at Ferris, a stab right to the politician’s heart, as he crossed the room.  “It’s one of my father’s old techniques.  You cut a man’s tongue out, his hands off, and you cripple him.  You leave him as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside.  We call it the
mirror method
.” 

“It will definitely make it hard for him to testify,” Cory said, slowly changing his mind. He could live with Anatoly’s plan. “By the time that they are able to get someone to even r
emotely try to understand him, the proof will have him incarcerated.”

“Who can do that
mirror method
thing effectively?” Nicola asked, unwilling to volunteer.  He still had some sanity and didn’t want to lose it cutting off hands and tongues.  

“Vasily is pretty good at it, but he’s away right now. I’ll have him take care of it once he’s back in town.”  Anatoly walked over to the table and looked at the map as if giving such an order was an everyday thing.  “So what’s on the agenda for today, gentlemen?”

Nicola pointed at the red circle on the map.  “This is where Cane’s warehouse is.  It’s out in Millington, not far from where the private airstrip is.  About fifteen miles away from the military base. That’s going to be the last spot we hit tonight.  We have to move quickly before word gets out that Ferris and Collin are missing, and that I’m not one of the bodies from inside the house.  Once Cane finds all of this out, he’ll immediately pack it up and move.  Right now, he can’t put all the pieces together.  We need to use that to our advantage and attack now.”

“That’s all fine, but what is the first spot you’re going to hit?” Anatoly asked.

Gabriel shook his head. “He’s got pre-wedding jitters,” he explained to Nicola.  “I tried to talk him out of it, but he thinks one last hurrah before the wedding will be good for him.”

“
These men are going to be heavily armed,” Nicola said to Anatoly frowning.  He wasn’t expecting the boss’ son to really get in this.  After all, it wasn’t his fight. Plus, if something did happen to him, Dmitry would be on his ass.

“Before I was a boss, I was a boy, doing e
xactly what you’re doing right now every day before breakfast, after lunch and sometimes for dinner,” Anatoly said flatly.  His face was emotionless. 

“But you’re not a boy now.”  Nicola rolled his neck.  “You’re a boss.  And you and I both know that you don't have to get involved.  Sammy was enough.  I mean. I’m grateful for it, but this is asking too much.”

Anatoly was a man of few words, and even more than that, he didn’t feel as though he owed anyone except his father and sometimes his fiancée an explanation.  But just this once, he would explain himself just so that Nicola didn’t get the wrong idea.  “This isn’t about you,” he said, sucking his bottom lip.  He looked into Nicola’s face, hazel brown eyes blazing.  “Someone,
who will remain anonymous and is no longer with us
, kidnapped my baby sister not long ago for a very handsome payoff.  The plan was to sell her back to my father,
but
if he didn’t cooperate or if he got too close, the secondary plan was to sell her to someone else.  They were going to rape her, make her a slave.”  He pushed the words out like poison as his gaze became distant.  “Since that day, I promised myself that I’d never let anyone get close to my family, especially the children.  And I’d send a message to anyone who even thought about harming myself, my daughter or any of the women in my family.  Now, obviously these rednecks are not threatening us, but your recent situation speaks to something in the core of my father, my  cousin, and myself.  You should feel lucky.  If nothing had ever happened to Anya, you might be dead yourself right now.” 

Nicola was speechless.  He wasn’t aware that Anatoly even had a daughter. 
And no one that he knew on any law enforcement agency was aware that Anya had been stolen or even that she existed.  However, it did put things into perspective for Nicola.  It proved that the Medlov men were actually human. 

“Well, we could always use another hand then,” Nicola said, changing his tune.  “By all means, if you want to get your hands dirty killing drug dealers and mangling pedophiles, who am I to stop you?”

Anatoly looked at his watch.  It was already six thirty.  “Back to the agenda.”

Nicola looked over at his bomb guy who was in the corner of the room carefully connec
ting wires to his latest masterpiece. “I need a bomb for breakfast.  And I need a hit team for dinner.  During lunch, I plan to call in some other friends on the force who will help me lock down Cane’s second drop point.  It’s a strip club that Twist used to own called Lollipop.”

Anatoly nodded. “Gabriel knows the place well.”  He looked over at his cousin and smirked.

Gabriel rolled his eyes.  “I’m in too. Just tell me where you want me. Hell, I haven’t done any real cop work in a while.”

Anatoly took off his jacket and laid it on the table. Finally, he could have a real bachelor’s party before the nuptials.  “Well now you have two additional men.  Just make it interesting.  Boris, get us some gear.”

***

Vasily felt as though he had stepped out of reality and landed in some western film from another century.  Looking around what was considered to be Guymon, Oklahoma from the top of the metal stairs attached to his boss’ leer jet; he slipped on his black designer shades and checked his Rolex.

9:30 a.m. on the dot. 

Two hours was all that he was giving hi
mself to get what he came for and get the hell out of this state. Alone for his trip, he hiked down the staircase and jumped into the black SUV waiting for him on the tarmac while the stewardess watched from the opening of the door hatch.  

The drive to Keyes, Oklahoma was about fifty miles away through flat undeveloped land as far as the eye could see.  There was little commerce in the area with a population that was 90 percent white, most of whom had never seen or spoken with a real Russian.  The ave
rage income was below $50,000 a year, less than the price of his watch.  And the town folk were sure to be nosy as hell. 

He was headed to see a Roxanna Little aka Roxie Lite.  His boss had told him that this woman was his priority for the moment.  “A necessary means to a desired end,” was how Dmitry had referred to her.  So as far as Vasily was concerned, nothing else in this world mattered except finding and extracting this woman. 
In two hours.