Chapter 4 #2
“All me? I do have family.”
She finally pushed her way around me, rolling her eyes as she did. “Fine. Your family. Thank you for the invitation, but I was just doing my job.”
“I think you did more than that. How about a drink?”
“No.”
“A cup of coffee and a Danish. I know this little bistro you’d love. Not too far from here.”
With her eyebrows lifted, she stripped away all my layers with her mind. I was also wondering if she wasn’t stripping away my clothes as well. The electricity was raw and unforgiving, and I could tell she was aroused by her hard nipples poking through the thin material of her tee shirt.
I was such a bad boy. My mouth was watering at the thought of pulling one into my mouth, sucking then biting down. Mmm…
“Somehow, I get the feeling you’re not used to being told no.”
“You’d be right. Very few people do.”
A smile slowly curled across her voluptuous lips.
“Well, then allow me to be the first. No to dinner, drinks, or coffee. But thank you for the invitation. Good luck with insurance on your home. Oh, and make certain the fire inspector doesn’t give you the runaround.
The fire was an act of arson.” She grabbed her jacket and headed to the curtain.
“You’re lucky to be alive. It would seem you have an enemy. ”
With that, she walked out. She had no idea how accurate her statement was.
I realized I hadn’t gotten her name. I followed her into the corridor. “At least give me your name.”
She stopped short, waiting for a few seconds before turning around, looking me up and down as she debated telling me anything. “Captain Halle O’Leary.”
My lifesaver really was a captain.
Then her last name registered only after she’d walked away.
O’Leary.
Irish.
The group working with Papadakis.
Fuck. Karma definitely had it out for me.
What were the chances an O’Leary had not only intentionally damaged my vehicle, but had also been right there at the exact moment needed to save my life? I continued to mull over the possibilities while pacing the pool deck at Mikhail’s house.
The question seemed even the more ridiculous since was obvious she had no Irish blood in her. None. With her long, dark luxurious hair and light olive skin, if she had an Irish family she must have been adopted.
“Mystery solved,” Vissarian said the moment he walked outside. I hadn’t realized my close encounter with an arsonist was going to initiate an entire family meeting.
“Meaning what?” I took another long pull of the cold beer, wondering how in God’s name Mikhail could drink the piss water. Disgusted with the taste, I headed to the bar to make a proper drink. The night still burned brightly in my mind.
No pun intended.
“She was married to Sean O’Leary, another firefighter.”
“How did you discover that?”
He snorted and trailed behind me to the bar. “Make me one of those.”
I pulled a second glass as I waited for him to answer.
“I asked around,” he answered then gave me a look. “I had Alessandro do some digging.”
Alessandro Costa, a family member of the Costa Nostra that we’d entered an alliance with. Not only was he an expert hacker, but he knew everybody and had access to various information sources including the CIA’s. He’d proven his worth more than once.
“Still married?”
“Don’t you know that was past tense?” my cousin teased. My look turned dark. “He died about eighteen months ago in a fire.”
“Huh.” I slid the glass across the bar then took a sip of my scotch. “Maybe that’s why she was not interested in having dinner with me. Or maybe she was still a plant.”
“Let me get this straight. A beautiful woman was part of a conspiracy to burn you at the stake then turned around and risked her life to save you. Then to add insult to injury, she turned down an invitation from the self-purported hottest man in Vegas for a dinner date. Is that about right?”
“Is there anything that goes on in this family that isn’t an open book?”
I noticed Mikhail approaching out of the corner of my eye. He’d made several phone calls to try to determine if I was correct in my assumptions about Papadakis. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to know I was. “Not when a horrific crime was committed that almost ended my cousin’s life.”
Exhaling, I learned against the bar. “I don’t think she’s involved in some conspiracy. We don’t even have any clue if the O’Learys are the Irish clan in question.” Also they seemed to be the name I’d heard most often.
“No, but there are several unsubstantiated rumors. Just talk on the street that the O’Learys are heavily in debt to Viktor Papadakis.”
“That isn’t a smoking gun by any means. Papadakis has been widely known to offer loans to unsuspecting idiots.
Plus, he runs a high stakes poker game. He’s worse than a loan shark with his interest rates.
” Vissarian chuckled. “That’s how they made their fortune.
Not from selling food products to restaurants.
That’s simply their cover. Although that is where he managed to snag many of his clients. ”
“If we go on that assumption, what is the point of raising our prices like some freaking tariffs?” I honestly hadn’t been able to figure that out as of yet.
Mikhail moved around the bar, making himself a bourbon. “No clue whatsoever.”
“The all-knowing Pakhan doesn’t know. Fascinating.” While he was my brother, he was the Pakhan and as such, he was owed respect. But not when we were discussing things as a family. That didn’t mean he didn’t throw me a hateful look.
“How do you want to handle this?” Vissarian asked.
Mikhail remained thoughtful. “Like I already told Alexsey, carefully. While neither Viktor nor Petros are considered pillars of the community, we need to use prudence in how we respond. Did you cut the contracts with them recently?” he asked me.
“Not the ones that are currently under contract. We are a professional business. But… if you remember correctly, the board of directors awarded the contract for Genesis to another firm when the one with Performance runs out.”
Mikhail nodded. “Pricing.”
“Yes, but not to a tune of three hundred percent.”
“Why not sue them in court for breaching the contract?” Vissarian asked then threw up his hands.
While we’d legitimated the majority of business, that didn’t mean Papadakis or a dozen other unscrupulous companies we’d had run-ins with had.
Just the opposite. Where we were trying to stay on the right side of the law, they were purposely returning to a darker time in the city when the Bratva owned a third, the Irish another third, and a mixture of Italians and Armenians owned the remainder.
And almost all business had run under the table, monies paid by local businesses for security and loyalty. We’d seen the ebb and flow in the last year and a half.
“My guess is that torching your house was meant as a warning.” Mikhail sipped his drink while studying my reaction.
“Was Viktor in power when Pops was the Pakhan?”
“He worked under his uncle or father at the time. Not a big player that I remember.”
I’d expected Mikhail’s answer. “Then Viktor is at a disadvantage. He doesn’t know just how powerful we can be.” I glanced from him to Vissarian.
My cousin shook his head. “Are you saying we’ve gone soft?”
“How quickly you forget my brother wasn’t raised as we were, Vis.” Mikhail pulled his glass to his lips, his eyes flashing as if eagerly waiting for me to disagree.
He was right. Private schools. College away from the city. A normal kid living a normal life while my father ruled with an iron fist. My first experience firing a weapon had been taking shooting lessons while in college.
I hadn’t wanted anything to do with the family business, but my father had nagged me endlessly, reminding me I was a Dmitriyev by birth.
I’d finally relented. Unlike Mikhail and Vissarian, I hadn’t even pulled the trigger on anyone until I’d come to work with the family ten years before.
Sure, I’d had my run-in with the law early on, acting like every rich teenager had, but my criminal activities had never been about the family.
When I’d finally had to use my weapon and had nearly taken a man’s life, I’d been troubled for days. It was only when someone had tried to assassinate our mother and father while celebrating their anniversary dinner when I’d wanted to act on my need for revenge.
I had.
And I’d made the worthless son of a bitch suffer in the process. I’d had no issue carrying a weapon with the intent of using it if necessary since then.
“You’re not that far off,” I said, which shocked both of them. “Think about it. We’ve been living the high life with our many successes, money flowing, business booming. Hell, we’ve been on the cover of almost every important business magazine as leaders, not only in this industry but any.”
“Don’t forget about the most eligible bachelor list in People Magazine,” Vissarian tossed out. He was proud of the nod. I’d laughed but had strutted my ass in front of the camera anyway. We all had.
“Are you suggesting jealousy?” Mikhail mused, narrowing his eyes.
“No, I’m suggesting they think we are weak and that they can push us around.” I didn’t like what I was saying, but I believed it to be true.
Mikhail nodded. “You could be right, brother. How is our movie business coming along?”
“If you mean the production of the single movie, still filming. If you’re wondering if this has anything to do with the Irish in LA, I’d be surprised.
” They’d caused us trouble over two years ago, holding a grudge against Mikhail for an event that occurred when he was a teenager. We’d nearly crushed them in return.
“You’ve said so yourself, Alexsey,” Vissarian reminded me. “The Irish stick together.”
“Yes. Ties go deeper than they do between Bratva. Obviously.” Mikhail exhaled. He was still rattled about learning we had another uncle still in Moscow. Uncle Yuri wished the now Americanized side of our family death. And he’d tried.
The bad blood between my father, Vissarian’s father, and Yuri went back decades, the reasons why something we might never learn.
Dealing with Yuri’s assassins had left us on edge even now after a few months had gone by.
In our world, there was no such thing as coincidences.
And grudges never vanished. They simply were held in wait for the right time to strike.
We had far too many enemies I’d consider to be in a holding pattern.
“So what do we do?” I asked while my thoughts shifted once again to Halle. She’d been so closed off, so angry in general and I couldn’t believe she’d been lured into setting a trap of any kind. I could read people and she was not that way.
Maybe I was fooling myself. My mother had warned all her sons that women were the stronger sex and could easily maneuver around a man given they were much more cunning.
It was something that had always stuck in the back of my mind.
“First, we make sure you’re settled back into your condo in the next couple of days. Take some time and deal with the fire inspector and the insurance company,” Mikhail suggested. “We’ll continue to monitor the streets to see if we can find out anything.”
I could tell by the gleam in his eye he had something else in mind. “And?”
“You like this girl who saved your life. Right?”
Lifting a single eyebrow, I gritted my teeth until my jaw ached. “What are you thinking?”
“Why not try and see if you can work your People Magazine on her?”
“She turned me down.” I was getting annoyed with his suggestion. While I certainly wanted revenge on the person responsible for torching my house, I wasn’t going to shove a potentially innocent woman into the fray.
“Convince her.” Mikhail was adamant.
“I don’t like what you’re suggesting, Mikhail.”
“There is a connection to Papadakis and Liam O’Leary,” Vissarian added.
“Her dead husband?”
He shook his head. “O’Leary’s Irish Pub uses Performance Foods. I checked out of curiosity after learning her name. Liam is her brother-in-law.”
For some reason the fact he’d held that snippet of information back from me pissed me off. “You’re just telling me that now?” I moved around the bar, crowding his space.
Vissarian wasn’t one to back down from anything, including a fight. He slammed his glass onto the bar. “I didn’t think it meant anything until now.”
“Hold on. Gentlemen. There is no need to be at each other’s throats.” Mikhail moved near us, glancing from one to the other. “Cool down and back off. Both of you.”
I refused to take a step back. I’d been doing so my entire life since Vissarian was higher on the food chain. Maybe I was sick of being the youngest Dmitriyev boy on one side of the family.
Vissarian sighed and took a step back. “I didn’t think it was big news, Alex.”
Mikhail rubbed his eyes. “You can do what you want, Alexsey. I trust your judgment. If you like her, then ask her out if you want to. If you don’t, then consider doing it anyway just to see if you can find out anything.
It won’t hurt. This may be nothing but conjecture, but you did almost die in that fire. That’s something to think about.”
Maybe he was right. There was a coincidence running through the events that needed to be confirmed or put to rest. Perhaps it was an excuse to see the lovely Captain O’Leary again.
Only this time, I had no intentions of allowing her to say no and get away with it.