1
DIMITRI
The light dances off the crystalware in the cabinet. I glance disinterestedly at the patterns it throws around the room. A few dust motes drift through the air. I tap my foot against the parquet flooring. It shines more than the crystal. The scent of cleaner hangs faintly in the air, lemon mixed with wood. The blood stain on my shirt and my busted knuckles seems like an offense against this beautiful interior. I pull my jacket closed.
The windows leading out to the balcony are slightly ajar and a breeze flutters the long, gauze curtains. The sounds of the city float into the room, faint, as if we’re miles away from the hustle and bustle of San Francisco, not right in amongst it.
The murmur of voices and tap of footsteps approaching has me straightening my spine and facing the door, hands on the back of a chair. It opens and ten men file in. The majority are guards working to protect the family, but two of them, Alexis and Yuri, are my right-hand men. The privileged priests who don’t need my confession because they’re right there, sinning with me.
We do a lot of sinning against those who would harm us.
I might be the heir to my stepfather, the Pakhan’s throne, but I’m also his Pitbull. His enforcer. The one tasked with making shit right. Jacob Yudenko has asked one thing of me today. Bring his brigadier’s daughter, Mila, home.
I’ll bring her back unharmed, or I’ve failed.
I won’t fail. My stepfather needs me, and I will do as he asks.
My eyes drift again to the cabinet as the men take their places in the room. Some of my military medals are displayed there. Ironic that I’ve become something that decries the oath I took. An enforcer for the Bratva. A darker, angrier, and more dangerous version of the man who received those medals.
I try to tell myself I had no choice. I was too badly injured to serve again after some kid blew himself and half my team to smithereens. I was far too fucked up afterward to fit into civilian life So here I am.
All I want is some internal peace. A break from the ringing in my ears and the screaming in my soul.
Looks like I won’t be getting it just yet.
The men don’t speak but they all look to me, expectant, waiting. Some are young, most are in their thirties and forties. All of them are hardened.
One sits, crosses his ankle over his other leg and lights a cigarette. I shake my head, and he immediately puts it out. Mamma hates the smell of cigarette smoke in the house, and we only smoke cigars when we’re in certain rooms, and never in her beloved dining room.
A maid enters the room and leaves a tray on the table bearing glasses and two large jugs of iced water.
“Thank you, Mel.”
She gives a dip of her head and scurries from the room.
I pour some of the water, take a sip and focus my thoughts, trying to ignore any ringing and whooshing in my ears.
A blast injury will do that to you. Who knew it wouldn’t be the shrapnel, or the mangled leg that would haunt me for life, but the damage caused to my ears by the overpressure of the explosion.
Not that my leg is entirely pain free.
I shift my weight from one leg to the other, more aware of it now that I’ve zoned in on it.
Shaking my head, focusing myself in the here and now, I turn to face the men.
They watch me, faces expectant, waiting to hear the plan. And oh, do I have plans for the men on the yacht, who are holding our brigadier’s daughter. Fucking idiots, taking her, and keeping her on a yacht. It will be so easy for us to board and take them out, compared to if they had her somewhere more defensible.
“This is how it is going down.” Every eye in the room is on me. As I meet the men’s gazes in return, some look down, studying their shoes. Others hold my gaze, a few confidently, some anxiously. “As you all know, a few years ago we faced a similar situation. My sister Nataliya was taken.”
“Motherfuckers,” Riley mutters.
He came with us to extract Nataliya, so he knows what a terrified state we found her in. “Motherfuckers, indeed,” I say. “We got her back unharmed. It was an extraction mission, not a revenge mission. We killed every single person in the warehouse where she was being held, but only secondary to saving her. This is going to go down the same way. We save Mila at all costs, that is our primary goal. After we have her safe though, then we can make sure we send a fucking message.”
“Who are the people who have Mila?” a younger man asks. “Is it the same group?”
“Not exactly. That group broke apart, but it is apparent that some of them remained active, under the radar, and it seems like these fuckers might have some of the same DNA as that earlier collective. They’re what started out as a mix of Albanian, Turkish, and some Greek, street level gang. They’re not at the streel level now. They traffic people, and you need connections for that, so they must be plugged in, but with who? We don’t know. Yet.”
“So, are they dangerous?” The same kid asks.