Page 83 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

“It has been a long day,” I reply by way of explanation. “You didn’t find the biker?”

“No, sir,” he says. “We have teams of men out looking, but with the lead he has on us, it’s unlikely we’ll catch up to him.”

I figured as much, but I still had to try. So be it. Best to pretend none of that happened anyway. “What time is it?”

“Almost five forty-five, sir.” He glances up at me. “Do you want me to cancel your final appointment?”

“No.” I shake my head.

The last thing we need is a display of weakness. Today was supposed to be about rallying the troops and solidifying my leadership. If I let one measly fucking punk rattle my cage so thoroughly, what kind of example will that be setting for the men who rely upon me?

“Let’s just go,” I growl to Umberto. “I’m sick of this goddamn city.” That at least is not a lie.

I follow him down an alley to an unassuming storefront. Umberto opens the door for me and I step through.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust from the sunny afternoon to the dark, dank interior. When I do, I see that the storefront is just that—a front. Inside is not a simple dry cleaners as the sign proclaims. Instead, it is a sprawling cavern of guns, packaged drugs, and banks of computers performing all manner of illicit transactions on behalf of the Bianci Family Mafia. This is our core facility, the lifeblood of the organization. Tens of thousands of dollars flow through our fingertips every second on their way from here to everywhere and from everywhere to here.

A familiar voice calls out my name through the cacophony. “Vito, sir!”

I turn to see a gray-whiskered face smiling in my direction. “Roberto,” I call back, breaking out into a grin of my own. “It is good to see you, old friend. How are Helena and the children?”

“A pain in my ass, of course.” He laughs easily and freely as he walks up and shakes my hand. “But the best kind of pain. When are you settling down with a pain of your own?”

I laugh, though it feels forced. “Never, if I can help it. You are a better man than I am in that sense.”

“In many senses.” He winks. Only Roberto could get away with a joke like that. Any other man would lose a finger for it.

I shake my head tiredly and shoot back, “Actually, I was just thinking that you look like shit.”

Roberto laughs. “I would argue that you are to blame for that, sir. You weren’t exactly kind to my face back in our sparring days. I’m paying for it now, I suppose.”

“I seem to remember you getting in a fair few hits of your own. Picking on a twelve-year-old boy, how could you?”

“Who, me? I wouldn’t dare hit the son of the don.” He blinks, realizes what he said by mentioning my father, and immediately sweeps the hat off his head and bows towards me. I can see he is going bald on top.

My, how quickly the years have passed. Once upon a time, Roberto was my sparring partner, a tough, burly man of thirty. Now, he is past fifty, if I recall correctly, and looking at least a decade older than that. But he has been loyal to the Biancis since before I was born.

“My condolences on the loss of your father and brother,” Roberto murmurs with his face aimed at the ground. “I was devastated to hear of it.”

“Stand up, Roberto,” I reply quietly. “Thank you for your kind words. But it won’t bring them back. I am the don now.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, straightening. “That you are. You’ve been ready for this for a long time.”

I nod. As unexpectedly nice as it is to hear a simple and honest vote of confidence in my newfound leadership, it would be unbecoming to thank him or embrace him, especially with my security detail at my back and family employees bustling around within earshot. So I simply stay quiet and try to say with my eyes what I cannot say with my words.

A heady silence passes before Roberto coughs to clear his throat. “Come, sir, let me give you the tour of the facility to update you on the latest.” He turns and gestures for me to follow.

My mind is elsewhere as he fills me in on shipments coming and going, where our capital is being deployed, what new distribution channels have been added or modified for our products. I appreciate his competence. On any other occasion, I would be keenly interested in the minutiae of the Bianci businesses.

But I cannot shake thoughts of the violet-eyed motorcyclist. Was I seeing things or not? I try to convince myself that I was, that it was all a mirage, but my attempts feel feeble. I saw what I saw. I’ve never doubted myself before and I don’t plan to start now. The only question is—what does thatmean?Was it really Sergio? It couldn’t possibly be.

And yet I feel deep in my heart of hearts that it was.

The rest of the tour passes without incident. I make sure that I am seen by every last man and woman working in the facility. My father’s voice echoes in my head—more of his endless stream of dictums and principles.“A king is not an abstract, invisible concept. A king is a man with the power to end lives. Never let the people forget that, son. Make sure they remember what you are capable of doing if they forget you.”That—more than collecting money, more than checking in on business, more than surveying our landscape—is what today is about.

Fear.

I think of the little boy in the mini-mart—shoeless and terrified when he looked at me. I think of how sick I felt in that moment.

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