Page 51 of Kane
“At least you don’t think it was me who killed your brothers anymore,” Viktor says, voice rough with adrenaline and dark humor.
A short, bitter laugh escapes me. The sound echoes strangely in the narrow alley.
“No. Not anymore.” I shake my head, the pieces finally locking together. “It was Don Presko. That old bastard. After all these years of supposed loyalty between our families… he’s the one who ordered it.”
The realization lands like a hammer to the chest. The Presko family had been allies—sometimes uneasy, but allies nonetheless—fordecades.
My brothers had done business with them, shared territory, even attended weddings and funerals together. And now this. A knife in the back. A slaughter in a warehouse. The kind of betrayal that burns hotter than any bullet.
Viktor pushes off the wall, rolling his shoulder where a graze from a bullet had torn his jacket.
“Smart play now is to retreat,” Viktor says. “Link up with Ivan and Kirill. Plan a full assault. Hit their strongholds, cut off their supply lines, make them bleed for months.”
I shake my head, already moving. “That’sexactlywhat Presko expects. I know how he operates. He’ll have fortified everything, waiting for us to come at him the way my brothers would have… strategic, patient, calculated.” My voice hardens. “The last thing he expects is us going straight for his throat tonight. Right now.”
Viktor stares at me for a long beat, blood still streaking his face. “That’s a big risk. Your brothers wouldn’t have taken it.”
“I’m not my brothers,” I reply simply.
A slow, dangerous smile spreads across Viktor’s face. “No. You truly are the Young Menace.”
I bark a short laugh as we start moving, slipping through back alleys and side streets, keeping to the shadows.
“I don’t feel so young anymore,” I say ruefully. “Life moves on.”
“It does indeed,” Viktor say, a steely focus in his eyes.
We hustle across town in silence after that, two bloodied ghosts moving with purpose. My mind races ahead to Presko’s apartment building, the layout I’ve studied for years, the weak points in his security.
Vengeance has a taste tonight, and it’s metallic and sweet.
* * *
We reach the block near Presko’s luxury apartment building twenty minutes later. I’m itching to move in immediately, gun already in hand, when Viktor grabs my arm.
“Wait,” Viktor says. “Just a moment.”
Impatience flares, but then I see them—Ivan Zorin and Kirill Antonov emerging from the shadows like they were born from them.
The two Daddies move as one, synchronized and deadly.
Viktor nods toward them.
“This is how we do it,” Viktor says quietly. “Together. The four of us. If you want it to be that way.”
I meet each of their eyes in turn. Ivan’s cold calculation. Kirill’s quiet fury. Viktor’s steady resolve. For the first time since my brothers died, I don’t feel completely alone at the top.
“I want it,” I say. My voice is steel. “Let’s end this.”]
“Let’s fucking do it,” Ivan says.
“Just like the days we all hit the streets,” Kirill says. “Except this time, we’re all fighting on the same side.”
We move like shadows, our guns locked and loaded, suppressors attached, bodies low. The building’s private entrance is guarded by two men. We take them down silently: Viktor slits one throat, I put a bullet through the other’s eye at close range.
No alarms. No noise. We drag the bodies into the service stairwell and keep climbing.
Floor by floor, the resistance grows…
