27. Lev
LEV
Mila fell into a deep sleep after I ate her out. Making her come was the least I could do after all she’d risked for me and my family. The doctor and nurse had confirmed that her injuries would be minor. X-rays and blood draws proved that, with time, she’d be back to her full health.
While she was resting, I figured that I could find a hell of a solution to the blue balls of wanting her. Hearing her come and tasting her sweetness as she gushed on my tongue, I was rock-hard and delirious to have her.
It’d have to wait, though. She needed her rest.
I had those captives to question, too, so it wasn’t like I’d be hurting for something to preoccupy myself with.
“About time you show up,” Alexei said when I met him at the low-lying building further back on my property where we held those who’d earned the hostage and captive status.
I’d called for him to meet me here to question the two men we’d taken with us from that hidden compound where we could get a lock on Yusef’s location.
Adrik shot him a look. “Knock it off.”
Alexei rolled his eyes.
“How is she?”
Adrik and Alexei had always been the two to bicker the most. I assumed it was just because they were the oldest of the six of us. Whatever it was, it would never die.
“Resting,” I answered. Adrik had likely asked about how Mila was doing because he knew what it was like to care for a woman.
To be concerned about how they were faring after a difficult experience.
He’d perhaps learned the lesson most acutely because he hadn’t checked in with Elena after he’d killed her father.
That gap had almost ruined them both, but they’d found each other in the end.
“Good.” Adrik nodded once, falling into step with me and Alexei as we headed toward the cells where the two men were being held. “She did very well with that mission.”
Alexei scoffed, but it didn’t seem like he was arguing with him or implying that Mila had failed. His annoyance was due to something else.
“It’s a fucking shame that Yusef Antonov wasn’t even there,” he groused. “If he had been, we could’ve killed him then and there.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Adrik said. “We still need a location on Gregori, and he’s not showing up anywhere anymore.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, irritated about how difficult it was to pin that man down.
“Does Rossi have anything new about him?” Stefan Rossi, the boss of one of the most prominent Italian Mob families in New York, had assisted us with finding more intel about this network Gregori had started up.
He’d had his men get pictures of Gregori and Yusef Antonov, but it was like searching in a haystack for a needle now.
They weren’t easy individuals to locate.
“Nothing.” Adrik let out a frustrated breath. “Fucking nothing. He’s got men on it, too.”
I believed him.
“We’ll see if Markus has had any luck with these two, though,” I told them as we approached the first door to the dungeon.
I wanted to be present for some of the questioning, but I also knew when to let the experts handle what they were best at.
I was an enforcer, and that fell in the realm of responsibilities in the field.
Out on the street. Torturing captives for intel was a selective branch of enforcement, and Markus was the best at that specific brand of hell.
I’d been more focused on being close to Mila in case she needed me.
And she had. Hearing her admit that she was worried when I left the room made me feel like I was ten feet tall.
She was submissive to me, depending on my being close, but she wasn’t fully there yet.
She still had reservations about accepting how she should submit to me.
Since I wanted to prioritize being near Mila while she recovered over the last twenty-four hours, I let Markus handle the “welcoming” phase of those two captives.
Alexei and Adrik had been too busy with other things as well, particularly with going through all that Mila had captured from her expedition at that compound.
Now, though, it was time to see what these two miserable idiots could tell us.
We went through the other doors to reach the innermost room of the building. I rapped my knuckles four times on the solid slab of metal that made up the door.
Markus didn’t delay in stepping out at the specific knock that would mean my arrival. He exited the door, and while it was cracked open for him and another Bratva dungeon master to slip out, moans of pain trailed out after them.
I crossed my arms and regarded his stoic, gargoyle-like face. The man was a hulking nightmare of death personified with eyes like rocks of coal and a scowl worthy of a cursed demon.
“Are they talking?” I asked.
He nodded. “Rueben.” He tilted his head at the other man, prompting him to speak.
“One’s a defector from a Cartel near the Gulf. Other one’s a fugitive who escaped a maximum-security prison in Texas. Both of them were recruited by Yusef Antonov.”
“In a new group?” Adrik asked. “What are they even calling themselves?”
“In that compound?” Rueben asked with a shrug. “They didn’t specify. It sounds like they all see themselves as one under Gregori’s influence. Or under Antonov’s.”
“What else?” Alexei asked, impatient as ever.
Rueben detailed what they had revealed, and I was sure it wasn’t easy for them to get the answers out of them at first. The blood splattered all over the apron-like coverings they wore suggested that much.
“They’re being trained to serve as an army of sorts. But there’s no organization among them. They’re all equally expendable, there to do the dirty work, and the range of what’s expected of them varies.”
“Like what?” I asked Rueben.
“Breaking and entering where they can, especially at the bosses’ residences of lateral and small families. Theft. Burglaries. If it’s something to bring in more money, they’re doing it,” Rueben said.
I glanced at my brother and Adrik. “He’s doing it to further his income?” I guessed.
“Maybe to invest the capital into a bigger plan of attack,” Adrik said.
“If he’s been so busy bribing and buying out Feds and politicians, that won’t be cheap,” Alexei said.
“Some of them are trained to infiltrate and then establish revised enforcement cells,” Markus said, taking over for Rueben.
He didn’t talk much, but he wouldn’t leave anything out between the two of them.
“They’re sent to get an in with federal agents and arrange cells in the city.
Radicals, too. Whatever it takes to bring them into the cult of working for this network. ”
“Local law enforcement? Or only federal?” Alexei asked.
“Both,” Rueben answered. He continued explaining, saying how there are multiple groups of men assigned with courting the favor of those who claimed to be loyal to the law and order of society.
Based on the names of sheriffs, deputies, and commanders that they mentioned of the San Diego, Los Angeles, and Reno areas, they were trying to form a whole front against us in the Las Vegas area.
Rueben name-dropped a few others who were near us, but I wasn’t worried about taking notes or remembering any of it.
All that they did in that disgusting torture room was recorded on the cameras hidden in there.
We could play back through the audio and have a list prepared of whom to look out for.
“It’s going to be much harder to address such a scattered approach,” Adrik muttered as the conversation hit a pause.
Alexei shrugged, nonplussed. “Then we diversify how to handle the pressure from law enforcement.”
Uncle Dmitiri had faced similar issues before.
Rivals could try to attack us and our business by cranking up the heat on us.
Anything from having our bartenders arrested, setting up stings with undercover agents to catch our dealers, and paying for a trick to have our prostitutes taken in near our brothels.
It wasn’t anything new, but it was a pain in the ass to have to count on more trouble from the law.
It would interfere with business as usual, intended to compromise the prosperity and wealth of our empire.
Satisfied with Markus and Rueben’s report so far, we discussed what the two captives shared a little more. It sounded like Gregori was instructing Yusef to put the most pressure on us from so many different angles so we’d be distracted.
From what, I didn’t want to know.
I was still convinced deep down that Gregori was playing the long game to come back and take the throne of the Volkov Bratva for himself. Like he’d tried and failed to do so many years ago by planting that bomb that killed my grandparents.
All that we’d learned from these two at what seemed like a concentration camp to convert criminals and defectors into Gregori’s henchmen was a huge help.
The information would enable us to try to stay one step ahead of the enemy.
But in this case, it seemed like we needed to be several steps ahead in a variety of directions.
“It won’t be like handling the Cartels,” Adrik mused, rubbing his chin before heaving out a deep sigh. “We won’t be able to count on this being done after one counter-attack.”
“If we even knew where to attack,” Alexei said.
That was probably why the network was multi-faceted like this.
“And how,” Adrik said with a serious frown. “From what we’ve seen of the images and recordings that Mila got, with how they operate at that compound…”
“Depravity at its finest,” Alexei quipped wryly.
Based on all the grisly scenes of torture there, we would be facing some deranged sociopaths in stopping Gregori’s network. He was scraping the bottom of the barrel and getting the worst of society to be his pawns in this game against us.
“But at least we have a tentative location to pursue for Yusef’s location,” Alexei reminded us.
That was the sliver lining in all of it. I’d never say that Mila’s injuries and capture were worth anything good, but they hadn’t been for nothing. It was ludicrous that she could think she’d failed simply because she’d been caught snooping and taken into a torture room.
“We can follow the maps and itinerary that were on that flash drive she swiped.” Adrik nodded, like he was in favor of where this conversation was headed. “We should be able to send out more spies and track where he’s moving through the region.”
“Taking out Yusef Antonov would be a hell of a strike against Gregori,” Alexei said.
“It’d be better if we were scheming an attack to take him out,” I muttered darkly.
Adrik shrugged. “Who says we aren’t? It’s just a matter of time.”
As far as I was concerned, it was too much time to wait. I wished we could just find Gregori and kill him right now. All his lieutenants and leaders that operated beneath his shadowy rule could try to take his place and face the same fate.
“Once we get a location on Gregori, he will wish he was dead,” Adrik promised. “And he’ll stay dead.” The narrowed slits of his eyes proved how vehemently he believed in that.
I did too.
And even though I was still aggravated about how Mila had gotten twisted up in a branch of the violence and ugliness that Gregori represented, I knew that I could still count on her to fit with me in this crusade to end them all.