Inga

Chicago, USA - November 11, 2029

Ivan Petrovic stared at the TV without really watching it. He had been dressed in his light cotton suit and tie since 7 am. Being up so early was a requirement of the job he had performed since his late twenties, and even though he was rarely called before 8 am, just occasionally Dimitri Molenski, his boss, surprised him by calling earlier.

Whether this was to catch him out or not, he wasn’t sure, but it was moot. Ivan had been ready for the call every time. He was diligent and disciplined when it came to his job and apart from his six weeks in hospital after the ambush, he had eaten and dressed before 7 am every single day of his long tenure as Dimitri Molenski’s personal bodyguard.

Ivan stood up and walked to the kitchenette of his suite. The sink was clean. Had he already washed up from his breakfast? If so he must have done it on autopilot. Then he remembered, yes, he had done it straight after he finished his coffee. He smiled. So forgetful of the little things. It was a consequence of his induced coma. As the doctors had told him during his rehabilitation, one simply could not recover from the trauma of multiple gunshot wounds and near death without some after effects.

Still, physically he was fully recovered and if anything, fitter and stronger than before. If a little forgetfulness was the price to pay for escaping death, he was more than willing to pay it. He went back into the living room and sat down in front of the blank television screen to await the call.

Ivan was a big man, tall and heavily muscled, but he moved with the grace of a big cat. His blond hair was shorn into a military cut, and his handsome Slavic face was serious most of the time. He had a year to run on this (his third) 5-year contract. This time, however, he wasn’t sure he could see it through to the end. It wasn’t the work itself. While it could be boring, there was nothing to complain about. He was earning a good salary, had a luxury suite in his employer’s mansion and got to see from the inside how a big, albeit only semi-legitimate, business operated.

No, it wasn’t boredom or job dissatisfaction that was sapping Ivan’s tolerance for the job, it was Molenski himself. Or more to the point, the things he did or had others do in his name. And it was getting worse.

He owed Molenski a lot. The man had taken him under his wing back in Russia when Ivan was only 15. He had given him a job and a roof over his head, before paying for Ivan’s passage to America three years later. The payback had been Ivan’s absolute loyalty through good times and bad, through gang wars and living the high life.

His near death experience had lent him some perspective, though. The bodyguard had seen and done many bad things in the service of Molenski, but in the last two years, he had seen more personal violence, bloodshed, and murder than ever before. More even than during than the five-year gang war upon which Molenski had built his empire.

It had actually been quiet the last few months, so much so that Ivan began to wonder if he should reconsider his plan. Perhaps the mob chief was finally beginning to mellow?

But no, the events of the night before confirmed that nothing had changed and that the fleeting, bloodless period of calm was about to come to a shuddering end.

This morning, Molenski would be talking to the man his security team had abducted the night before. If the Russian were true to form, it would end very badly for the man.

If there was one thing the bodyguard could use to ease his burden of guilt, it was the fact that Molenski was a very bad man doing very bad things to other very bad people. Most of the time.

Unfortunately, that didn’t negate the fact that over the years, each bullet, each scream, each drop of blood, had chipped away at Ivan’s resolve and loyalty to his boss. Like a tooth that had been eroded by overuse, he was almost down to the raw nerve and was less and less immune to the misery inflicted by and for the Russian.

Ivan kicked his thoughts around like a soccer center forward practicing for a big game. He knew it would be impossible to break his contract with Molenski without either killing him or running for his life. Both would be difficult, nigh impossible, given the resources at his employer’s disposal.

No, it was better to see his contract to its bitter end and take the large sum of money he had been saving all his working life. Easier to jet off somewhere to live by the beach and pay for some top notch counseling to try and erase the damage done by his service to the brutal mob boss.

Given his ruthlessness, Ivan should perhaps have been concerned about Molenski turning on him once the contract ended. He wasn’t. He had been around the Russian long enough to know that his warped moral code put business deals above all else. The contract between them was business and the Russian always honored those deals and expected the same of others. In fact, that was why the man currently sitting in the basement was in so much trouble.

The phone rang.