Liability

Chapter 33 - Dmitri

WARNING! Brief mention of past rape of a woman.

Thursday
September 13, 2018

After spending one half of the previous night pouring through the sea of information Sasha dumped onto his head — completed with full biographies, social media accounts, and detailed relationship network charts — and the other tossing and turning with little hope of getting even a minute of restful sleep, Dmitri does not feel even a sliver of patience for whatever bullshit Killian Woodrow has in store for him when he sees the missed call notification at 6:30 in the morning. Right after he gets back to his apartment from yet another vicious sparring match with his cousin, who was also in a right foul mood thanks to whatever masochistic crap he was putting himself through spying on his ex.

The one whose memory he wiped with his own hands.

He calls Killian back nevertheless, lips thinning at the snapped "Finally!" he receives upon the call connecting.

"While you were busy putting in some extra hours of beauty sleep, one of my students fucking OD'd himself. So, I really hope you have something good for me, Tinkerbell, or I might start ripping off your wings."

'I would like to see you try,' Dmitri thinks, rubbing a towel over his head. "Which one?" He pads over to his office and brings up the list of names compiled based on the numbers Sasha received.

"What does it matter? The kid is lying brain dead on a hospital bed waiting for his parents to pull the plug on him," Killian snarls, raging like a bull, which Dmitri can understand even if he's not keen on taking the man's tone like a docile lamb readily waiting for slaughter.

"It's ass o'clock, Killian, so snap your maw shut and use human words if you want to talk to me. I need the name of the boy to know where he got the drug," he replies with enough frost in his tone to shut Woodrow up.

"Chase Lodge, a sophomore. He was fucking 15." The words are bitten out in mauled chunks but this way it is easier for Dmitri to find the name.

"Found him, got the drug from the same rat the rest of his schoolmates did," Dmitri says then rattles off the names one after another, pretending he doesn't know the entire life story of these little idiots. He has no doubt that it's the three seniors in the group, who got the younger ones hooked, but he's not supposed to know more than a couple of days of research can get him. Which means names and school.

"How did you get these names?" Killian sounds suspicious.

"It doesn't matter. Now you know whose parents you need to call. I doubt they'll cough up any useful information but with the right treatment there might be some hope for some of them." He has no doubt that Killian can read between the lines. The scandal is already impossible to avoid but there is no way the parents of the younger kids won't be out for blood.

Heads will roll, but the question of whose heads is still up in the air.

"What about their dealer?" Killian asks, strangled with fury.

"You don't have to worry about that."

"You think more kids won't get their hands on this poison?!"

"I think learning that one of your classmates died from the same shit you want to try can be a pretty strong deterrent," Dmitri replies calmly.

Not to mention, Dmitri's Hounds — even under another person's command — are some of the best hunters out there. If new vermin digs its way to the surface, they will be there to do some pest control when needed. Now if finding the source of the drug was so easy.