Kenya Rosewater (kenyarosewater) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-10-28 10:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, kenya rosewater, nikolai luzhin |
Who: Kenya kenyarosewater& Nikolai vor
When: October
Where: Need/Want
What: Robbery?
Status: Complete
Rating: Violence, Fighting, Nikolai, Kenya
Kenya was overseeing the last count of the night, tired of being on her feet, wondering if she’d really meant it when she said she loved working so much. Sometimes, she didn’t. Tonight was one of those nights. She was just downright exhausted. Which is why she’d sent Nikolai out to make sure everyone was gone and was waiting to pick the night deposit bag up to drop off. The last penny accounted for she shooed the employee home.
She tucked the bag into the crook of her elbow and stretched, before locking up behind her and heading out to find Nikolai. She wanted to drop off the deposit and get home before the sun started to crawl over the skyline. She didn’t see him immediately but she didn’t worry, because he’d show up.
Unfortunately she didn’t notice the person slipping up behind her to rob her. She was surprised when she was thrown against a wall, then the anger rose up and she managed to spin. “Good lord have you no manners?” she growled as she stamped a stiletto heel onto the guy’s foot. She’d pay to watch what happened to him once Nikolai saw it.
~*~
Privacy came at the cost of expediency in the case of the layout of The Need/Want. Nikolai found the end-of-day search more annoying than anything else. He did not care for tracking down drunks or sleepers who'd gotten more than what was on the public menu out of one of their employees. There were many things Nikolai did not care for however and none of those things were ever neglected simply due to his distaste for them.
Duty was duty. Duty was honor. Duty had to be done. Period. End of sentence. Final.
A howl of pain came as a surprise to him. He'd finished sweeping away the last of the trash---or encouraging the exit of the last patron. Same difference to him. Nikolai recognized the voice as male. No one else was still alert enough at the location to have it in them to inflict pain which left only one conclusion for him to draw: someone had encountered Kenya in a way she did not care for and someone was going to pay.
Nikolai did not hurry on his way out the side door. His steps were even, measured, silent in the dark as he stalked toward his new target. Kenya was not the kind of woman who needed him to rush to her rescue. She would be able to stave off any attacker long enough for him to assess the situation prior to entering it. Even an inept target could prove capable of getting lucky when haste was involved; Nikolai never resorted to haste when he had the chance to be thorough.
"Hello. I am thinking you are confused. What do you think you are doing here? Let us begin there."
~*~
Kenya was no lightweight and no pushover. She’d survived some serious hells over her lifetime and this was nothing more than an inconvenience. She flicked her black hair over her shoulder and sunk her foot down even harder as she got in the guy’s face. He backhanded her in an attempt to get her to stop shoving a heel through his foot but she only laughed. Really? Was that all he had? Pathetic.
She looked over as Nikolai made his appearance. She clicked her tongue as she yanked her heel out of his foot. Kenya generally preferred spilling more blood than that but she’d not had anything else on her but a stiletto. If you were gonna hit her, she was gonna make you pay for every ache. She ducked around the surprised man and grinned.
The man looked between the two. “I’m taking the night deposit, what’s it look like?” he snapped at the pair, and was greeted with a laugh from Kenya. She fluttered her lashes a little and heaved a heavy sigh. “Looks like you missed a piece of trash, I guess you can dispose of it however you see fit. He made me get blood on my shoe.” she huffed in annoyance.
Her cheek was tender but it was not in her nature to bitch about it. Instead she just turned her favorite man loose. “Poor misguided man.” she mused as she got out of Nikolai’s way.
~*~
"I was right. You are distinctly confused."
Robbery wasn't something to be worried over in their business. Ordinary criminals were put off by the amount of security they had on site; The Need/Want did not -on paper- make enough money to attract the attention of extraordinary criminals. Nikolai could not help the confusion which marred his features as he walked up to the man with the same slow, measured footsteps he'd used to make his way around the building.
What kind of fool was this to be thinking he could rob them?
Desperation could drive a person to drastic measures. He'd seen people do things no one would imagine doing in the United States. Mothers who sold their children. Fathers who killed their own sons for sport or insurance money. Business owners who paid others to burn their stores to the ground. Children who had no idea what it was to be a child because they were too busy earning their keep to avoid starving in the streets.
Darkness could not completely hide the mark on Kenya's cheek; it did not deter Nikolai from grasping the man by the throat to throw him back against the side of the building. His head cracked as it hit the stone of the building face. He'd not been expecting such a direct move, but he was clearly no threat to someone with Nikolai's life experience. There was a stunned expression on the man's face Nikolai could only interpret as shock.
Most men who dared commit crimes in America thought their brash behavior alone would be enough to keep their victim from fighting back.
"You came here to rob us, yes? Where I come from, robbers choose victims who have no protection or not enough protection. Where I come from, if you are caught trying to steal from those who are better protected than you---you die."
It was simple. Law existed among the criminal world of Russia. Their laws were older than any made in America. This man was nothing more than a sack of meat to Nikolai as he choked him while pulling him closer so he could spit in his face and laugh.
"You like hitting women? You will be someone's woman here. I am sure they have place for you in local jail. You are very bad man to try to rob respectable business. Surely there must be law officers looking for you, worried you will escape and harm some poor innocent citizen. I will help you find your way back to where you belong. You are not belonging here. Here? There are no victims here."
Nikolai used both hands to push the man's entire body away from him as forcefully as he could so it would impact the wall again. A sick sound came from the crack of his skull to stone. Nikolai clucked his tongue while holding up the man's body as it went limp beneath his grip.
"I am thinking I get a bit of plastic from storage to put him in trunk of car. We drop him outside hospital or police station? You decide."
~*~
Kenya just leaned on the wall to watch, a wicked little grin playing over her face. A bruised cheek was nothing, she’d had much worse in her lifetime. She licked the corner of her mouth before raking a hand through her hair. She watched the poor misguided robber turn into a useless sack of flesh.
“Police I suppose, but not in one of our cars. We’ll acquire someone else’s. I don’t particularly want them looking for whoever dropped his sorry flesh at their doorstep.” not that Nikolai was that stupid or anything. She pushed off the wall and stepped up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “America. I do not know what to make of this place sometimes.” she mused as she stepped away and headed to collect some of those plastic zip ties.
“Who ever thought robbing us was a good idea?” she shook her head a bit. “Strange that this place has no common sense. It almost makes me miss home. At least there I knew what was coming and when.” Mostly.
Kenya didn’t cower beneath robbers and thieves, they were the least of her worries most nights. She brought Nikolai the zip ties and had grabbed an ice pack from the med kit stashed in the car. She was prepared for just about anything that could happen. She smiled at him while holding the ice to her face.
~*~
Nikolai made quick work of trussing up the unconscious man. He was certain there was no chance Kenya would be threatened by him again yet is still pained him to leave her with a body still breathing after striking her. The distance between them was too far, vast as the land and waters separating them from the Old World where the laws made sense and fools paid dearly for their follies.
Taking Kenya's chin between his thumb and forefinger, Nikolai pressed a whisper of a kiss to her lips before murmuring, "I go to get a car. Wait here. Keep the ice on your face. The less your skin is bruised, the less likely I am to forget where we now live and kill this swine."
He released her with a slight nod of his head -the Vor version of a bow- as he pivoted on his heel to go toward the parking area. There were usually a few vehicles left in their lot by the drunks. The Need/Want did not allow any attention to be drawn to it unnecessarily. This meant they were careful to police their patrons prior to allowing them to leave out on their own while intoxicated or under some other influence. Nikolai was not above breaking fingers to take keys out of the hands of drunkards.
Fools were welcome inside their establishment, but they themselves were no fools.
There really wasn't any skill involved in stealing a car. It was all the same regardless of location. A car in America was the same car if it was in Russia. He had learned to steal cars before he could see over the wheel without sitting atop his coat. Nikolai chose a dark sedan for its ability to blend in without standing out in traffic, picking its lock on the driver's side door where he found the lever to open the trunk. He considered it for a moment before moving the contents around to lift the covering where the spare tire was housed.
Americans were wonderfully practical in some ways. There was an emergency tarp along with a first aid kit and a roadside assistance set; Nikolai covered the entire trunk with the tarp to try to avoid staining the borrowed vehicle with the blood of the idiot waiting for him back with Kenya. He nodded in satisfaction before closing the trunk to get into the car, starting it with only a single try. Some lessons a man only needed to learn once.
Pulling up next to Kenya, he got out while pulling the trunk lever in the same motion, "In you go while I pack up our friend."
She could seat herself, get comfortable, and Nikolai made quick work of tossing her assailant into the trunk before closing it with a definitive thud.
~*~
Sometimes, just sometimes, she missed the Old World. Life was rougher, harsher, harder - but things were simpler too. People did not survive stupidity. Someone would remove them from the gene pool. Here? So many laws and rules and people who got uppity. She would like nothing more than to send this man to the bowels of the Earth and forget he existed. But that was trouble she did not need to bring on her head here.
Her eyes were pained - not because she hurt but because she had worried Nikolai - but the smirk was settled neatly upon her lips after his ghost of a kiss. She liked nothing more than those little stolen moments. “Promise.” she said simply, holding the cold pack to her face, annoyed that now she’d have to layer on the foundation to hide a bruise she could feel forming. It was a skill she could manage without thinking, though. It was not unknown to someone of her profession.
She leaned on the wall, ice to her face, eyes on the man. He so much as twitched he’d find the point of her heel in his throat. Content that he was not, in fact, moving for now, she looked up to see Nikolai pulling up with a car. They had taxis, and uber drivers, practically on call at the end of the night. Drunkards were never allowed to leave with keys in their hands. It was simply not acceptable.
She slipped into the car and settled into the seat. “I am sorry to have caused you worry.”
~*~
"It is my job to worry."
Nikolai did not want to hear Kenya apologize to him. He pulled out of the parking lot with care to go exactly the right speed. Driving too fast drew attention to a car as quickly as the accelerator's numbers going up; driving too slowly worked the same way since a slower moving vehicle pulled the eyes to it in order to watch its progression as it passed by which also meant bad things for people who did bad things.
Bad things according to this New World and its laws.
They were only doing the smart thing, the just thing where they were from in their Old Country.
"It is not my place to tell you what is your job."
They still had a role to play together. Their personal lives were bleeding into their professional one which could get dangerous, but Nikolai would not change it for all the world. He'd die before giving up what he had found with this woman. Her understanding of him surpassed that of any partner he'd had in any encounter in his past. The only good thing in his life was this woman. He wasn't going to let some idiot come between them which meant he drove at an even pace until they were approaching the police station.
He couldn't drop the body directly in front of the building.
There were cameras. Nikolai was trained to avoid more than cameras. It was good to be smart. That was a lesson this man would hopefully learn from this night.
"Move the ice to cover more of your face. There is camera across street. We will drop him here on the corner where they park their cars. Someone will find him. Maybe before he bleeds to death. Maybe not."
Nikolai didn't particularly care one way or the other. They were simply taking out the trash as far as he was concerned.
~*~
Life had a way of bleeding over when it was not something they were used to. She deftly tilted her head at him and smiled sweetly. “It is not, no, but I do always welcome your advice and counsel.” She ran her hand through her dark hair and smoothed everything out. She folded her free hand in her lap.
If it had been anyone except Nikolai, she would not have let them step into her professional life. As it were, however, it’d be hard to let go now and she had no desire to do so. “Of course.” she shifted the ice pack to rest further over her face, eyes downcast to avoid the cameras. “He bleeds, he bleeds. Not my problem once his face hits the pavement.” she said softly, viciously. Kenya was a nice person to the world.
Until it stepped on her toes and then she became cruel and cold as ice.
“This place and their laws.” she scoffed a bit. “When you are finished let us go out to the cabin, I do not feel like being in the city tonight.”
~*~
Gloves were something Nikolai wore always when driving. Some men thought it a vanity while smart men looked at his tattooed fingers sliding into hiding inside the leather and knew. The markings on his body were permanent, as permanent as his dedication to the brotherhood his marks represented, and those marks were known even in this country by those who had a history older than the country itself.
"I would like this as well. There is no need for us here in this city this night. I have had enough of concrete. We should enjoy a chance to see stars."
Nikolai turned off the lights on the car while keeping it running. If any camera were at an angle to catch a glimpse of the vehicle, it would be too shadowed to see inside or to identify either himself, Kenya, or even make and model of the sedan. He had taken care to pull as close to the sidewalk as possible. With luck, they would be caught by no cameras at all. They were equidistance between street lights where the shadows fell the deepest as they ever could in a city made of sunshine and light.
A pull to the lever beside the driver's seat released the trunk with a quiet click; Nikolai kept himself low as he moved out of the car to prowl back along the side. All the cameras were on the passenger's side in this area. He could potentially avoid any camera seeing even his shadow moving if he were careful enough and he had been trained very young to be careful or to be finding himself dead.
It took little effort to use the tarp to drag the body from the trunk onto the pavement. The man was still breathing. Nikolai was neither comforted nor discomforted by the revelation. He care no more for this man's life than Kenya did. All they were doing was damage control. No bodies could be discovered at their club. No marks on the man's body would lead back to Nikolai and, as he'd been taught his lesson during a criminal act, he was not going to talk.
If he survived? He would consider himself lucky.
Nikolai did not need to rouse the man to waking to know he was right on the matter.
More effort was required to get the body rolled into the tarp, lifted, and carried across the street while dodging lights and hopefully staying out of camera range. Nikolai dropped the man on the pavement beside a police cruiser with a warm hood -someone had used it recently which meant it was more likely someone would be returning to it soon- unrolling him from the tarp in the process. He folded the plastic neatly enough, shaking it to dislodge blood before making his way over to the sedan where Kenya awaited.
The tarp was deposited into a plastic bag in the back seat before Nikolai reclaimed his position in the driver's seat and turned to look over Kenya before nodding in silent assent all was well.
"We go back to exchange cars. Then I drive us to cabin. He was still breathing. Car he is beside still warm. Good luck to him, da?"
~*~
Kenya stretched lazily and waited for him to finish up. She was careful to avoid getting her face seen by any camera, there was no point in bringing suspicion down on her head. She was better than that, anyways. He might be the career criminal, but she’d been on the path long enough too. She tucked her hair back, watching him lay the body down and leave him for the police to find.
Dark eyes followed his progress back to the car and she watched him get in with her calculating smile. “Let us get out of the city for a little bit, it will be best I think. A little relaxing after an interesting night.” she spoke softly, she didn’t care about the man and his chances once he awoke. He deserved whatever he got - she had thought about it for the few minutes that had been required to sort it all out then she set it aside and ignored it.
Her conscious was occupied with other things, things far more important, than a petty criminal attempting to rob her. She shook her head and smiled. “Let us get to the club, make the deposit and go see the stars.” she knew that the cabin was their safe place, she’d purchased it through multiple channels and had never once shown her face. She had all the correct paperwork, and taxes were paid in escrow, so the only people who knew that she herself owned it was her and Nikolai.
She liked it that way.
~*~
"These decisions you make are wise. This is why I am proud to serve you."
There were many people in Moscow whose monies would have allowed them to encourage a Vor to serve them. Stahma's father was one such man who had a history with their kind Nikolai would not disrespect. He would never betray the confidence of those people. Stahma and her father were a part of his history, his family by extension due to their mutual crimes committed together as was the way of the Vory v zakone. If Stahma had need of him, Nikolai would do his duty by her.
He would not be willing to leave the country for any but Kenya now however as what they had?
Transcended Old Law into the New World.
His commitment to her would have been cause for concern in Moscow.
Vor were not allowed their own woman, their own family, their own anything.
They were thieves in law---the Vory was their family.
Stripping his gloves, Nikolai turned them inside-out to conceal any evidence clinging to them, replacing them with a spare pair from his inner pocket before he took Kenya's hand to raise to his lips where he pressed a chaste kiss on the back of it.
"Business first and then you and I and a date with the stars. We? Are the lucky ones my katya."
They were as far as Nikolai was concerned. All sacrifices were worth it for Kenya. She made him want more than the life he'd chosen. That was no light thing.