Chapter 27 – Kolya
A long, keen whistle blew past my brother’s lips. “Fuck, man, what the hell did you do?”
I looked up from the crimson pool around my feet and the lump of flesh still warm under my gloved fingers. “Eliminated the threat.”
“Yeah, Dimitri wanted us to negotiate, not—” Luka waved his hand over the scene “—Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
“They’ll get the message.”
“Ookkaaaayy,” Luka drawled, bouncing on the balls of his feet before landing back solidly. “Normally I’m the messy one. You’re taking all the fun out of this for me.”
“Let’s go.” I sheathed my blade and stalked past my baby brother.
The sticky summer heat wrapped around me like a wet blanket. The trash fermenting on the pavement and the still hot asphalt created a pungent stench. In the west, streaks of daylight gave their final salute as the night settled over everything else.
“Drop me at the airstrip,” I instructed my cousin as I slid into the passenger seat.
Kazimir shot me a sideways look. “Going somewhere?”
“A tip was dropped in my inbox this afternoon,” I explained, keeping the details vague.
“Ah, so that’s why you packed your sniper rifle,” Luka hummed, tapping his thigh.
Kaz nodded and started the engine. “We appreciate the help dealing with the 5 th Street Gang.”
I flicked a glance at the rundown strip mall we were leaving in our dust. “They’ll come back for vengeance.”
Kaz shrugged. “What’s new?”
I left the rhetorical question alone. The unorganized rabble who terrorized the streets was different than the more established entities running under the radar of the law. Organized crime versus wannabe leeches—mobs versus gangs. There was a huge difference. We kept order, we protected our people. Gangs were violent and produced nothing of value. A vicious part of life, we had to deal with the gangs whenever they encroached on our business ventures.
As he drove, Kazimir sent a call to the boss, which was quickly answered. In the rapid exchange of Russian, I listened as the limited participant that I was.
“Another puppet for the Syndicate,” Kazimir concluded. “You were right, Dimi. They’re enlisting gangs.”
“Fuck.” The sound of something slamming showed how this news affected the pakhan. “Are you sure?”
“He said the local leader of the Toro Syndicate paid them to do it. Don’t see a reason for him to lie,” Kazimir said flatly.
“Is he going to tell tales?” Dimitri grumbled.
“Negative. He won’t talk,” I interjected, finally having a contribution to the conversation.
Luka snorted violently. “Yeah, that’s one way to say it.”
Dimitri’s voice turned thoughtful. “What would it take to irradicate the entire Toro Clan?”
Kazimir shot me a pointed look. That question was addressed to me.
I tapped my finger against my thigh. A yawn crept up my throat, but I stifled it. “From what I’ve gathered, they are heavily based in their respective cities.”
“But with enough manpower, you could do it?” Hope filled Dimitri’s voice.
I let out a rough laugh. “I’m flattered you think me capable, pakhan.”
“Oh, we know you’re capable,” Luka chuckled. “You should have seen the mess he made, Dimi.”
Kazimir and Dimitri groaned in unison. A rapid conversation about tonight’s events ensued.
The truth was, I didn’t know how much fight I had left. Taking out an entire organization would have been something I jumped at two or three years ago. But recent events jaded me. I couldn’t irradicate the trafficking rings—only cripple them. No matter how hard or smart I fought, they always patched the holes I punched into their operations.
It was a never-ending battle, one that would see me to my grave.
Now the established mobs in Chicago faced a newer threat. The Toro Syndicate wasn’t an organization based on something binding like ethnicity or family ties. They were a gang that operated like a mob, pulling their members from the streets and shaping them with military efficiency. Their main base of operation was Minneapolis, but they were fighting tooth and nail to establish themselves in Chicago.
While our bratva wasn’t the only mob willing to do whatever it took to keep them out, the Toro Syndicate was always recruiting—like they’d tried with the street gang tonight. It kept their numbers higher than any one mob, and it kept organizations on their toes.
And my cousin thought I could wipe them out.
My heart throbbed wearily. I’m not a god, Dimi .
No, if I were, I would storm north to claim my woman and defy any force to take her from me. But I couldn’t even do that. The only way to keep Harley safe was to let her go.
“At least help me take out the satellite operating here in Chicago,” Dimitri repeated, doing a masterful job of keeping the annoyance from his voice that he’d had to repeat himself.
“No, pakhan. I’m not your man,” I clipped out.
“We’re headed to the airstrip,” Kazimir said quietly.
Dimitri’s voice filled with disappointment. “Oh, I see.”
I turned away to look out the window. My family needed me. But I couldn’t stay knowing that no one was fighting the scourge on the innocent. There were forces here who could fight the Toro Syndicate. There was no one saving the victims of trafficking. Unease trickled down my spine. It might be a losing battle, but I would never stop fighting. Now that one of the trafficking operations was in chaos, thanks to the authorities finally doing their damn job, I could return to the unwinnable war. The disorganization in the trafficking rings would be temporary, but it was enough for me to sneak back into the fray. There would be no trace that I was in Wisconsin or Chicago. My sabbatical was over. It was time to hunt.
The phone call clicked to end as Kazimir slowed the truck at the airstrip’s private gate. He rolled down the window and handed the attendant a stack of bills before creeping through to one of the hangers.
After putting the truck in park, Kazimir turned to me. “Kolya, when you offered to hunt the men responsible for the death of my wife’s sister, I didn’t think it would turn into this obsession.”
Obsession? I supposed from the outside that was one way to put it. The more fitting term was curse.
“Dimitri won’t say it, but we need you here,” Luka said, voice lacking its normal humor.
I set my jaw.
“Luka says you were seeing someone?” Kazimir changed the topic. “That’s pretty serious.”
I shot him a hard look, letting him know how dangerous the territory he was treading was.
Which only served to confirm what he suspected.
“There’s no one,” I bit out.
“Sticking with the lone wolf lifestyle?” Kazimir laughed roughly. “It’s much nicer to have someone to come home to, Wraith.”
I don’t have the luxury of coming home! I wanted to scream at him. There were individuals out there right now who would never come home. I had to fight. I was one of the few who could fight.
I didn’t envy my cousin or the rest of our men. They were street tough, with a little military training. But even Ilya, who’d served in a war camp once upon a time, wasn’t trained like me. They weren’t crafted into killing machines.
I was.
Joining the United States military had been a way to escape the underworld. It gave me an honorable excuse. Even though my uncle—the late pakhan—wanted to have me assassinated for deserting us, he later came around to the idea when he discovered how useful my special ops training could be to him.
When Kazimir asked me to go hunting, all that training finally found purpose. It was a switch I could never turn off.
Without another word to my cousin, who was used to my stony silence, I left the truck, going around to the back to grab my duffel bag and rifle case.
“Here, for the road.” Kazimir handed me two stacks of bills, similar to the ones he’d handed the gatekeeper.
“What do I need those for?” I grunted.
“I don’t know, dinner one night?” Luka drawled.
With a snort, Kazimir shoved them at me, knowing better than to open my pack and place them there himself.
I tugged the zipper open, pushed some of the clothes aside, and buried the bills. Something cold and hard brushed against my fingers. The horse’s shoe. A wave of emotions washed over me, and just like that, I was drowning. It took everything I had to swallow past the lump in my throat and zip the bag closed.
Harley would know by now that our last words were a goodbye. I’d left the burner phone at the lake. That beautiful little sprite belonged there, where life was mostly safe. She didn’t need to swim in the shark-infested waters where her innocence and goodness would be devoured. Even when she came to Chicago, she would be in the mainstream waterways, safe from the murky depths.
“Be safe. Stay in touch,” Kazimir said as a parting shot, slapping my shoulders in a one-armed hug.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Luka smirked.
“I’ll call when I can,” I lied. It was what we said every time I left home. The same parting words I’d been using since my first trip to basic training.
As I boarded the cargo plane that my cash-only contact used, I couldn’t help but notice a piece of my chest felt hollow. Dead. Numbed. The work I did was worthwhile, but it seemed impossibly hard to leave this time.
“I just need to shake it off,” I growled as the twin engines started.
A little voice mocked me, saying that would never happen.