Instead of entertaining Stepan or reacting at all, I allow the recent memories of Millie to come flooding back, letting myself get lost in the way she wrapped her whole self around me when I was inside of her.
As we disappear into the side streets of the city, I’m able to shut out Stepan’s dissertation on family values and focus solely on making sure I survive the night to see Millie again. Even if I have nothing else to live for, she intrigues me. I need to know more.
We pull up to the bar about ten minutes later, noting a broken window on the upper portion of the building and the recently installed bars across the front windows. I knew this place was located in an undesirable part of town, but I had no idea it was this bad.
The street we’re on is lined with failing businesses and dotted periodically with condemned houses or rentals where locals hold church services. This particular landscape shows me that this area is likely a complete wasteland crawling with degenerates with no respect and no code of conduct to speak of.
Crime without structure is just destruction.
The smell of stale beer and Parliaments hangs in the air around the front door, and the neon signs in the windows illuminate the broken glass that litters the base of the building. It’s almost like the owner kept it there as a salt ring to keep out anybody with a shred of honesty or integrity, and it seems to be working.
Stepan and I enter the building cautiously, keeping our weapons close as we examine the scene. There’s excessively loud rap music playing on the speakers to the point that I’m shocked nobody has sued them for hearing damage or heart troubles caused by the relentless bass. The inside of the main bar room is just as dark as outside, leaving only enough light to showcase the nearly endless collection of bottom-shelf liquor.
A single bartender leans on the counter on the far end of the room, clearly nodding off on some kind of synthetic opioid as his customers wait impatiently for him to return to the land of the living.
“Hey, I need to talk to the owner right fucking now,” I demand, and the bartender slowly rises from his stupor, evaluating his surroundings before he responds.
“What?” he slurs.
“Where’s the fucking owner?” I shout, pulling a gun on the unsuspecting junkie.
He raises his hands quickly, snapping out of his daze as he comes crashing back down to reality with the hit of adrenaline I’ve provided for him.
“Fuck! Put that thing away, man. He’s in the back room,” he responds, pointing to a door in the corner of the room covered in peeling green paint.
I bring my weapon down and nod at him, and Stepan keeps an eye on him as we continue towards the door, building speed as we move. I want to take the owner by surprise.
I charge into the room, breaking down the door with my shoulder. An unfamiliar, fat man with a grey beard and a lion tattoo on his neck jumps back, falling off his chair and breaking a glass bottle of whiskey he had clearly been hoarding for himself here in the back room.
Without hesitation, I lunge towards him, picking him up by the back of his shirt and slamming him into the particleboard table. “Where the fuck is Antonio, you coward?” I growl in his ear, holding the tip of my pistol to his temple.
“Go fuck yourself,” he snarls back.
I pick his head up by his hair and slam his nose into the table again, breaking it and causing a deluge of blood to pour from his face. I want to do so much more to get back at him for what happened to Nikolai, but I hold back.
“You’re not getting shit out of me,” he insists, attempting desperately to shake himself from my grip. What he plans to do if he gets away, I couldn’t guess.
Stepan draws his weapon and points it at the man. “You know why we’re here, don’t be a fucking idiot. It’ll only end worse for you.”
“Antonio’s in fucking Vegas getting his cock sucked by your wives,” the fat man replies, feeling deliriously untouchable in his drunken state.
I throw the man back onto the ground, digging my knee into the back of his neck. “You have one more fucking chance. Tell me where Antonio is, or I’ll paint the wall with your brains, you fucking roach.”
“He’s fucking your mom in hell, bitch,” he shouts, following it up with a cackle that borders on a fit of coughing.
I step back and unload the entire clip of bullets into the back of his head, fragmenting his skull until it’s nothing but a disfigured pile of grey matter, bone, and hair. I feel nothing, only cold indifference.