V I K T O R M A K A R O V I C H — T H E B U T C H E R

Peach McCoy would never cease to surprise me. I looked up at the building she told me she was staying at and my brows frowned at how disastrous it looked. The tracker I'd put in her truck seemed to be useless after I found it with some lowlives who'd tried to stab me for 'touching their shit'. They wouldn't be touching anything anymore.

I walked into the building and passed the sleeping clerk at the desk. It was late, way past midnight. Peach had called me at around 9pm but getting here was harder than I thought it would be. Brookehills was alive while the night was young, youth and adults mingling around and partying. I made a note to remember this place because they would be excellent buyers for the drug cartels of my mafia.

I climbed the stairs of the apartment building, looking for room 13. When I did find it, I turned the knob and was surprised to find the door open. I peeked inside and the dull lights cast a sorrowful glow around the room. Peach was asleep on the bed, her hand loosely clutching to the locket around her neck. I moved closer, closing the door behind me and noticed that she had a fine sheen of sweat on her bronze skin. She was dressed in a large dull green tee and a long skirt.

I went down on one knee next to her side of the bed and noticed that the left side of her face was purple and swollen. She had a large bruised eye and cut lip. Seeing her like this, anger flared in my chest. Who did that to her?

"Peach?" I called and placed my hand on her shoulder to shake her a little. "Peach?"

She didn't move. Worry wrapped around my heart and I shook her a tad bit harder, calling her name louder. She shifted on her own, squeezing her eyes shut but that was all I got.

"Fuck Peach! Ubedit'sya v etom voochiyu," I commanded, really wanting to see her awake. With no response, I softy turned her so she faced the roof of the apartment. Her face was awful and I vowed to hurt whoever lay a hand on her like this.

Then I stilled. Why did I care? I was supposed to kill her.

Damn...

Fuck that.

Peach was too much of an asset for me to execute her. I knew that from the moment I set forth for this mission. If I could sway her and get her to work for me, the Bratva would get more benefits and she would hide all our transactions. Under my rule, she would be my responsibility, my property and I did not like the state she was in. I placed my palm on her forehead, checking her temperature. Peach moaned slightly at the contact and weakly shook her head, trying to dislodge my hand.

"U vas vysokaya temperatura," I mumbled to myself. She was burning up. When I glanced at her again, her one good eye flickered open.

"Viktor?" she asked in a weak scratchy voice. She was awake thank God. That was a good sign.

"Peach? What happened?" I asked her, keeping my voice serious but soft.

"I..." She tried to sit up and failed. I held onto her shoulders and pushed her back down, telling her to stay still. "I... I called you."

"Before that Peach. What happened before?" I questioned, doing my best not to make her feel panicked and fail to answer my questions.

"I... I don't..." She raised her hand to her head and held it there. "Peirce... he was here... he came..."

"Peirce?" I pressed, wondering who that was. I imagined her getting hurt by someone she probably knew and trusted and my blood boiled.

"No... Kat..."

She was delusional. Probably in pain, shock or both.

"Peach," I called to her gently and used my thumb and finger to turn her towards me by her chin. "Why are you sick? Does anywhere hurt?"

She seemed confused but nodded. "Hurts."

"Where?"

Peach reached down and placed her hand over her right thigh. I was confused for a second until she uttered three words that made my blood run cold.

"I was shot."

Bozhe, day mne sil, I begged because I was not handling this well. Whoever the fuck put a bullet in her was going to suffer.

"Peach, I'm going to take a look at the wound ok?" I told her and turned her head back to me when she turned the other way. "Do you understand?"

"It's going to hurt," she panted. "No more. No more pain."

She continued mumbling the last words and my heart tightened. Shit this was bad. I reached for the edge of her skirt and pulled it up. There, around her thigh was a bandage soaked red with blood. I undid it as best as I could, trying to hold Peach down because she started to pull away.

The wound did not go through. That meant the bullet might still be inside her. I didn't think she had the guts to take it out even if she wished. I placed the bandages back on the injury and left the room, running down the stairs to my car. I had a first aid kit for situations like this but I was the one supposed to be in them. Not her.

I grabbed what I needed from my car, my movements feeling sluggish. I got the kit and the emergency bottle of vodka I always kept in the trunk. When I got back to the room, I felt like I'd been gone for too long. Peach had pushed herself into a sitting position, finding strength on the headboard behind her. I dropped back at her side again and shed my new coat, throwing it somewhere in the room. I pulled up the sleeves of my grey shirt and opened opened the vodka.

"Drink," I told Peach, putting the bottle against her lips but she pursed them and weakly pushed my arms away.

"I don't drink," she argued and I was having none of it.

"Pey," I commanded in a much darker tone as I put the bottle to her lips again. She drank and winced at the burn that followed down her throat. I made her drink again and again until I was sure she was drunk enough to handle the pain but not pass out on me.

I turned my attention to her leg again, opening the kit on the bed. I peeled away all the bloody bandages and cotton. I picked tweezers from the first aid kit and doused them in vodka first. I placed one arm over Peach's abdomen and the other next to her knees as I focused on getting the tweezers in to retrieve the bullet. As soon as I got the foreign object in her body, Peach let out a small yell and pulled her leg away, causing me to disturb the wound.

I looked into her eyes. "Peach I have to get this bullet out and stitch you up before you bleed to death or get an infection."

"No," she shook her head. "I can't do this. I can't..."

"You have to," I practically growled. "Would you rather die?"

She didn't answer. She didn't fucking answer and my heart raced. "Peach?"

"Just... just...."

"Just what?" I inquired angrily. "I'm not going to let you die whether you like it or not you hear me?"

We stared each other down. She didn't have much choice. I was doing this whether she liked it or not so she'd better brace herself.

"Don't fucking move again."

I held Peach down as best as I could and brought the tweezers back to her wound again. I dug them in and her muscles spasmed. She whimpered but otherwise didn't move. The bullet was in deep. When I touched it, I did my best to get a hold with the tweezers. Peach panted and held onto my arm, the one that held her down, digging her nails into my skin.

I got the bullet and tried my best to pull it out. It was hard to maneuver through the flesh skin but It came loose and as I put it aside, Peach rested her head in my blonde hair and let out a soft shuddered breath. She was crying and something in me churned, twisted and broke.

"You're doing good," I assured her. "We're almost done."

I poured the vodka on the wound and wiped it with cotton, all while Peach held onto me tight and let out soft cries. Stitching her up wasn't any better. When it was done, I wiped the wound down before bandaging it. I put all the things back in the kit and closed it, placing it on the floor. I took Peach's hands off me and then moved her so we sat on the bed together. She placed her head on my shoulder and tried to stop crying. I lay my hand on her back but she hissed and arched pulling away from me.

"Hey hey hey, we're good. I'll touch your shoulder yeah?" I pulled her back. "Relax Peach."

She did. I put my arm around her shoulder and held on, moving my thumb back and forth. When her shaking didn't cease, I offered comfort in the only way I knew how. It reminded me of the times I was sad and angry and my mother helped me. The time she died and my father did it for my siblings and I. The last time was when my brother and father died and I was doing my best to calm my little sister Kira down.

I sung a lullaby. It was my mom's favourite. A song that told Peach to close her eyes and sleep. The song also talked about staying off the edge of the bed or the wolf wound come for you and drag you by your side into the woods.

"Bayu-bayushki-bayu, ne lozhisya na krayu. Pridet seren'kiy volchok, i ukhvatit za bochok. On ukhvatit za bochok. I potashchit vo lesok. I potashchit vo lesok," I chanted softly and after while, Peach calmed down and eventually slept.

The room smelt of alcohol and the spot I sat in was soaked, the wetness spreading to my jeans. The hands I held Peach with were stained with her blood and they shook. They shook because inside, I blazed with fury for the tears spilled tonight.

I was a man of war, a man who'd experienced horrors in life. My heart was cold but what happened here today... The blood I usually had on my hands were of men I'd drained life from but the blood I had on now were a product of a good deed. I was a Don, a killer, a sinner but I was also human and humans sympathized.

I cared for my sister more than anyone else on the planet. That alone showed that I was not immune to offer comfort to someone suffering. I knew had Peach been anyone else, I'd let her bleed but she wasn't a nobody. She'd earned my respect and was smarter than most people I'd met.

I convinced myself that I helped her because she would be a good asset. There was no other reason besides that.

Making sure not to disturb the sleeping woman in my arms, I pulled my new burner phone from my pocket and dialed Markov's number. I was greeted with a long spew of Russian curse words.

"... your hacker is a problem!" Markov ended.

"I'm aware," I said.

"She threatens me! Me! She wants to expose the Bratva!"

"Relax uncle. I have the situation under control," I told him.

"Under control? Letting you go after her was a mistake. Have you found her? Are you with her now?" Markov asked and there was a darkness to his tone.

"No," I lied easily, feeling Peach's temperature slowly come down. Her warmth was no longer feverish but warm.

"Well when you get with her tell me. I will—"

"You'll do nothing Markov but what I instruct you to," I told him.

"You speak to me as if I'm your peer plemyannik. You forget that I'm more experienced in the affairs of the Bratva than you would ever be," Markov growled. I knew he wanted the Bratva for himself and I was the only thing in his way.

"Age does not mean wisdom Markov," I reminded him. It was something my father used to say when my brother stood up to some of the older men who he owned through the Bratva. He would tell me being young did not mean that what I could bring the the mafia was useless.

"See how your brother walks like he owns this place moy syn," He said to me the day I'd escorted him and Slavik, my brother, for the first drug exchange I witnessed. "It's like a peacock strutting its feathers. He has to show his might but must be aware of the other competing males around him. He cannot appear weak."

Slavik and I were nearly identical so my father spent his time trying to shape me into him. He failed of course. I was my brother's polar opposite in more ways than one but this day, I did learn something from my brother. I learnt that over anything else, a Don needed confidence.

"What if they don't listen to him father?" I asked as I watched my brother with his hands in his pocket, a cold look in his blue eyes as he gazed at the minor drug lords who'd refused to take him seriously.

"They pay the price moy syn," my father explained. "Any kind of act done by man has a counter movement whether good or bad. This is why karma exists."

My brother shot all three drug lords through the hand. They wanted to kill him but my dad intervened and that was the first time I'd seen true fear in a man. The drug lords paled and shook. They asked for forgiveness and my father told them they could pick their own punishments. Each walked away that day with a hole in their hand and one ear.

Markov knew my father better than I did. He more than anyone knew the magnitude of my words.

"She said she has accomplice that will leak mafia secrets," Markov explained to me. My brows frowned and uncertainty creeped into my mind.

"Did she give any names?"

"No but she said he has to constantly hear from her if she wants our business and that of other mafias kept secret."

I was silent for a second and then my eye caught Peach's phone on the nightstand behind her.

"Give me a second."

I reached for the phone and turned it on. Locked. I checked the emergence contact. I picked up my phone and replayed it for Markov.

"Tell me who it belongs to and..." I sighed and closed my eyes. "Tell me if this person is called Peirce."

"I don't trust this hacker Viktor. Neither should you. Some people don't need to know how to kill a room fulled of armed men to be dangerous."

"I know," I assured my uncle. "The mind is just as dangerous as the body."

"Don't make the mistake of trusting someone like her Viktor."

My uncle hung up the phone. I put Peach's back where I found it. I stared into space for a while, wondering what the fuck I was doing.

Peach moved in her sleep, holding me closer and tighter.

I was being pulled in two different directions. One that told me to follow my gut about Peach and the other that expected me to be an exemplary Don.