Page 47 of Bratva Queen

“What? Why?”

He walked up to me, lowering his voice so the guards stationed at the corners of the house couldn’t hear his angered words, dripping with urgency. “Because, Aleksei, Dima is basically threatening to launch a full-blown attack against the Koslovs if we don’t get him the money for the next shipment. As in, today. You fucking know this, yet you ask me bullshit questions!”

“Yes, boss,” I said slowly, “but we have it handled. I’m going to the meeting, I’m making the deal. We only have a few more packages to sell and we’ll have the right amount. You,” I tried to sound calm and comforting, “are supposed to be taking your wonderful bride on your honeymoon. It’s important.”

“You think I’m going to sit there on a fucking beach while Dima’s men blow my house to rubble? No. He wants to see me. He needs to see me, you know that. He doesn’t trust you.”

“Because I don’t trust him,” I said in a low tone, but it only angered him more.

“You see? How the fuck am I supposed to trust you with him, then? Huh? Just get us to the fucking meeting.”

He stormed over to the car and opened the backdoor himself to get in, then shut it with force. What was his problem? I’d known him for years; I knew he was a spoiled fucking egomaniac but to pass up on the chance to go to Greece with Isabel?

To lie in the sun with her and watch her belly grow little by little while she wears only bikinis—yes, I’d seen the shopping—to have the chance to get away from all of this and just be alone with her for two whole weeks? He was clearly psychotic.

I clenched my teeth together and looked toward the house, as though I’d see her through the walls, then turned around to do my job.

* * *

It wasn’tlike Stepan to cower. While he wasn’t the strongest man I knew, his upbringing held constant reassurance that with the Koslov name, he had all the power, that people should always cower to him and do what he wanted, as he had royal blood within the bratva. Not just that, but his father instilled a certain business intelligence in him as he brought him along to meetings similar to the one we were headed for now. A few wise words for Stepan to carry through life.

I was sure that they were along the same lines as the words my father had said to me. That no one with less power than you can stand a chance.

We drove in convoy. Three cars, Stepan’s black Mercedes-Benz E320 sedan driven by me and two black Hummer H1s filled to the brim with soldiers, guns, and ammo. Just in case. Dima had never shown up to any meeting with more than four guys with him, and those guys were… well, not bratva trained.

Stepan didn’t like the feeling he’d been overwhelmed with recently. The threats Dima made were baseless, but with Isabel being pregnant and the entire family coming to town for their wedding, he’d been a little worried, to say the least. Once he’d calmly told me his plan in the car, before leaving, I’d made the necessary arrangements.

The two of us pulled up to the agreed meeting point, an old junkyard with piles of rusted cars and all their different parts scattered across the ground. Since Dima wasn’t a part of any bratva organization, he had no issue meeting on our territory. He believed we were here to talk business.

“Stepan,” Dima said, stepping forward while his four men remained behind him. “I hope you’re here with a little present for me.”

“Oh, Dima,” Stepan chuckled as he closed the car door and buttoned his suit. I walked up to stand beside him, only a step behind his shoulder. “The present you’re asking for is nothing small.”

He shrugged in response, calmly dropping his head to the side. “What good is business if it’s not growing?”

“Hmm…” Stepan nodded. “Aleksei, what was it that my father always used to say about business?”

My eyes remained on Dima’s as I replied, my hands held behind my back. “Business is only good when it is a balanced scale. Even playing fields, even rewards, even trust.”

Stepan shrugged. “Dima, you’ve made it clear that you are tipping the scale.” He walked up to him, standing close and practically fuming through his words. “That your greed for ‘rewards’ has grown heavier than the trust you think I have for you.”

Dima narrowed his eyes. “I’m the only one with the good shit in this whole fucking city. My supplier is the only one with this grade of—”

“Alek,” Stepan said calmly, interrupting him. I lifted my hand in the air and gave the signal. Very swiftly, four shots were fired at the same time, from our left and right sides. Our men were behind the junk cars, and Dima hadn’t turned around to see the little red dot on each of his idiot guards’ foreheads.

They fell straight down, buckled legs, limp bodies, lying in growing puddles of their own blood.

“What?” Dima looked around, saw this, and terror immediately flooded his eyes. “No, Stepan! I was just trying to grow our business together! It was for your benefit as well. Your profit would have grown too.”

“No, Dima,” Stepan said, “you were trying to fuck me.”

Stepan punched him in the gut and Dima stumbled back, coughing. He tried to run and tackle Stepan, but I was close by and set my foot out, tripping him. He fell with his face in the dirt at Stepan’s feet.

By then, our boys, all eight of them, had packed up their guns and approached us. Stepan pointed at two of them and down at Dima. They turned him over with a firm grip on each of his arms. He screamed for help, kicking his legs as Stepan pulled daggers from his jacket and pinned them into his thighs simultaneously, rendering his legs immobile from the excruciating pain. Dima cried out loudly, but we were on Koslov territory. No one around here would help him.

Stepan slowly kneeled down over his body, slipping knuckle busters over his fingers.

“I told you from the start, Dima, around here we work on trust. I don’t give a flying fuck,” he spat into Dima’s face, “who your goddamn supplier is. You are the poison they call greed, and I’m ridding our precious city of your dishonorable filth.”

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