Lev took the key out of the ignition, cutting off the smooth humming of the BMW TwinPower Turbo engine. He paused for a moment to look around and make sure that everything in the interior was in order, that there was no trash or visible dirt on the soft brown leather. His car was something Lev took great pride in. It was a visible symbol of his accomplishments, much like the markings etched into his body were symbols of his past deeds. But he didn't show the tattoos anymore, these days he covered them with a suit and showed the BMW.

He got out of the car and leaned against the closed door and lit a Belomorkanal cigarette. His 10am meeting was across the Manhatten street at the castle in front of him. Lev had seen castles in his old country, and more recently on a trip to Scotland. Some were huge and imposing, with battlements arrow slots and towers to fend off attacking armies. They had walls thicker than a man is tall. They were impenetrable. This castle was a three story brownstone apartment in the middle of Manhattan, had unlocked doors, and did not have a single guard. And it was more impenetrable than any of the colossal structures from Europe's darker days. There was no need for locks or guards, not even a man in his wrong mind would attack it.

The summons had been in the form of an black business card with silver writing. He recognized it from his one visit to the 8th circle, he had been guarding a visiting Russian oil tycoon's son who had some intense proclivities. Lev was a hard man, had done things to people he tried to avoid remembering when possible, but the screams he heard that night while he stood guard outside the door where Sergei met with a man named Griffin sent more than one shiver down Lev's spine. But like the American Secret Service his job that night was not to think or judge, it was to protect the man and his secrets.

The interaction he had with Edge that night had lasted no more than two minutes. He walked down the hall as if he were taking Sunday morning stroll, occasionally stopping to listen at a door, until he arrived at the door next to Lev. Kingsley listened for a moment, a small smile played across his face, and then turned the smile toward Lev.

"I trust our little oil boy is enjoying himself?"

He was asking about the man behind the door, but somehow Lev knew that the dark eyes were not judging the man behind the door, but the one in front of him. Maybe he did this to everyone. Or maybe not. Lev had no idea, and that wasn't the night to let his mind wander.

"Da. He is in pain. Not distress. Screams of release." Lev kept his hands perfectly still folded in front of the buttons of his suit, and let his weight distribute evenly on his feet. He knew the dangerous reputation of Kingsley Edge, but something about the penetrating gaze and slight smirk told Lev that this man was more dangerous than his terrifying reputation.

The two men held their ground for another minute in a silent samurai battle. Like the battles of old Japan neither man said a word or moved a muscle. Then something happened in the silence, and the battle ended. Kingsley smiled and put his hand on Lev's shoulder, laughing quietly.

"Oui. Good. Let the boy have fun. You call on me if you need anything, Lev."

Kingsley moved on down the hallway. He had the relaxed gait of a victorious man. Lev wiped a small drop of sweat off his temple. Lev feared this man, and that was rare. Lev had not seen Edge since that night, but he had not forgotten the interaction, though assumed Edge had. The man was the king of the underground, there would be no reason to give that interaction a second though.

Last night, when Lev arrived at his day after a long day, he found a card stuck to his door. It said "10am", . Aside from being shocked, Lev now knew that the interaction was not forgotten on either side. Though that still didn't explain why he had been summoned. For the life of him Lev had no idea what he was doing here.

There was a faint beeping as Lev's alarm let him know that it was 10am. He dropped the cigarrette, and walked across the street and up the steps to the door of the brownstone. The door itself was technically unremarkable, large and made of some stained hardwood, possibly oak, with designs around the edge. In the middle was a large cast-iron knocker that rested against black iron Fluer-de-lis. Again, technically unremarkable, but something about the designs around the edge and symbol in the center made Lev feel like he was going to walk into the gates of hell, but find nothing but pleasure. He doubted this was unintentional.

The next thing he would done would been to reach up and swing knock on the door if the door hadn't opened the moment he reached the top step. Lev knew enough about meetings to know when someone was setting the tone: he was on Kingsley Edge's turf, and here Kingsley controlled everything.

Standing on the other side of the threshold was the tall, dark skinned, stunning woman that Lev could only assume would be Juliette. She gave him a disarming smile.

"Welcome Mr Andreyevich." Her accent was thick, and by reputation he knew it was Haitan, but Lev wouldn't have been able to place it without knowing beforehand. "Thank you for coming. Mr Edge is waiting for you in his office." She held out her arm toward the hallway next to the stairs."Down the hallway, last door on the right."

"Thank you." As he walked down the hallway Lev removed his sunglasses and slipped them into his breast pocket. The door at the end of the hallway was slightly open, and inside he could hear Edge talking on the phone in French. Lev stood by the door to wait for Edge to finish his call.

"Come in Mr Andreyevich. I am almost done," Edge called through the door. Lev didn't bother to wonder how Edge knew he was standing on the other side of the door.

Lev walked through the door, and paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the light level of the room. The windows were shaded, and the furniture was a deep mahogany. Book cases and ornate filing cabinets stood along the back perimeter facing the huge wooden desk behind which Kingsley Edge conducted his business. There were papers in neat piles on the desk, clearly separated in some meaningful way. There was no computer. Lev walked over to the two wooden chairs on the near side of the desk, and stood next to them. He did not sit until Edge looked up at him and gestured with his hand.

"Oui. Oui. It will be taken care of. He is here." Kingsley dropped out of French to conclude his call. Lev crossed one ankle over the other knee, and put his hands in his lap, appearing to ignore the obvious hint that the phone call had been about him. A few phrases later Kingsley hung up the phone. He opened what appeared to be a journal and began to write notes in slow deliberate handwriting. After about a minute of this Kingsley finally looked up at Lev and spoke.

"Mr Andreyavhic, thank you for coming." Lev gave a slight nod, saying nothing. "May I call you Lev?"

"Da," Lev replied, choosing only to acknowledge the question.

"Good," Kingsley continued, "I recall meeting you at the club. I asked around. You have quite a reputation among some of my less known business associates. You have a reputation of being able to solve difficult problems, of being reliable and direct. Is all this true?"

Lev took a moment to consider his response. Kingsley had obviously done a fair amount of successful digging, and Lev did not want to give him any information he did not already have.

"Do you have problem, Mr Edge?" Lev sent the ball back over the net. Kingsley laughed quietly at the deflection.

"Always. A man in my business, both above and under ground, always has problems that need solving. The more interesting question is whether I have problems which require a man with your skills."

"You have other men with skills, da?"

"Oui. But I am always on the watch for new talent. Also, I think this assignment may interest you." Kingsley opened a folder laying in front of him on the desk. Even upside-down Lev could tell it was a police report. Not the sort that should be in a file in Kingsley Edge's office. Then again, most of the information in Edge's office should not be in his office, or exist in the first place. Kingsley fingered through several pages until he reached a photograph. He picked it up, turned it upside-down, and slid it across the table.

Lev had to tap every ounce of self-discipline to keep himself from flinching when he looked down at the picture. He could tell it was a picture of a woman, but only by the hair. Beyond that he could tell nothing. He could not tell if she was pretty, or young, or where she might be from. Her face was destroyed. It was a mass of blood and bruises. This woman had been beaten beyond recognition. Lev counted to ten as he took a breath in, willing himself to not react to what he saw.

"What happened?"

"This is Bela. She was in my employ. I trained her for a year. She showed promise. She was young and powerful. She could break most men in the first half hour. I never asked, but I know where this power came from. She fought her way out of sexual slavery, and was lucky enough to have wandered through my world. I was lucky enough to recognize her talent. But her past was not to remain her past. A man came to me and requested her by name, providing several references. I did the standard checks, and found that he had some mafia connections, but this is not a new thing in my business. I sent her with a bodyguard to be safe."

As the story continued to unfold Lev felt his leather gloves and shirt grow damp with sweat. His breaths came shallower. His fingers clutched the picture and his eyes were locked on it. The room temperature hadn't changed, but it felt like a sauna. From the outside only trained eyes could see the change, eyes like those of Kingsley Edge. Lev knew that showing his anger was showing his cards, but at the moment he did not care.

"Her bodyguard was shot three times in the head, but she lives. But she is broken. She does not sleep. She cries every day. I take pride in protecting my employees, and this was my worst failure. This was much more than a loss of investment. This damaged my reputation, and it destroyed this girl permanently."

Despite having almost no formal education, Lev was not a stupid man. Any questions he might have as to why he was here were completely dispelled. The rest of this conversation was written, even if not yet spoken.

"What do you want?"

"These men wanted to make an example of Bela. They succeeded. I would like you to return the favor."

For the first time since picking it up Lev took his eyes off the picture. He leveled his gaze at the man across the desk, and asked the only question left to ask. A question Lev knew the answer to.

"Why me?"

"Yana."

With that answer the conversation was over. Lev stood, reached across the desk and picked up the file from in front of Kingsley. Without another word he left the townhouse.

Kingsley Edge looked through pages in a folder on his desk wearing no expression, his mind in a state of calm focus. The file had come from an old contact in Moscow, someone from far back in his past. There had been no favors owed him. This file , and the intelligence in it, cost him thousands of dollars.

In the file were several medical reports, a police report, and several pages of freedom notes. They were all about a man named Sergey Polovic. Kingsley had another files on this man, one which named him as the Russian mafia enforcer who booked an appointment with Bela, and then beat her to deaths door. Kingsley had written Sergey's name on a piece of paper in the file he handed to Lev Andreyevich six weeks ago. At that time Kingsley could only guess at the hell he was unleashing. The first person to warn him was a nurse in his employ as she relayed a conversation she overheard.

The day after Lev left the townhouse a young woman showed at the apartment where Kingsley was keeping Bela. The location had been a secret, and yet she presented herself to the guard at the door by simply saying, in a thick Russian accent, "I am Yana. I here to care for Bela." On Kingsley's orders she was allowed in, and from the moment she walked in ran Bela's care, hardly leaving her side and ordering doctors and nurses around like office interns.

During her vigil Yana almost never spoke other than these terse orders. She cooked for and cleaned Bela in silence. At night, when Bela would wake from her nightmares screaming, Yana locked herself in the room with the girl, and the guard said he could hear Yana's muffled voice through the door. It was hardly more than a whisper and almost musical, like a lullaby. It was ten days before Kingsley got a report with a quote. It happened when the nurses encouraged Bela to leave the room for the first time, which was met with understandable resistance. But Bela began to panic, repeating over and over that they would find her and kill her. Yana grabbed her and yelled at her in Russian.

"They will never find you because they will never look. These men will pay. The man who will make them pay will make them wish for the Devil's kiss and the fires of hell. They have never known a man like this. They will never look for you."

Several days later Kingsley received the first incident report on Sergey. From the pictures and description it appeared that he had come out on the losing side of a bar fight. The accounts were inconsistent and unclear, everyone who had been interviewed gave a different story about what caused the fight, but the common thread was that it progressed from verbal to physical altercation very suddenly and unilaterally. Sergey was knocked over with a sucker punch, and the other man struck him several more times before he stopped suddenly and walked out of the bar. The report surprised Kingsley. He had expected something more severe. A quick fist fight in a bar is hardly the fires of hell, after all. He was further perplexed by the fact that Lev did not contact him after. The second report, arriving two weeks later to the day, provided a clearer picture.

The second report, unlike the collection of informal testimonies in the first, was a police and hospital report. Sergey was found in an alley near his home. When he arrived at the hospital he had six broken ribs, his jaw and cheekbone had been broken, and the medical report stated that one eye had likely nerve damage. Sergey could not or would not say who had done the damage. He had been alone in his home when he was attacked. The police found no prints or DNA.

When Kingsley did not hear from Lev after the second report arrived he knew that there would be a third. So did Sergey. When he was released from the hospital he booked the first flight to Russia and left without packing a bag. It was prudent: an out-matched man should go to ground, and Moscow would give him more options for protection.

It did not work.

The third report arrived two weeks after the second to the day. Another medical and police report, this time from Moscow. Sergey had been found in a vehicle parked near a hospital. He was with his bodyguard, who had three bullet holes in his head. Every finger on Sergey's right hand had been cut off, and his right arm was broken. He was an unrecognizable mass of blood. In fact, other than the hair his picture was very similar to the picture of Bela Kingsley had handed Lev six weeks before.

With the three reports in front of him, Kingsley sat back in his chair and sipped at the tea Juliette had placed on his desk. In these reports were a very clear message Lev had chosen to send:

These girls are protected. Harm them at your peril. There is nothing you can do to protect yourself, there is nowhere you can go where you will be safe.

Kingsley opened his phone and pressed the first number in his speed-dial. He chuckled quietly to himself at the irony of who he was calling. In giving Lev a picture he had unleashed hell. Now that he understood the man, the next step was to call a priest.

"Bonjour mon ami. We need to talk ..."

The next day Kingsley's cell phone rang when he was having his morning tea. He normally did not take calls in the morning, choosing to use that time to collect his thoughts and sometimes have a few uninterrupted minutes with Juliette. That morning he took out his phone to check the number. He knew from the number it was about Lev.

"Sorry, my dear. I have to take this," he answered Juliette's inquisitive look, and answered the call. "Oui, tell me."

"He just got in a taxi at JFK. Yellow cab 4404. The driver just radioed in the address as 500 E 110th St."

"Thank you." Kingsley hung up the phone and looked up at Juliette, whose look had not change, though her posture had shifted slightly. Her hands were on top of one another on the table, and her head was tilted down slightly. She was waiting for instructions. "I need the town car. I have to go to Bela's apartment. "

In ten minutes he was in his car on his way to the upper east side apartment where Kingsley had been keeping Bela. When the car pulled up to the building the door man opened his car door for him, and stood at attention like an armed guard, which is exactly what he was.

"The man coming in cab 4404 is to be brought directly to the apartment. I do not think it would be wise to be in his way." The guard crinkled his brow, giving Kingsley a skeptical expression. "Trust me, Jack," Kingsley added, and walked to the elevator. He pressed the button for the 23 floor, and took a breath of relief. He was glad to have beaten Lev to the apartment. Kingsley was a man who enjoyed having the upper hand.

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Kingsley walked to room 2410, and put his key into the door. Before he could turn it the door opened partially, and a young woman looked up at him from within the apartment. She was young, in her early twenties, and had the tell-tale pale skin and dark thick hair of an eastern European Jewish Russian. Her body obstructed him from entering the room.

"You must be Yana," Kinglsey said. She did not move. Her dark eyes stared directly in his, as if she were daring him to enter the apartment. Kingsley was a man who was used to being feared, and this situation was unnerving.

"Let him in, Yana," Lev's voice came from within the apartment. Yana reacted immediately, bowing her head, stepping back from the door and opened it fully. She stepped aside and allowed Kingsley to enter his own apartment. Kingsley stepped in, and closed the door behind him. Lev stood in the middle of the room facing the couch which ran along the side of the room. Bela was on the couch, her legs pulled up against her chest. She had white bandages wrapped around her face from the second round of reconstructive plastic surgery a week ago. Yana moved from the door to stand behind Lev. The reaction to his instruction at the door and her natural repositioning behind him would probably have gone unnoticed, or shrugged off, but Kingsley saw it for exactly what it was. Lev controlled the room, and his relationship, with a stoic commanding intensity.

Lev looked at Kingsley, according him a slight nod, and then turned back to Bela. He began to speak to her in Russian. Kingsley would later have the conversation translated from the hidden camera embedded in the smoke detector.

"Yana tells me you are recovering well. That you are strong. This is good. Do you have all you need?" Lev asked the girl, who seemed to curl tighter into a ball the moment he began to speak. She shook her head, and after a pause Lev continued.

"Look at me, girl."

Kingsley would have to listen to the recording many times before he could place what he heard in Lev's tone at this point. It was a command, but behind the command was comfort. The words told her that she must meet his eyes, but the tone told her that it was safe to do so. She did.

"It is done. You are safe. The man who did this can not hurt you. The rest will fear you. It is done."

Bela's eyes filled with tears, and her head dropped into her knees as she began to sob. Lev nodded to Yana, who moved to the couch to comfort Bela, and then he turned to face Kingsley. Lev reached into the breast pocket of suit jacket. When he took it out he was holding a black card with silver writing. One of Kingsley's cards. Lev handed the card to Kingsley and left the apartment.

Kingsley looked at the card in his hand. It was the same card he'd had delivered to Lev six weeks ago, when Kingsley set the time and date of their first meeting. Tomorrow, 10am, it read, the time and date of Lev's choosing.

Lev leaned against his car door with his legs crossed, letting out a slow smoky breath. He looked across the street at the townhouse, and down at his watch. It was 9:58am. Lev took another drag off his cigarette, adjusted his sunglasses, and waited. He waited for exactly one minute before dropping the cigarette and walking across the street. He took the four steps up to the door slowly, and rather than reach up to the cast iron knocker, he waited. When the door opened he didn't need to check his watch to see that it had just turned 10.

"Mr Andreyavich. Mr Edge is in his study," and she gestured toward a door inside the house. Juliette's voice was soft, but the tone carried strength. There was something about her that reminded Lev of Yana. Something about the quiet power she gave off, even when her eyes were down.

But Lev didn't have time to think of such things.

He took off his sunglasses and walked into the townhouse, down the hall in the direction he Juliette directed, and when he came to the door, he opened it and walked in rather than knocking.

The study looked like a the kind of room where a rich man would entertain a cocktail party. There were chairs and small tables around the outside of the room, and at the far end were two large leather padded chairs. They were so much larger than the others, and so conspicuously apart, that gave the sense that Lev was standing in the middle of the throne room of the underworld facing the chairs of the ruling monarchs. Kingsley sat in the left of the two large chairs, a glass of dark liquor in hand, and the right was empty. It would seem that the queen was not to preside over this meeting. But Kingsley was not alone. To his left, between the chairs, stood a man so striking that Lev had to resist the urge to stare. It was difficult. The man was tall, several inches taller than Lev, with a shape and build that revealed obvious physical strength. But this is not what Lev found striking. There was something in the posture, in the look, in the strength with which he stood without a single muscle taught. He owned this room. He owned this world. Even such, knowing that this man was God in this place, Lev forced his eyes back to Kingsley.

"It is done."

"Mr Andreyevich, please sit," Kingsley said as he gestured to the chair across from him. "There is a proposition we should discuss."

Lev looked at the chair, and the man who would be sitting in front of. Kingsley was the king of the underworld, and kings are ordained by a higher power. This man, around whose neck was a white collar, was that higher power, and today Lev was in no mood to sit in homage to this power. He did not move.

"You must be man they call The Pope," Lev said, meeting the man's gaze again.

"Father Stearns is fine. And you must be the gangster." Soren's voice was completely level, and only the slight movement in his brow conveyed the scorn. The sort of scorn Lev had always experienced when dealing with priests a the devout.

"Am I to be judged for performing task I was hired for?"

"This was not a task I was aware of, Mr Andreyevich, and not one I would have allowed had I known."

Lev looked to Kingsley, intending to stare the man down, but Kingsley's eyes were already downcast. Lev returned his eyes to Soren and, without breaking eye contact, reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope.

"This is bill. Mostly expenses, and small fee to offset cost of missing day job for 6 weeks. I make no profit off this job. This job not take for profit." He placed the envelope on the table between the chairs.

"Did you always have a price, Mr Andreyevech?" Soren asked Lev in nearly flawless Russian.

"Is it not a hypocrite for you to call me a sinner, Priest? You think I do not know who you are?" Lev's retort was so swift it was as if he read the line from a script. Soren continued the scene.

"I do not ask that people be perfect. But I do expect them to atone for their sins, and not to take pride in their flaws."

Lev grabbed the folds of his jacket and threw it over his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor at his feet. He yanked open his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and jerked it open to expose his bare chest. The skin was covered with the crude black tattoos that can only be found on the bodies of men in the Russian mafia. There was a large knife scar that ran from his left shoulder diagonally downard past his sternum. There were scars from two bullet wounds, one on his side and the other on his shoulder.

"Do not speak to me of atonement, Priest. I did not talk through a curtain to a man hiding behind his collar to repent for my sins. I atoned with blood."

"And yet you still sell yourself as a tool of vengeance? It would seem that whatever atoning you did was not enough." Soren's tone remained even and calm. So calm, and so unperturbed, that it was infuriating. Lev pulled his shirt closed, covering his chest. Lev took a deep breath, but it did nothing to quell the rage which had gripped him.

"You speak of vengeance, but this has nothing to do with vengeance. There are some men who cannot be saved with a sermon, Priest, and those men prey on the weak in places you dare not go. When it comes time to stop these men, I pray that I get a phone call, and not you."

Lev picked up his jacket, and turned toward the door. "Perhaps before you give me my next lecture on religion you should spend a little more time in hell," he said over his shoulder as he walked toward the exit. He made it halfway before Kinsley stopped him.

"So you don't want to hear about the job?"

"I do not need your money, or judgments," Lev spat back in English as he continued toward the door.

"The job is not for you,mon ami, it is for Yana."

Lev frozw. Behind him he heard Kingsley open the folder and put it on the table next to him, and continued to speak, "This is a job offer from Trinity medical for a position as a nursing aid. The offer is on the books," a page turned,"and this would be her working visa," another page, "and this would be her entrance papers to nursing school."

The room was silent. Lev stood facing the door, his hands clenched and body taught with rage. He came to Kingsley Edge's office determined to leave without agreeing to do anything he did not want to do, and for the second time he felt like he was in checkmate.

"It is a shit job,mon ami, sometimes literally. The pay is not good. She will not be able to afford to buy herself nice clothes or shoes. She will not be able to go to expensive restaurants. She will be tired, even more so if she goes to school." Again there was a pause. "All she will have a legitimate identity for the first time, and a path to American Citizenship. The choice is yours." Kingsley extended his arm toward Lev with the folder in his hand.

For the second time Lev took a folder from the hands of Kingsley Edge, and left the townhouse without saying another word.

Kingsley stared across the vacant room to the open through which Lev had left. Lev had been gone ten minutes, and the neither Kingsley or Soren had said a word to each other yet. Kingsley moved the tumbler in his hand to swirl the dark drink inside it. He hadn't sipped it since Lev left. In fact, he hadn't sipped it at all. Kingsley hardly ever drank, even though he seemed to always have a glass in his hand.

He could feel Soren behind standing over his shoulder. He had no idea what was going on in his head. That made this moment no different from any other. Nobody understood the mind of Soren .

Finally Kingsley decided the silence had gone on long enough. He spoke without looking up, "so, mon ami? Should we make him one of us?"

"He already is," was all the Priest said.