Page 24 of Mafia Star

“Turns out Shapiro was into some deeper shit than we realized.”

“Like what?”

“Like insider trading with Niko and Pasha.”

“So?”

If it were someone not in the bratva Elite Group, maybe we would turn them over to the feds and let the idiot do some time at a white-collar crime country club. But the fact that we’re dealing with the pakhan’s brother and cousin complicates things. It makes it something we have to overlook.

“So, their little insider trader was to quietly buy the bulk of the publicly traded shares in Publius Genomics. Niko and Pasha now have forty-nine percent between them.”

Motherfucking pieces of shit-eating douchebags. I don’t even know what the fuck that phrase means. But those fuckers just came after my company. I own fifty-one percent of the corporation I started. It’s named for Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, known as possibly Rome’s greatest and undefeated general. We may not be the largest company, but we’ve been on the cutting edge and are growing quarterly. I sure as fuck won’t be defeated by these testa di cazzos—dickheads.

“How’d Shapiro get involved?”

“He used the money he was embezzling from the charity he was supposedly the biggest patron of. He bought the shares just as the bell rang the night before we grabbed him. He sold them for pennies to Niko and Pasha and got a kickback for it. He knew Davidson was ready to sell his shares because Davidson and Shapiro have the same broker. The broker convinced another person, Helen Peters, to jump ship. He said it must be a sign if Davidson was bailing. Davidson and Peters sold for less than market price, thereby, devaluing all the stock. Niko and Pasha don’t plan to sell. Just the opposite, they want the board to cast a vote of no confidence to boot you off.”

“They want a hostile takeover.”

“Pretty much.”

“Why? Why that company and why now? This is a distraction but from what?”

“Carmine’s working on it. But Sergei and Anton have put up firewalls and every other block they can conceive of. We need Enzo’s skills to hack it. They know he’s away. That’s why they’re striking now.”

I run my hand through my hair. Of course, my brain circles back to Beth. It’s a blessing in disguise that she cancelled. I have this shit to figure out. I would have had to be the one to call it off.

“All right.” My left hand goes to my hip as my right hand runs through my hair again. “We know Misha and Pasha just got a big shipment in from Jamaica. We both know it’s not just sugar in those sacks. They’re running Bolivian coke through Negril. We also know Bear Imports/Exports also just brought in a shipment of Bahamian rum in those standard containers that came off the ship last week. I want the coke, then our guys bust up the rum crates in the warehouse and torch it. We need the coke filtered from the sugar. We send the sugar sacks by big rig up to Canada, but we fly the coke to Iceland. From there, we get it in baggies and into fucking fish— whatevers —and sail them to the Netherlands. Let them chase their tails up to Montreal.”

Iceland has among the lowest drug use in any European country, so they won't search as thoroughly as other places. The people we have there will shove the baggies into whole fish that’re being exported and even into bottled fish products. Once it’s to our people in the Netherlands, it’s not our problem anymore.

“When?”

“Give it two days. If we retaliate tonight, they’ll know we found out.”

“That might get back at them, but what are you going to do about the shares they own?”

I grin.

“There’s a Czech biotech company looking to expand. I’d be willing to take a loss for Niko and Pasha to wake and discover the Czechs own the majority stake in a company they just tried to takeover. I’m certain Karolina Svoboda will be happy to let those Russian fucks know they can’t do shit without her permission.”

While Czech-Russian relations aren’t too bad right now, there’s no love lost on the Czech side after being forced into the Soviet Union back in the late 1960s. The woman’s father was like a national hero in the Velvet Revolution that overthrew communism in 1989. The Kutsenkos may have next to no ties left with their motherland— though Misha and Pasha named their company Bear Exports/Imports —as in the Russian bear —but they can’t change who they are just like a leopard can’t change its spots. They can fuck all the way off.

“Once we have the coke out of the warehouse, I’ll make sure the bank transaction goes through. The time difference will work in our favor. I’ll talk to Karolina in the morning.”

Luca returns my grin and rolls his eyes.

“Always one step behind us. Poor little boys.”

They’re neither little nor boys, but what-the-fuck-ever. Fuck around and find out.

“Is there anything else Shapiro got up to that we need to deal with, or can he finally rest in peace?”

“Nothing that I know of. What’s going on with you? Do you need to get laid or something?”

This again? Hell. I thought we’d moved on.

“My sex life is just fine, thank you very much.”

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