5. Ilias
ILIAS
A -Hole Chat
Maxim: Ronnie got a hit. Chatter that she thinks could link Galena to a diner in Queens. Pick you up out front. Five minutes.
Me: I’ll be ready.
I clicked off my phone and slipped on my suit jacket, hurrying out of the office while ignoring my current assistant, who looked up from her desk as I shut the door.
“Mr. Anthakos.” She wiggled as she stood quickly on her ridiculously high heels, almost tipping over onto the floor. “Do you want …”
“I don’t have time right now.” I interrupted her.
The last thing I wanted was to get into a back-and-forth with the piranha that guarded my office.
Vaso had hired her because he liked her boobs, not because she was a competent assistant.
She’d been here a whole three days, and already I knew that I’d be calling HR and having her reassigned.
I had nothing against people using everything at their disposal, but they had better be a great assistant if that was the case, and poor Keelie wasn’t.
She had been coasting on her looks, and waving her tits in my face wasn’t going to help her keep her job here, that was for damned sure.
There was no reason to take the time to question where or how the tip had come in.
Anything was great news. I wished I had time to message my brothers, but it was best that we go in stealth anyway and see if we could catch her unawares.
There was every likelihood that she wouldn’t be exactly trusting, and she had no reason to know that we weren’t her enemy.
Already adrenaline pumped through my system at the thought that we might finally find her.
I’d thought long and hard about my approach to Galena Volkova and our situation that we’d found ourselves in.
There was an answer that suited us both, and I think I had it.
Now, if she’d only come out of hiding, we could get this over with.
Maxim’s car was waiting as promised downstairs, his right-hand vor at the wheel. Lev was an asshole, but he was loyal. “Hey fucker,” he said as he opened the door for me.
“Chauffeur suiting you better these days? Glad to see you’re flexible. You’ll move up to doorman in no time.” I smiled at him as I got in, watching him grind his teeth a little.
“Shut up, you imbecile, and let’s go. This lead is good.”
Maxim Volkov, the pakhan of the Volkov Bratva, occupied most of the back seat.
He was an intimidating man to most, but I had known him for nearly my entire life.
The first time I saw him in the club with his father, I thought he was a cold Russian prick.
Well … he was a cold Russian prick, but he was one of the best friends you could ask for.
He and the other two members of the Commission, Angelo and Conall, had saved my life in every way that mattered.
I balanced my ankle over my leg, trying to angle some space next to Maxim. “You need a bigger car. You take up too much room,” I grumbled, wishing I had sat in front with Lev, but he didn’t like it when we did that. He said it was a security risk, which was stupid .
Maxim rolled his eyes. “It’s my fucking car. I’ll take as much room as I want. If you want a bigger car, take your own and get there last. It’s your fault you grew into a giant.”
My brothers and I were all pretty big, but I had started out rather puny.
I’d been a small boy, weak and probably anemic due to various other issues.
I’d been scrawny and pale. Now, all of us were well over six feet tall, brawny Greeks.
I scooted a little closer to him, smashing him against the door for a minute.
“I’ll just take up a little more of your room. ”
“I hate you.” He pushed back. “I’m going to shoot you.”
“No fucking shoving,” Lev called from the front. “I’ll pull over.”
I immediately moved back to my side, complying with Lev’s order because he actually would pull over, and we didn’t have time to waste. “Fine. He’s a baby.”
“Want to hear about the lead now that you’re done?” Maxim growled at me.
I waved my hand at him to proceed. I definitely wanted to hear what Veronica had found out, but I knew he’d tell me. We were moving steadily toward Queens, now about twenty minutes away from the address that Maxim had given me.
“We’ve put out a hefty reward through all our channels for information, but a woman called for help today at this diner from her brother, one of Vallone’s men.
She said some made men were bothering one of her waitresses.
Ronnie has had a program searching all of their communications and texts for a few months now, and this is the first one that sounded promising.
She did a deeper dive on the ask and said we should check it out.
She thinks this waitress might be Galena based on the intel. ”
I was contemplating the privacy violations Veronica was committing and the riots that would ensue if the dons discovered that our hacker friend was monitoring all their communications…
nothing good would come of it. Not that we would tell them, and not that I felt bad about it.
This was too important. Fuck them. “And?”
“And, she was able to pull surveillance from cameras around the diner from previous days. I agree with Ronnie. This is her. She’s also traced this person to other locations, so if she runs, we have her at a library that she goes to and we have her at a storage location.
” Maxim swallowed and looked uncomfortable. “Ronnie thinks she’s living there.”
I didn’t say anything, but the thought of Galena living in a storage unit made me feel all sorts of ways. Forcing my feelings to move past that for now, I asked, “What do we know about Vallone’s guy?”
Vallone wasn’t exactly a rival don anymore, yet he wasn’t someone I trusted either.
He’d only started coming around lately because of Angelo’s sister, and the men he hired could be pretty rough.
It had recently come to light that old man Vallone was Francesca Santelli’s biological father.
The whole truth had made Vallone reconsider his position on the skin trade, but that didn’t mean his men’s morals were to be trusted.
“Seems a decent sort from everything that we can dig up.” Maxim scrolled over his screen.
“His older sister has worked here for nearly thirty years. Dolores Sherman. Not very Italian of her.” He chuckled.
“But her brother Johnny Sherman has a soft spot for her. Takes real good care of his family. He sends money to an old folks’ home for his mother and helps his sister out from time to time.
There isn’t anything to suggest that Dolores isn’t doing exactly what she claims to be doing: asking for help. The bigger question in my mind …”
“Who are the made men she is asking for help with … what crew?” There were only so many that I could think of.
Queens had been vacant now for several months, with the Olivetos being taken out unless Nico Balestra had some of his crew still monitoring businesses.
“Did you check with Nico?” Nico had been the right-hand for Cosimo Oliveto before he was killed.
We had wiped out the whole Oliveto famiglia .
Nico hadn’t had enough juice to date to create his own mafia, so he’d been left flapping in the wind.
Maxim typed out a quick text. “I haven’t, but that is a possibility. I’ll have Ronnie look into it.”
“Damn, you keep your cousin hopping.”
He grinned back at me with a wry smile. “Hey, she wanted to be involved, and her man is busy running some of the West Coast operations now, so it keeps her busy.”
“She well?” I had to ask. We had all agonized over the news when Maxim’s aunt had come to him for help for her daughter’s childhood leukemia.
Maxim had been on the West Coast at the time and had already taken over the Volkov Bratva, so he’d had money to put into her care.
It was the only reason his aunt came to him at all.
She hated the Volkov name, but she’d had no choice.
Veronica had been in her early teens, and it had been a rough few years.
“Yeah, she’s good, still in remission. Everything looks good. Not that she’ll let me talk to the doctors anymore. I have to get my info from Eli, and he’s stingy,” Maxim complained.
“Maybe because you’re a nosy fucker,” Lev commented from the front seat. “You should leave that girl alone, you know she hates when you butt in on her shit. Hey, we’re here.”
Immediately, our attention diverted back to the task at hand.