Page 46 of Queens and Monsters

As I’d told Jasmine, I’d known about Leah Rennerever since Jasmine was recommended to me. I had a standing internet search on her mother. For some reason, the search wasn’t triggered with her release. The more I learned, the less I liked the idea of Jasmine making contact with her.

It wasn’t only because her mother was a felon. If I or any other member of the cartel had an issue with people who broke laws, our circle would be entirely too small. Breaking laws and getting caught were two different things.

Leah Renner was caught.

The defense tried to play Leah off as an innocent victim of the Smirnov bratva, the predecessor to the Myshkin bratva. She was given the tainted cocaine and passed it on without knowledge of the fentanyl content. The judge nor jury cared where Leah Renner received the illegal drugs. The fact that she had multiple priors for drug use, child endangerment, and prostitution didn’t help her case.

The parents of the dead college student had money, enough to help the wheels of justice put Leah away for the maximum penalty of twenty years at a women’s prison in Vandalia, Missouri. Her early release on parole was due to prison overcrowding.

“What the fuck?” I said aloud as I read about multiple visits to her in prison by a man named Dmitri Makarova.

According to the records I accessed from the women’s prison, he began visiting Leah around the time her case was scheduled to go before the parole board. Opening another screen, I researched the paroleboard. It took a few hoops, and I had more information.

While most people don’t list their association to a Mafia family, cartel, or bratva on their LinkedIn resume, there were a few telltale signs. In California, Volkov Construction, Inc. was the cover for the Volkov bratva. In St. Louis and Kansas City, Smirnov Properties was the cover for the Myshkin bratva.

Dmitri Makarova was employed by Smirnov Properties.

Zhdan Myshkin, the man the capo wanted Jasmine to marry was his father’s sovietnik, or counselor or advisor. Dmitri reported to Zhdan.

I looked at the clock in the corner of my computer screen. It was only a little after seven in the morning. That would be two hours later in Kansas City. I picked up my phone to tell Jasmine that no way in hell was she going to approach her mother, not without me at her side and an army at her back.

Maybe it was my lack of sleep, but the information I’d found heated my blood, filling my nervous system with alarm. Dmitri Makarova visited Leah Renner for one reason, and she was too dumb to realize that it was because Dario Luciano was her daughter’s guardian.

“Fuck.” Staring at my phone, my gut told me to call the capo directly. He didn’t want to hear from me after Christmas Eve, but he needed to know that Jasmine was in danger. Going through my contacts, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t have the capo’s direct number. As I started to call Jano, my phone rang.

Mia’s name was on the screen.

“Hola, I was about to call your husband.”

“He’s not home right now. Do you have a minute to talk?”

“I need your brother’s number.”

“Dario or Dante?” she asked.

“I have Dante’s. I need the capo’s.”

“From what I’ve heard, he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Fuck him. He doesn’t have to talk. He needs to listen.”

Mia’s voice lowered. “Rei, be careful. Dario didn’t become capo dei capi by being lectured to.”

“He’s going to listen to what I have to say.”

“Okay, I’ll give you his number,” Mia said. “Before I do, I promised to talk to you about Jasmine.”

“Are you going to try to talk me out of marrying her?”

“I’ve made it my mission to advocate for consensual marriages. That means if she wants to marry you and you want to marry her, I’m on your side. Did you propose?”

I scoffed. “I told her she was mine and the next time I saw her we’d wed.”

Mia made a noise. “You men are such pigs.”

“But you love us.”

“I love Jano. For the record, he proposed.”

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