Let Me In-Dragan's Tale: The Mikhailov Brothers Read Free

prick. But I was really good at hiding it. Toni saw right through me and the looks she tossed my way were glacial. So that made screwing with her all the more enjoyable.
    I’d come to terms a long time ag o that the kind of woman I saw making a life with wouldn’t want me. Set aside the dangerous, nomad occupation, the freakish quasi-Russian accent that sprouts when I’m pissed, and my habit of violence first, questions later. The past ten years have not been kind on my body. This job had taken its toll. And I was fucking ecstatic my debt was about to be paid in full. It had been a long time coming. I was only thirty-years old but I was ready to retire.
    Two days after I turned nineteen, I was released from a Russian prison, gathered my little brother from some distant, beet-stained relatives of my dad’s and went straight to the U.S. Embassy. After a few weeks of regular meals, hot showers and three rounds of antibiotics, Nico and I were sent back to the United States. Agents from the U.S. government were waiting for me when we disembarked in New York. I got the offer I wanted and have never regretted a minute. Mostly I worked for the Americans but if the price was right and it didn’t fuck with my links in Washington, I could be bought. I did the dirty shit that men, stuck within the confines of laws and ethics, didn’t. I’d grown adept at gathering intelligence over the years. But honestly, my expertise was using the information to bend people to my will. Or to the will of the government willing to pay my fee.
    On my twenty- first birthday, I spent the better part of thirty hours being tortured in a Ukrainian barrack on the outskirts of L’viv near the Polish border. My memories of the experience were sketchy at best. I knew I didn’t break. I knew I got the details the U.S. government wanted. I knew a team of three U.S. Navy Seals got me out and I know the long, white scar that travels from my left eyebrow to my chin is from my own pocketknife. I think the fuck found it funny to mark me with my own weapon.
    I got the last laugh though. The Seals took out the six men on the perimeter and let me have the prick who’d been electrocuting my balls for the better part of the day. It was my first Russian bowtie. A messy way to kill someone but dramatic and memorable.
    A deep, heartfelt laugh came from Evelyn and the sound pulled me from my ruminations. I offered a nod to the pair but wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation. My eyes were back to Rosa and the beautiful bartender.
    As Rosa made her way around the bar, the patrons were three deep and ten wide, calling out drink orders. With four bartenders at the taps, Toni’s presence was unnecessary. In fact, it looked like more of a hindrance. Not only did she treat her customers like shit, but the misguided fools who thought they had a shot at going home with the beauty stayed at her end of the bar. In spite of the fact that they could travel ten feet and get a bartender who wasn’t so busy and would serve them what they actually wanted.
    I continued to study the scene as Rosa approached Antonina from behind. She looked unhappy with the exchange going on between Toni and a patron. No doubt the bartender was schooling the suit on bar etiquette or at least the protocol he was going to follow if he wanted his drink. I’d seen her do that a lot. And this prick looked like the kind of man Toni ate for dinner. Expensive suit, golfer’s tan, indent on his ring finger where a wedding band had been only minutes ago. She’d mastered the art of stringing dicks like that along until the conclusion, apparent to everyone except the dude, played out. She got a great tip and he was left with an empty pocket and a hard-on. That shit would stop soon enough. On more than one occasion I’d spied her making her way to the bus stop at two in the morning. She took too many chances around men who would doubtless maim for a shot at getting in her pants.
     

 
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