Side chapter - "Your funeral"

Four people gathered at the young man's open grave. The pale teenager in the coffin had only one arm and an eye patch over his right eye, his metal arm stood by the grave, holding a plate with his name.

{Michael Borisovich Cordato}

{03.02.1998 - 15.11.2015}

A larger wooden tablet hung from the curled thumb, on which was written the following:

{Son - Brother - Friend}

{"Те из вас кто останется в живых, будут завидовать мёртвым"} / {"Those of you who remain alive will envy the dead"}

Igorevich looked at the dead Michael with an unreadable expression, not fully understanding his own feelings. The old hairdresser had only one regular client, and even he received a bullet in the temple. About ten years ago, Igorevich would have rained hell on the killers of his friend, but unfortunately he was too old for this. He preferred to leave revenge to young ones nowadays. "Tch. Whoever cut his hair messed up. They covered up his scars and tried to make him look perfect. Disgusting. If he could, he would climb out of the coffin and burn himself - after the bastard who chopped his hair loses his hands, of course."

Andrei, the forty-year-old head of the family, silently nodded to Igorevich's words and grinned. "His? Are you sure whoever destroyed his hair was a man?"

Marina looked at Andrei like he was an idiot. "Do you think a woman in her right mind would cut his hair that badly? He could've been a model if it wasn't for his scars." Although Marina had nothing to do with the mafia, she was still one of Michael's few friends. Although the reason why there were only four people at his funeral was not a small number of friends. It's just that few people knew that Michael was dead.

"Ha! Only a lazy ass would cut their hair like that. Who did the post-mortem makeup? I want to put a bullet in his knee."

The last person near the grave looked at the three with wide eyes in shock. He had the feeling that he was not at the funeral of a family member, but at a birthday celebration!

"Братаны, вы че, в натуре тугие? На кой ляд вы на Американском балакаете? Мы сюда важные вещи пришли перетереть." / "Bratva, are you stupid or what? Why the hell are you talking all Americano? We came here to chat about serious matters."

Vasya "Nightingale" said and looked at Michael. Death on the streets of Russia was not such a terrible incident as one might think. But when someone of Michael's caliber gets killed, people start whispering. Therefore, his death remained a secret that only five people knew.

Tomorrow, only four will know this secret.

"Life goes on. Don't be a gumpy asshole, that's my privelege." Igorevich shrugged, but still couldn't take his eyes off Michael's hair. "Fuck, I can't stand this…" He took a pair of scissors and a comb from his jacket pocket and began to work his magic.

Marina, Andrei and Vasya stared blankly at the hairdresser who was doing his job. Andrei could've sworn that Michael's corpse winced as the scissors touched his hair.

"Okay, leaving that aside… We need information." Alexei moved on to the main reason they were here for this funeral. Marina and Vasya focused on the boss, trying to ignore Igorevich's mumbling. "Michael was killed in the alley next to your cafe, Marina, so I'll send my guys on patrol there." Alexey took out a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it. "Maybe someone decided to rob our favorite thief, but I highly doubt it. The kill was too clean."

Vasya scratched his chin and looked at the hole in Michael's temple. "One in the temple, one in the heart, and a decisive one in the back of the head… A familiar calling card, but for the life of me - I can't remember who kills like that." Vasya was one of those guys who were very proud of their memory. He knew everyone and everyone in business: from ordinary junkies to deputies. His only problem was that this memory matched horribly with his intellect. Even when Vasya memorized complex mathematical equations, he was still too dumb to use them.

Marina looked at the "gravestone" at Michael's grave. She couldn't help but chuckle when she saw the metal arm. "Why this particular quote?" She muttered.

Vasya grinned turning to Marina. "This idiot heard this phrase in a cartoon at the new year party. We were all drunk then, so almost no one remembered anything after." A smile appeared on his face at the memory. "And when we sobered up, Michael thought that he came up with it by himself. No one had enough guts to tell him the truth."

Andrei, Vasya, Marina and Igorevich buried Michael after a couple of hours of talking and saying goodbyes. They made him a promise that they would find his killers and were going to keep it, even if they ended up joining Michael… Wherever he was.

Michael, meanwhile, was stealing new underpants for himself, because it was too cold in the North. He didn't want to get frostbite on his dick.