3. Ilias #2
I nodded and stood, walking to the window.
The harbor spread below like a kingdom of cranes and cargo.
Ships moved in and out, each one labeled, tracked, and recorded.
I knew the name of every ship that was under our flag.
I examined each manifest that came in under our name.
Nothing entered our holds without my consent.
The skin trade that my father had allowed to fester and grow would never be part of what we were about.
It was a vow that my brothers and I took early on.
When I killed him, I burned him from our lives. Pulled him up like a weed. There was just one thing left that somehow I couldn’t escape—the blood oath.
Now, Galena Volkova was the last remaining thread of a contract signed in blood by monsters. The sister of Maxim Volkov. My friend. My brother in arms. A bride I didn’t want.
Yianni Anthakos, my father, and the others had built an empire from shadows.
In that empire, they bartered futures like currency.
When I was dragged to the blood oath signing, I was only ten years old, the youngest there.
I vividly remembered the feeling of my father’s hand on my shoulder, cringing as he pushed me forward at the table toward that godforsaken contract.
I hadn’t understood what I was signing. The other boys seemed more aware, but none of them wanted to sign it either, yet it hadn’t mattered.
They all had to in the end. Later, they explained what it meant: that when we were older, we would have to marry into each other’s families.
We’d all taken heart in the fact that Maxim Volkov didn’t even have a sister, so one of us was off the hook right away.
We weren’t sure who would get out of the deal, but one of us would, and somehow that always comforted us.
For years, we’d thought one of us had escaped, and then Maxim told us that his father’s mistress had had a girl, and we knew we were all screwed.
Then her mother had grabbed her and just disappeared.
Needless to say, we never bothered to look for her too hard for a couple of reasons.
Maxim had been in the middle of taking over the Volkov Bratva, which involved killing his father, and the rest of us were in the same boat. Trying to wrest control from our fathers and putting a stop to the trafficking they were engaged in had our full attention for years.
In the past year and a half, the others had decided it was time to move forward with honoring the blood oath. Blood promises in the crime world weren’t to be taken lightly or forgotten. They could be postponed, but only for so long. That’s what we had been doing for decades — letting it lie.
However, Conall had felt it was time to set everything in motion. We were all pretty sure it was because he secretly wanted to marry Francesca Santelli, but nobody called him out on it. Now I was the only one of the four who was still unmarried, with the oath hanging over my head like a guillotine.
My match was set to be Maxim’s half-sister, Galena Volkova, which I would have just forgotten about if possible.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t how this shit worked.
Years ago, Maxim had found her living in Queens, where her mother had run off with her to a normal suburban life complete with a step-dad and everything.
He’d looked in on her during her high school years and decided she was better off ignorant of the underworld.
There had been no reason to drag her into our life, and we hadn’t even decided yet about the blood oath.
Now? Now she was missing after a violent attack that had left her mother dead and Galena in the hospital.
We weren’t sure who was responsible, and the police report was less than helpful.
It seemed likely that it wasn’t random or unconnected to either the Volkov Bratva or the Commission in some way.
Her quiet, anonymous life had been blown apart.
Forgetting about her wasn’t an option anymore.
Now, her stepfather had died of a heart attack.
She was alone. She didn’t even know she had brothers or cousins.
That thought gave me a slight pang. Even when things were bleak, I’d always had my brothers and sisters, and she might not know it, but she had a family.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, just thinking about the reports Kostas had given me.
Maxim couldn’t forgive himself for what had happened.
Galena and her mother had been badly beaten in an alleyway.
Maria had died from her injuries, and Galena’s injuries were serious enough that she had to be kept in the hospital for over a week before being released.
We’d known nothing about it … why? Because we’d left them to their own devices.
Maxim decided that she was better off in her normal suburban life.
Me? Because I didn’t want to acknowledge that the blood oath was something inescapable.
I didn't know what unsettled me more—that she'd vanished without a trace or that I cared so deeply about finding her. She was my responsibility. That was clear in my mind, and there was no doubt that she wouldn’t be better off with me than out on her own. We’d tried it Maxim’s way, and while I wouldn’t come right out and say it to his face, that hadn’t turned out so well.
There was a part of me that blamed him. It wasn’t fair of me, but I was angry.
I wasn’t sure yet if the anger was directed more at Maxim or at myself.
I tapped the glass. "Still nothing from the surveillance team?" I asked without turning.
Vaso, already checking his phone, frowned. “Veronica’s team said she was spotted near the Lower East Side a few weeks ago, but they lost her off the cameras. She’s still here in the city, that’s something.” He gave me a sympathetic look that I hated.
"Keep looking. Every resource.” Maxim’s cousin Veronica was a laid-back hacker, but she improved every year, gathering a small team to assist her.
Her collaboration with my brother, Kostas, was typically unstoppable, yet whatever method Galena was using was far too effective.
She was proving hard to find. “Up the reward.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The reward is already over a million. Brother, why don’t you just let her go? Maybe she doesn’t want to be found."
I turned slowly. "She's a Volkov, and she’s supposed to be my bride. That makes her a target. And I don’t leave family exposed.
" Leaving her to her own devices at this point wasn’t an option.
Even if at one point my wishes were to ignore the blood oath entirely, that was out the window now.
Someone knew about her. I might not have wanted marriage, but there wasn’t a choice now for either of us.
No way could I forgive myself if she died because we’d just left her in the wind by herself.
Vaso didn’t argue. He didn’t need to. I heard it in his silence.
They had all fallen: Conall over Francesca, Maxim, delirious over Cora, and Angelo, practically glowing every time Theo entered the room.
My sister. Pregnant. Loved. Angelo had surprised me.
I thought he would never have been a good choice for her, but I had been wrong.
Now I could see how much he loved her and how much love she had for him.
It was strange to think about this next layer of my family expanding.
Kostas and Vaso hadn’t met anyone yet, and my sister Polina was still in college.
There was no way I was ready for kids yet.
Still, a part of me envied their certainty in expanding their families.
Theo was over the moon about having a baby.
Having a niece or nephew would be nice. I did love to spoil Maxim’s son, Vasily.
As I sat back at my desk, I opened a drawer.
Inside, nestled between ledgers and encrypted tablets, was a worn photograph of enhanced and printed security footage—Galena, emerging from a convenience store with a bag slung over her shoulder.
It captured her haunted eyes, sharp chin, and narrow shoulders.
She looked like a survivor. I admired that.
Maxim had the right idea in keeping her to a normal life.
Even I could admit that it was the right thing to do, especially since the poor thing was stuck with me.
There was no getting around the fact that I was broken beyond repair.
I didn’t do relationships ever. My qualifications as a good husband were slim to none, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
Someone else knew about her, and she was safer with me than with anyone else.
I wouldn’t outright say it to Maxim, but there was still a part of me that couldn’t trust him anymore to take care of her.
Take my sister Polina, for example. She was perfectly fine and safe.
Why? Because I’d made it so. She was encased in bubble wrap, securely and safely far away from this nonsense of the blood oath.
If I could do it for Polina, I could do it for Galena.
“Vaso, let’s go take a drive. Maybe hit up that convenience store. You game?”
“Absolutely.”
We both knew there was no shot, but I had to do something, and it was better than nothing.
The drive had been a bust, but at least it had gotten out the itch that I hadn’t been just sitting on my ass.
Now I walked along the dockyard with Vaso and Kostas beside me: my brothers, opposites in every way.
Vaso was all fire, muscle, and anger if he wasn’t busy trying to joke around.
He was a conundrum at the best of times.
Kostas, on the other hand, was more methodical, quiet, and deadly.
"The Scarpato shipment is loaded on the Aegean Prince ," Kostas said. "Departure scheduled for midnight. That guy is a sleazeball. Five bucks that this goes south.”
"Good. Tag it. Internal tracker. If anything pings, we intercept.
" The details spun with that visceral sense that I always had when I mapped out a plan.
There was precision and purpose in what we did.
It was how we stayed in business and how we ensured that our family and our people came home at night.
“I’ll take that bet,” Vaso countered easily.
He loved betting on the shipments. Sometimes I’d join in.
It was a small joke between us, but not this time.
“I’m not betting, but I agree with you both.
” Scarpato was bad news, but this was business, and we didn’t discriminate except for traffickers.
We passed stacks of containers, cranes groaning above, seagulls crying against the backdrop of ships. I loved every messy, smelly part of it.
“Why the fuck would you take it then?” Kostas nodded to one of our workers as we went through our secured gate. “Should have told him to take his job to someone else.”
“I want to see what he’s up to. He surprised me when he sent me the bid.
Something isn’t right. I just can’t figure it out.
” They knew I loved my information, and this wasn’t something I’d let lie.
“Scarpato has been digging around Oliveto territory, trying to expand, and I know Angelo has had some run-ins with him.” Oliveto territory wasn’t even adjacent to Staten Island, so I wasn’t sure why Scarpato thought they could interfere there.
It was also Queens, so I’d prefer Scarpato keep his paws off.
The last thing I wanted was for anyone untrustworthy to be in an area where Galena could be.
“I’m doing a thorough look at Scarpato, and I’ve got a call in with Veronica to see if she can find anything else.
He’s been making a lot of waves lately, which makes me think that he and his crew are running low on cash.
” Kostas was thoughtful as he yanked a piece of gum out of the wrapper. “You talk to Angelo about the deal?”
“No. The deal is solid as long as it pans out.” Our businesses didn’t always intersect with the Commission’s, which the guys didn’t have a problem with. We all benefited from what we did together, but we didn’t need to be constantly in each other’s business.
“No need to be all testy as fuck.” Vaso popped Kostas on the shoulder and held out his hand for a piece of gum.
“You’ve been so cranky. Angelo said that Scarpato was causing some problems, didn’t he?
” Kostas passed him a piece, which Vaso unwrapped as he watched me expectantly.
Sometimes it was annoying to have brothers.
“I’m not cranky.” The words were sulkier than I intended. My brothers both gave me a skeptical look that told me everything I needed to know. “Alright, alright.” I held up a hand, conceding that they were right. “I’ll talk to Angelo. Satisfied?”
“It’s a start.” Kostas’s fingers flew over his phone as he sent a text.
“Look, we know you’ve been stressed.” His phone pinged just as I was about to stop him.
“What do you know, Angelo’s at Fortune , we can talk to him all about Scarpato.
” He grinned over at me. “I want to go over some other intel with Bacco anyway.”
There was no point in arguing with my brothers about it, and I should talk to Angelo about Scarpato to clear things up.
I knew that wasn’t the whole reason they were pushing for us to go to Fortune .
I’d bet that the others were there to ambush me.
For the last month, I’d been headfirst in work and the search. It was all I could think about.
“Fine. You two won’t take no for an answer anyway.”
They grinned, pleased that they’d won. As we headed off to the club that we owned with the rest of the Commission, I tried to get my head straight. I just needed to find her. Please let me get a break.