CHAPTER NINE
YURI
I have never been more grateful for Charlie’s relationship with her parents than I am today. Whenever they are close by I feel better about her safety. I’ve had my eyes on Charlie all day. I need to be close by as she moves from her campus dorm into her apartment. Maxim and Andrey have been keeping an eye on Dominic’s movements for me. After they informed me he’d be out of the country for a few months, I felt like I could finally breathe deeply. Charlie would be safer with him gone.
Still, I know they have a strong friendship and even though he hasn’t done anything to hurt her, you can’t trust the Italians. Charlie trusts him too much. After the attack on Daniil, I’ve had to step up my surveillance on Charlie. I’ve been getting a feeling that something bad is about to happen. It’s a feeling I can’t shake, so I’m doing everything I can to stop that idea from materializing.
We still don’t know how the Italians got close enough to Daniil. We won’t let them just get away with hurting one of our guys, so we are planning a little ambush for some of their men.
Maxim and I are parked a few car lengths away from Charlie’s apartment to make sure no one tries to steal any of her things or harass her. She’s a strong woman and has gotten better about checking her surroundings since she decided to become an investigative journalist, but I still don’t trust that she can defend herself. I prefer to be close by incase she needs me.
Charlie and her parents must have done some extensive research on this area of the city, because she actually found a decent apartment. She’s still close to NEU which isn’t ideal, but at least she’s not in Washington Park.
I still don’t like that Charlie is going to be working at the Chicago Times; journalism can be a dangerous profession especially in this city. I don’t know how I’m going to stop her from getting too curious about the crime in the city though. She is such a justice seeker which is one of the traits about her that I have never begrudged. But in the city, that curiosity could get her killed. Luckily, most first time journalists don’t get to write about the big stories, so she should be safe from any danger on that front.
Since Charlie is fully moved into her apartment and her parents have headed home, I decide to assign Andrey to keep watch. I have a few errands to run for my father regarding the Italian ambush and I want to talk with Konstantin about looking into Charlie’s new boss and coworkers. You can never be too careful.
I walk up to Andrey’s blacked out BMW, to let him know Maxim and I are heading out. He rolls down the tinted driver’s window once we get within a foot of him.
“Hey Andrey,” I greet with a head nod, “We’re going to go back to the gym and get some things finalized. You stay put and make sure if Charlie goes anywhere to let me know.”
“Okay,” He pauses and fidgets with his fingers before asking, “Are you sure we need to keep tabs on her this closely?”
“Andrey,” I sigh, not believing I have to explain this to him again. He mentioned his concerns to me after Charlie’s graduation, but I guess he still doesn’t understand just how much danger Charlie’s in by simply being near me. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the problem.
My life is not all sunshine and rainbows. If I did as my father asked all those years ago, and forgot about her, maybe she’d be safe. But I just couldn’t do that and maybe that makes me selfish. I’d rather live in a world where I have to protect Charlie against the danger that gravitates toward me like a magnet than a world where Charlie isn’t in my life at all.
I try to explain as patiently as possible, “We’ve discussed this. Charlie’s phone and the program we put into place doesn’t work how it used to. I can’t just leave her unprotected in the city.”
“I know. But we have other things to worry about besides Charlie. The plan to get back at the Italians for what happened to Daniil should be our top priority. I should be there helping plan for that. Not babysitting your…” he pauses and squints his eyes making that annoying confused face that is often plastered onto his face. “What even is she to you, Yuri? You haven’t spent any time with her in ten years.”
If Andrey and I hadn’t grown up together and his father wasn’t a close advisor to my father, we probably wouldn’t have grown to be close friends. He’s just not that interesting or bright, but he’s reliable and usually doesn’t fight me on stuff like this.
My shoulders tense and I take another deep breath. I ball my hands and then release my fingers and start explaining again.
“Andrey, I don’t have time to hash this out with you. We’ve talked about how special Charlie is to me. We’ve discussed that if the Italians find out about her and her importance to me, they will use her against me. Against us. I cannot let that happen.” Why is Andrey fighting me on this? He knows the Italians would kill to have some leverage over us.
“No. You’re right Yuri. I just want to make sure we don’t lose sight of the Italians or our plans to halt more of their operations. They don’t even know about Charlie. She’s not in any real danger right now.”
“Don’t you think I know how important those plans are?” I nearly shout. Grinding my teeth, I speak through tight lips, “Listen Andrey, I understand that you think my priorities aren’t straight. But what you don’t seem to get is that by protecting Charlie I am protecting all of us. Remember, she’s close to Dominic, I won’t allow her to go unprotected! He may not be a threat to her right now, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Dominic is friends with Charlie for some purpose. I just don’t know what it is yet.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I see a message from Pap. “We’ve gotta go Andrey. You stay here. If Charlie leaves her apartment, you follow her and you keep me in the loop. Got it?” Sometimes talking with Andrey is like talking to a brick wall.
Maxim and I walk away from Andrey and get in my steel-grey Audi. I never liked driving around in an all black car. It seemed too conspicuous to me. My windows are still tinted, but not enough to have the cops up my ass every five seconds and I had the rims blacked out, but I don’t need to drive around the city looking like I’m trying to hide. I prefer to hide in plain sight whenever possible.
We hop in the car and drive back to the gym to meet up with Pap and the others to finalize our plans. When we’re done, the Italians won’t know what hit them.