Page 2 of Entangled Mafia Princess

“I lost Michael,” I answer, “and Andy was hit in the shoulder, but he’s okay.”

“Yebat’! You get anything out of the ubl’udak that was caught?”

“Liam Callaghan.”

“Liam who?”

“Callaghan. Sounds Irish.”

“You wait. I make quick call to Belinsky and ask about this Callaghan.”

Belinksy is part of the Russian mafia in New York. The Jing San has people on the East Coast, too, and I make a mental list of who I can reach out to.

A few minutes later, Andrian calls again. “Callaghan. From Boston. Belinksy, he thinks the Irish are looking to expand west.”

I know the Irish mafia has a presence in places like Chicago, St. Louis, and Omaha, but I’ve yet to encounter them as far west as California.

“Why the fuck they have to come out here?” Andrian asks.

“Maybe the same reason you came out from Saint Petersburg, Florida.”

“I want to give this Callaghan a new asshole. I pulled all my hackers to work on this project. Chert voz’mi! And the timing is terrible. The boss wants me in Moscow tomorrow. Says it’s important.”

“Then you should go. I’ll take care of this.”

“I’m going to blow this fucking Liam Callaghan to pieces first.”

“That won’t get us the laptop back.”

Andrian pounds the table again and unleashes a string of curses. I let my friend vent—Andrian always was a hothead—but eventually interrupt the tirade, saying, “Andrian, focus. Our guys got ambushed. By a punk. Chances are we’ve got a traitor, among your people or mine, or both.”

At that, Andrian calms enough to say, “Fuck. When I find out who it is, I’m going to tear the bastard’s testicles out and shove it down his throat.”

“Do that. We need to find the leak as soon as possible and make an example of him.”

“You’ll check your people, too?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll talk more with my people back on the East Coast, see what they know about this Liam Callaghan.”

“Good. Give my regards to Lukashenko.”

“Do svidaniya.”

After hanging up, I call back Andy. “Get what you can out of the guy, then dig into this Liam Callaghan.”

As I sit with Athena napping at my feet, I mentally comb through all the people who might have tipped Callaghan off to our plans. Aside from a few of my guys, I haven’t told anyone in the triad of my effort to acquire the artificial intelligence from SVATR or that I was partnering with my childhood friend in the Russian mafia to pull it off. So there’s only a handful of people who could be the problem.

Needing to vent my emotions, I head down to my personal gym. Andrian likes to break things when he’s frustrated, but I prefer to pound weights. I’m sculpted but not overly beefy. Too much muscle and the wrong workout can diminish dexterity and quickness, two qualities that got me through my years living on the streets of Heihe before it became a prosperous city with tree-lined boulevards and luxury hotels.

I was a late bloomer and a scrawny boy in my early teen years. There were plenty of times when, after getting beat up by Russian teenagers in Blagoveshchensk, I wished I had been bigger and stronger. Now that I am, I could easily take on the jerks who stole the cheap Chinese goods I tried to sell or who kicked me while I was down because they resented those from Heihe as the city became visibly more and more prosperous compared to Blagoveshchensk. A part of me would relish the opportunity to confront my boyhood tormentors today. Or it might be as fulfilling, certainly easier, to have my bodyguard put a 0.45 between their eyes. But the better part of me is content to leave my past behind me.

“This is what I have so far on Liam Callaghan,” Andy tells me after I’ve finished my workout, showered, and sat down for dinner. “Couldn’t get much more out of the guy we’ve got. He kept passing out.”

I glance through the dossier Andy handed me, taking in Liam’s background, how he worked his way up the mob in Boston, where he lives, what properties he owns, and, last but not least, his family. The man is married with one son, currently in Ireland, and a daughter who’s just about to celebrate her twenty-first birthday.

Chapter two

---