CHAPTER TWO
YURI
I woke up restless and irritated. I don’t usually dream because my mind is too busy awake or asleep. My brain never shuts off, so I toss and turn, never getting a full eight hours. When I’m finally able to sleep well, I dream and it’s always of her. It’s like the memories are haunting me for not telling her we were leaving.
I hate dreaming about her and everything that I was forced to leave behind. It’s not that I don’t want to dream of her at all, but it makes missing her that much harder.
Lingering for no more than a minute in bed, I get up because I’m up to my eyeballs in meetings and other stupid shit today. I stretch and hear several loud pops as my elbows and shoulders crack as I stand. No wonder I’m irritated, I slept like shit. I walk to the kitchen and make myself a cup of black coffee.
Coffee in hand, I walk over and stand in front of the large windows in my living room to take in the view. sixteen stories up, I’ve seen this view most of my life, but it never gets old. Being only one floor up from where my mom, Pap, and my younger brothers, Mikhail and Aleksandr, live hasn’t changed the view much, it’s still breath-taking.
I turn away from the cityscape and head for my black, leather armchair to sit and watch the news before I have to buckle down and get some shit done. Turning on the tv to channel three, I look around at my apartment. It’s modern and industrial just the way Pap designed it and just as impersonal.
It’s hard to consider this place home since it’s as much a business epicenter as it is a place to lay my head at night. I moved to my own floor as soon as I turned twenty. I was desperate for my own space and place of peace away from the chaos.
Pap’s men are posted at each floor and there’s a security entrance down the hallway that leads directly to the street through a service elevator. This helps us keep a low profile so my father’s enemies won’t discover where we live.
The news breaks into my thoughts as one of the anchor’s starts reporting on a drug bust the cops made last night. I chuckle because Nico, my father’s nemesis is going to be pissed which makes me smile. Ilya, my father and leader of the Russian syndicate in Chicago has been running things for the last ten years ever since we had to move back into the city. Everytime I watch the news I am reminded of how Pap tried to get us out of the life by moving us to the suburbs, but my uncle Boris, the selfish prick, had other plans.
I used to despise the fact that I was part of a criminal family; I didn’t understand why we left the quiet suburban life for this chaotic, all-be-it glamorous, shit hole. Pap is about two inches taller than me but we have the same dark eyes and hair. He’s always been intimidating and usually argued with me about this subject, but he must’ve been annoyed enough with me always asking that he finally gave in and explained.
The night we left and several months after, Pap wouldn’t explain anything to me. Anytime I asked why we were back in the city, he just told me to accept it and move on. I thought he was being an ass and that I deserved to know why my life was being uprooted. He just told me to do as I was told. A few weeks after my sixteenth birthday, I got up the nerve to ask again about why we were back in the city.
I wake up and roll out of bed and stare at my light blue walls before getting ready for the day. My bedroom is just big enough to fit my bed, a dresser, and a desk. Walking over to my dresser, I pick out a pair of dark wash jeans and a black t-shirt. I’m actually excited to turn sixteen. I hate being treated like a child and maybe now that I’m old enough to drive, Pap will give me some more freedom. I doubt it though.
Once dressed, I head to the bathroom I share with my brothers, wash my face, and brush my hair. Ma has planned a typical birthday party this afternoon. All the usual people will be there, Andrey and Maxim, my two (only) best friends, Mikhail and Aleksandr of course, plus Ma and Pap.
While brushing my teeth, I decide I’m going to try and talk to Pap again about giving me more responsibility, plus he still hasn’t explained the real reason we moved back here and I want him to tell me. I’m old enough to know.
I leave the bathroom and head into the living room. Four grey walls with large windows that look out into the city, frame the brown leather furniture. Ma and Pap are sitting on the couch whispering about who knows what, but I don’t see Mikhail or Alek yet. They’re probably still asleep.
I go to the kitchen to grab a protein bar for breakfast and then head back into the living room. Ma and Pap stop talking as I sit in the brown, leather armchair. I turn to face my father as I open the protein bar and take a bite.
“Happy Birthday, Yuri!” Mom says in greeting.
“Thanks Ma!” I say.
“Happy Birthday,” Pap says unenthusiastically.
“Thanks.”
“How does it feel to be sixteen?” Ma asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t feel any different really,” I say.
“It’s a pretty big milestone!” Ma says.
“Yea, I guess,” I say with a shrug.
“Well,” Ma says, getting up from her seat at the couch, “I am off to the store. I have a few things I still need for this afternoon.”
“Take Viktor and Jeremie with you!” Pap says authoritatively.
“Always,” Ma says with a smile and heads to grab her purse before leaving the apartment.
“Where are Mikhail and Alek?” I ask.
“They went to the gym with Daniil about an hour ago,” he says.
“Oh, okay. Can… I talk to you about something?” I ask hesitantly.
“Yea, but I only have about ten minutes until my first meeting of the day,” He says
“Okay, but I need you to be open minded and not shut me down right away,” I blurt out.
“Alright…” he says, dragging out the word.
“I want a real explanation for why we left. Why we moved back here. I’m old enough now…” I start to say, but Pap cuts me off.
“Son, we’ve talked about this. I don’t want to flesh this out with you. I don’t owe you an explanation. We moved because we needed to. That’s that!” He says starting to get up from his seat.
“No! That’s not good enough anymore,” I say, “It’s my life too, Pap! I deserve an explanation!” I argue.
“Watch your tone, son. I don’t want this to turn into an argument so early in the morning. Let’s not do this today.”
“I’m just going to keep asking. If you want me to join the family business, I need to know what happened. I won’t accept the ‘we moved because we had to’ vague response anymore.”
“Hm…” he grunts, sits back down, and rubs his jaw with his thumb and pointer finger.
“I’m old enough to hear this Pap. I want to help you run things, but how do you expect me to do that if I don’t know all the facts?” I ask.
“You make a valid point,” he starts, “Is that the real reason you want to know?”
“Of course!” I say, encouraged by his question, “I get that I’m supposed to respect you and follow your orders, but I’m not just one of your lackey’s dad, I’m your son. I don’t understand why we left our lives to become criminals. It makes no sense to me.”
“We didn’t leave the suburbs to become criminals!” He says frustrated.
“Then why did we leave?” I ask, “because if you don’t explain it, I’m left to come up with my own assumptions.”
“Alright… Fine! What do you want to know first?” He asks.
“Okay… Well, you say we didn’t come to the city to be criminals, but we are… so, why? What changed?”
“Before you were born, your Baba was in my place. He was in charge. Our family has always lived a life of crime. We may be criminals, but we’re not your average, stick-it-to-the-man criminals. We break the law to make this place safer for everyone. We have a code.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. The look on my face must show my confusion and anger because he sighs and keeps talking.
“Think of us as Robin Hood stealing the rich to give to the poor. The Italians are the rich, they make this city unlivable, son. Chicago has always been a crime epicenter. The Italians make their money trading humans and selling drugs. Early on, our family made a name for ourselves by how we did our business. Baba modeled our code after the Knights of King Arthur. He was inspired.”
“Okay…?” I say still confused.
“Yes, we make some damn good money by selling guns and profiting off the stupidity of others who gamble away their hard earned cash, but what the Italians do is deplorable. If they ever take over, the whole city will burn.”
I didn’t fully understand, “But why do we have to be criminals at all? If we’re trying to help the city, why not do it the lawful way?”
“Son, a man can get a lot more done if he doesn’t have to worry about deciding if another man deserves to go to jail or if he should die. We cut out the middleman. The cops can’t keep up with the Italians. We have always kept the city safer in our own way.”
“I just don’t understand how selling guns helps the city,” I say with a sneer.
“Check your tone, mal'chik. Guns will always be a part of our lives, no matter where you go in this god-forsaken world people will be armed. We make sure the guns aren’t in the wrong hands.”
“Sorry Pap,” I say and take a steadying breath. “So why did we leave the city in the first place if we were trying to help stop the Italians?”
“I didn’t want that life for you and your mother; you were so young, and it was my job to keep you safe and hidden.”
“She always worried that you would be targeted and killed. I knew the only way to keep you safe was to move away so no one would discover you. That way, if an enemy came after me one day, they wouldn’t be able to use you to get to me.”
“No one knows I’m your son?” I didn’t see how that was possible.
“Your mother and I always kept you and your brothers away from prying eyes, even before we left the city. You were only six when we left, and not many people ever saw you except for my closest captains. There was no need for anyone to even know I’d had a son. And your brothers were both born after we left.”
“So, why did we come back?” I was starting to get a better picture of what Pap’s life was really like and how the weight of the world seemed to rest on his shoulders.
“When I took you and your mother out of the city, I left Uncle Boris in charge. For nearly ten years, all was quiet. I thought he wanted to run things the same way Baba and I did. Little did I know he was biding his time, yes, he was running things the way Dedushka taught us to at first, but he got greedy.”
“What do you mean?” I was curious because I never truly knew Uncle Boris. He’s a few years younger than Pap and has been in prison for nearly eight years.
“Your sniveling, selfish Uncle wanted to make more money. He wanted to run things differently and didn’t like that we appeared to be helping the police. The idiot thought if we got rid of the Italians faster, then we could take over their territory and business ventures. Just like that!” Pap says, snapping his fingers. As my father was talking, I could see the crease between his eyebrows deepening. He fisted his hands so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“So, Uncle Boris just wanted to take over?”
“Yes, but he was a moron about it and instead of strategically undermining the Italians, he went straight to the top. He tried to kill Nico,” He scoffs, “When he went to their restaurant, he fucked up. A stray bullet ended up hitting Nico’s son Francesco. Your mutt of an uncle killed the eldest son of the Italian syndicate.”
“That was dumb. Who went with him? How did he think he was going to take down a guy like Nico on his own?” There’s no way Uncle Boris went in alone to take on the Italians.
“Your Uncle Boris was never the sharpest knife in the drawer. He didn’t take enough time to plan. He rushed and so we had to come back. And the men who went with him were just as stupid!” Pap started to rub his temples like a headache was coming on.