Page 58 of Break Me
She narrowed her eyes then finally nodded. “Yes, sir. She was here, but she left maybe thirty minutes ago. I saw her getting into a car. Maybe an Uber.”
“Huh. Okay, thank you.” I rapped my fingers on the top of the counter before turning around to face the doors.
My little firefighting captain thought she could run away from me.
She was wrong. So very wrong.
CHAPTER 14
Alexsey
It had been a long time since the five Dmitriyev Mischief Makers had been together fighting an enemy.
The term had been coined by my father when he’d been Pakhan. While years separated Mikhail, the oldest from Sasha, the youngest, we’d been close enough as teenagers that we’d managed to get ourselves in trouble almost once a week.
Teachers had told us we were nothing but spoiled brats. Soldiers had been assigned to each one of us specifically to try to curtail our antics. Our mothers had done their best trying to put the fear of God into us given they truly ruled the roost. Yet nothing had worked. That had prompted the Pakhan and his powerful brother to initiate close relationships with the Las Vegas Police Department, specifically the sheriff of Clark County.
Still, our fathers had taught us important lessons about following the rules with brutal methods. From a few nights spent in jail with no access to family or legal counsel to completely shutting down our lucrative bank accounts and being forced totrain with the Bratva’s soldiers in savage conditions, we’d finally garnered some sense of respect for authority.
And the sense of right and wrong.
Even if since then we’d pushed the limits of black and white to our benefit when necessary.
While the position of sheriff had changed hands three times since the days of mischief, the close relationship remained.
Once kept in check by extortion and threats, the cordial friendship was now nurtured by donations to the police department and charities of the police’s choosing. Plus, it didn’t hurt we had a yearly dinner for the boys and girls in blue with plates easily costing a thousand dollars plus perks.
That’s why the news of the incident at Dreamscape had been squelched as much as possible and why the Mischief Makers’ act of retaliation would be shoved under a rug. All we’d need to concern ourselves with was what stupid acts Papadakis and his minions would attempt in seeking revenge.
What little the press had obtained shouldn’t carve out more than a few minutes on the morning news. At least that’s what I hoped.
I needed to concentrate on what we were about to do. With two assassins being able to escape before I had a chance to finish them off, Papadakis already knew I was likely still alive.
What I’d personally learned during the years of running with the ‘crew’ as I liked to call it was that family protected their own. Always. Without question. Without care of the consequences.
That was the motto of the Bratva as well as the Dmitriyev family. Failure to do so was considered unforgivable. Over the years, the need to bond together in acts of violence had lessened. Thatdidn’t mean we’d grown soft. Quite the contrary. We were a structured organization now run by Mikhail as Pakhan, every soldier required to remain physically fit.
Why? Because we’d always have enemies attempting to destroy our wealth, our power.
And our families.
I felt the closeness once again tonight. A phone call that I’d almost lost my life due to vermin who’d tried to stiff us had brought out the brotherly love.
As I pulled down the street where the warehouse was located, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel while staring out the windshield. The building was nondescript, most of the multiple stories used for storage for their food service company. However, after their acquisition of the building five years before, Papadakis had hired some rather unscrupulous architects to skillfully craft hidden rooms throughout the building that wouldn’t be included in building plans. Unless found by a contractor or members of law enforcement, no one would ever know they existed.
The building housed their illegal activities including the intake of high-quality drugs from Central America and the subsequent sale to street vendors.
While our family certainly hadn’t been saints, running illegal drugs in the early days after moving to Las Vegas, we’d only sold them to qualified dealers with no intention of selling to minors, or high-end wealthy clients who doled out party favors like candy at parties.
Papadakis couldn’t care less about who he sold his drugs to. And lately, we’d heard through the grapevine that he’d started lacingthe product with some questionable and deadly shit. That didn’t endear the family in my mind.
I parked in the shadows a long way away from the building, loading my Glock and shoving a second magazine into my jacket. Then I attached the silencer. There was no need to announce our arrival to the guards inside. While we had plans of torching the building, or at least the section housing the drugs, Mikhail had brought highly trained soldiers to engage in that portion of the operation.
Our goal was to handle security and to leave a calling card. We knew they had drugs and the location because we’d infiltrated their operation with one of our own, obtaining some very useful information. Tonight was the perfect night to use it.
There were several other businesses on the street, mostly other warehouses that held everything from electronics to sports memorabilia. Fortunately, if our soldiers were good at their jobs, none of the other buildings would be torched in the process.
And if they were very good, enough evidence would be left to provide the DEA with something to chew on.
