Page 40 of Evil Beautiful

“I’m still busy checking into his background. His mother is Magdalena Demidova, youngest sister of Yevgeni Demidov, leader of the Demidov Bratva. His father was Misha Orlov, a professor of literature at a Moscow university and not in the Bratva. He was killed in a car bomb, and no one was ever arrested or convicted of the crime. The mother remarried shortly after. Her husband, Andrei Egorov, is a Bratva soldier. She has a daughter with him, Mila Egorova. I found two sons from her first marriage, Sergei and Ivan Orlov. After the father’s death there’s nothing on both brothers until years later when Sergei pops up in the upper echelons of the Demidov Bratva. I haven’t found the younger brother yet but I will. This is only my opinion, but I think Sergei has been biding his time to take out his father’s murderers. I can’t tell if he’s angling to take over or if his ultimate plan is to destroy the Demidov family from the inside out. Give me some time and I will have more answers for you.”

He made another red circle.

“This to me was the most interesting bit. He’s given us a lot of information on the Harrison Syndicate but the best thing is this last little titbit. It’s what we’ve been looking for, the hag’s location. According to Orlov she’s hiding on a wine farm in Franschoek, the owner of the farm is a business associate of the Harrison Syndicate.”

We were all totally focused on the screen now.

“I don’t see any co-ordinates. What did he give us?” Lex craned her neck to try and see.

“No co-ordinates but he did give us the name of the farm. With that it was easy to find it and I’ve already accessed satellite images of its location. I will have all the information needed to take them down by tomorrow morning.”

“Good, we need anything you can get about the farm, the owners, the employees and access.” Dom growled and made as if to stand.

“There’s a little bit more, Boss.” Rico once again circled part of the document in red.

“What? Tell me.” Dom frowned.

“He offers help in the form of an undercover operative. Apparently the man in question is already here in Cape Town and he is in deep cover. He doesn’t say who he infiltrated but I would think it’s either the local cops, Interpol or the FBI. They’ve been hounding our asses for months now.”

An undercover agent in Cape Town that’s loyal to Sergei Orlov? Why? What was going on here that was of interest to Orlov?

The man was playing a very deep game. I had to wonder if he was a deep cover agent himself.

“Do you think he’s deep under himself?” I asked Dom.

One look into his eyes and I knew my best friend was thinking the same thing.

Dom shrugged. “I can’t say. He’s as cold as a damned iceberg and covered in tattoos, what I could see of them, anyway. He looks like Bratva, acts like Bratva but we’ll have to wait for Rico to do a deep dive on him and hopefully he finds something. If he’s a deep cover agent we’re not going to get a single thing on him.”

My gut told me that he was right, there would be nothing to find.

I didn’t like the position we’ve been put into, not at all.

“So to paraphrase. If we don’t give them what they want they will start with threats before moving on to killing those we love. We will be leaving one crime family behind only to be drawn into another. We can’t allow this to happen, Dom.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“We won’t be giving them what they want. It has taken me years to get the Maingarde companies out of Winifred and the Harrison Syndicate’s grasp. I won’t be giving them up or allow us to be pushed into untenable situations.” My best friend snarled.

“How soon will we be able to move on Winifred?” Darren had moved closer to the screen and was reading through the document.

“I have an agreement with Hawk Walker that we would co-ordinate our strikes with those of his allies. Pieces are being moved into place as we speak, we won’t have to wait too much longer.” Dom said much too quietly.

My friend was battling his demons tonight and he would have to be handled with kid gloves.

“The last report I had from Mitch before he went dark said Sharma was with Winifred and they were co-ordinating the attack on the Iron Dogz MC. I think we need to wait until he and his men leave for Johannesburg. I hate leaving him under even longer but he would understand. With Sharma out of the picture we’ll have a better chance of getting to the hag.” I made the suggestion even though it didn’t feel right.

The silence in the office was heavy and filled with anger.

“I don’t think we should leave him with that bitch after the shit that went down with Kellen. What if his cover is blown?” Lex’s voice was an angry growl.

“We’re all thinking exactly like you, Lex, but if we go in now we’ll be outnumbered and things could go to shit very quickly. We’ll lose him for sure. Sharma has an army of thugs at his command. We need to play this very, very carefully.” Rico placated her.

“He’s right.” Kevin said quietly. “If we go in now not all of us are going to be coming home.”

Lex sighed. “I know. I’m just worried about Mitch. He’s been silent since before we got Kellen back. I hate these bastards and can’t wait to wipe them off the face of the earth.”

“And we’ll do that, Lex.” Dom’s eyes snapped to me and then back to Lex. “But we all know we have to be prepared. Right now we are not. We have new intelligence we need to work through and once we’re sure Sharma is out of the picture we’ll go ahead with our plans.”

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