3. Maxim
3
MAXIM
A lek suggested that I take a man with me. The first step of this job was to stop in and chat with Gregory Petrov. Simple enough. I doubted I needed any backup or assistance to accomplish it.
I was stubborn to a fault, and I didn’t want to accept any help in retrieving Nadia at all. The main motivation behind this job was to prove to my brother and the Bratva that I could be depended upon to pull off missions and handle things not behind the scenes. Having assistance would undermine my success. Perhaps that was a backward way of thinking, but I truly didn’t think I needed help. Not in interviewing Gregory about his daughter, nor in getting her to come home and go along with her arranged marriage.
The day after Alek and I talked, I headed over to Jersey to talk to Gregory.
The short building that I pulled up to didn’t raise any concerns. Gregory did his business at the nondescript convenience store mart, and it was a common cover for laundering money.
Like any other convenience mart all over the country—hell, all over the world—it looked like what I expected it to. At least from the outside, it did. The one-story structure didn’t stand out. All the windows were covered with posters of advertisements. Neon signs described the cost of ice and cold beer.
When I entered and went inside to seek Gregory, though, I quickly realized this place wasn’t like any other ordinary convenience store.
This one had been vandalized. Recently.
Shelves lay on their sides. Containers and bags of drinks and food had been ripped open and flung all over the floor. Puddles preceded smashed bottles. Windows to refrigerator walk-in units were splintered and cobwebbed with cracks.
In the corner, near the register, was a man.
“Mr. Petrov.” I called it out firmly at the same time I reached for my gun. If anyone was still here and lingering, I’d be prepared. The Petrovs were under Valkov protection. If this was a gang incident or an issue with territories, I’d be expected to help defend the man and his place while I was here. The Petrovs weren’t close to the main Bratva organization, but we had to stand with the remote alliance expected between us.
“Huh?” Gregory lifted his face from where he’d buried it in his hands. Red, swollen welts showed on his face, neck, and arms. Many more injuries likely hid behind his clothes. Limping out from the corner where he’d been picking through a first-aid kit, he narrowed his eyes at me. Or he tried to, around the swelling. “Who are you?”
I raised my brows. He had no grounds to use that tone with me, like I was the bad guy here. Then again, it looked like he’d just gotten his ass beat, so I couldn’t blame him for being a little prickly.
I replied by tugging down my collar. All of us brothers had tattoos to indicate our standing in the Bratva. Only us five brothers had this specific marking, identifying us as the top leaders directly beneath Alek, who’d update his ink to show that he was the Pakhan .
“Oh.” Gregory furrowed his brow and limped closer. He pressed a towel to a deep cut on his forearm as he approached. “About mother fucking time I get some representation from above.”
“What did you just say?” I kept my voice low and level, but he caught every note of lethal seriousness in my question. He noticed how thin the ice was that he stood on with asking that question.
“They just came through here.” He shook his head a bit, not looking at me but at the damage all over his business. “They just fucking came through here. Tore the place up.” He lifted a hand to uselessly gesture at the damage, as if I were blind. “Beat the shit outta me.” He pointed at himself. Blood dribbled from his brow, and he wiped it away too quickly, wincing at the pain that came with raising his arm that fast.
“Not my problem.”
He sneered. “No?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “No. How the fuck would it be my fault?”
“I asked the Pakhan for help. Months ago.”
“Help to what? Find your daughter?” I huffed, losing my patience fast. Everyone assumed I was an easygoing guy. Normally, I could be. But this bullshit? I had zero patience for someone whining about their mistakes and stupid decisions.
“Yes!” He growled and dabbed at the blood leaking from his cuts. As he limped closer, still scowling at the damage, he kicked a can of coffee aside. Beans spilled out further, and the aroma of them rose as his shoe crunched over them. “I told the Pakhan that she wasn’t listening.”
I held my hand up to silence him. “She’s your daughter. Not anyone else’s. This is your fuckup to deal with. No one else’s. I’m here, courtesy of the Pakhan, to salvage the situation.”
“Yeah, well you’re too fucking late?—”
I reached closer to grab the front of his bloodied shirt. Hauling him up, I slitted my eyes. “Do not imply that you expect me to babysit you, too.”
He shut up, glowering, and I released him with a shove.
“I came here for information. Give it to me.”
He rolled his eyes. “You? I’m supposed to think someone like you is gonna get Nadia to come home and do as I say?”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I crossed my arms, daring him to talk shit.
Gregory mumbled under his breath, slowly making his way toward a stool that had been overturned. He struggled to keep the rag on his bleeding wound while he set the chair upright, but he managed at last. Slumping onto the seat, he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.
“If you want me to find your daughter, I need information.” I didn’t have all day to play games. It sucked for him that he’d gotten his ass whooped by Avilov’s men. But it wasn’t my concern. It was Gregory’s fault for getting into this to begin with.
“She’s in London, studying,” he said dryly. “As soon as she graduated high school, she took off there on a scholarship. She seems to think that hiding at a fancy university will keep her safe. It won’t. She can’t hide for good.”
But is she actually at the university? If she really wanted to get away from the arrangement, it could be a cover she used.
“How long has she known that she must marry him?” In other words, how long could she have plotted her escape?
“Since she was a kid. Anytime she started watching all them Disney movies and thinking about happily-ever-after bullshit, I reminded her that it’s not her. That she had a husband already picked out for her.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Since she was a kid?” Anger, simmering but potent, built in my veins. Now that I was an uncle—twice over with baby Alana joining Emily—I couldn’t picture it. None of us in the Bratva could arrange those babies in marriage. Arranged unions were common in the Bratva, but I doubted any of my brothers would be so hasty like Gregory had been.
“Before she was born.” Gregory frowned, wiping at the gash on his arm. “When I married Nadia’s mother, I interfered with Lev’s expectations.”
What? “Explain.”
“Sabrina, Nadia’s mother, was arranged to be married to Lev. I slept with her because I thought she’d make a pretty penny being a dancer. We eloped before she could marry that fucker. Then she ended up dying before she could be much of a dancer for long and make money anyway.” He shrugged. “But Lev was furious. He threatened to kill me for interfering and taking his bride. So, I made a deal with him. I’d get to live and keep Sabrina so long as I gave him my first daughter. And here we are.” He lifted his hand and let it fall to his lap.
I shouldn’t have been irritated with that setup, but deep down, I was. Arranging a marriage with a young woman was one thing. But shackling a baby to a fate like that before they’d even lived at all? It felt wrong. It didn’t sit well with me that he’d married his wife just to make money on her, either.
“I thought the old fucker would forget about it over the years. Or die before it became an issue. He’s almost seventy. But no, he’s alive and well, still expecting me to pay him back with Nadia.” He hissed as he moved his shoulder. “Nadia’s always known, but I wondered if it would actually happen. If he’d remember about the arrangement. He never said shit when she was a kid. Never stopped in. Nothing. No meetings. Until she was fifteen. He wanted to take her and marry her then, but she ran away. Hid at a friend’s or something.”
I can’t blame her. Her fifteen to his, what, fifty something? It was sick.
“All through high school, she tried to stay away from me, from home. Probably afraid that he’d come back. After high school, she took off to London. I’ve tried every excuse in the book. I’ve tried to negotiate with him. Even considered buying a woman and offering her as a replacement. Nothing works. He wants Nadia because of the agreement with me, and she won’t fucking listen.
“She’s due to come home after her graduation, but I know she’s applying to other colleges and shit. She’ll keep trying to run and hide. I know she will. And Avilov’s running out of patience. He’s been hounding me to get her home, to deliver her to him. He sent his fucking animals to threaten me just now.” He huffed an angry laugh. “And they said this is it. Within the month. If she’s not here to marry him, they’ll kill me. Torture me.” He raised his troubled gaze to me.
I shrugged, unmoved. It was his problem. Not mine. If he didn’t want a powerful Mafia lord like Lev Avilov to come after him, he should’ve thought twice about eloping with Lev’s first intended bride.
Arranged marriages were commonplace. Breaking them happened frequently too. Alek stole Mila from her wedding to our now-dead cousin. Shit like that wasn’t out of the norm. However, if a man wanted to risk his life to take someone else’s bride, that was his fucking decision, no one else’s.
“That’s why I’ve been asking the Pakhan for help.” He sneered at me. “If Nadia isn’t brought home and forced to marry Avilov, it’s my life on the line.”
See if I care. The only thing binding me to seeing this through was the implication that the Valkov name would be tarnished with one of our associates reneging on a deal with a powerful man.
“And here he sends you ? What, are you the youngest brother?” He shook his head. “You don’t look capable.”
“I could say the same,” I drawled, emphasizing how weak and defeated he looked all beaten and breathing hard like that.
“I doubt you can find her, let alone get her home.”
I narrowed my eyes, instantly infuriated by his words. I was tired of being doubted, of feeling like I wouldn’t ever measure up to my brothers.
“I’ve offered to step up and handle this issue.” I smoothed down the front of my shirt. “And I will.”
Gregory rolled his eyes. “I fucking hope so. My life is on the line.”
“I don’t give a shit about you. I’m only doing this because you’ll drag the Valkov name down with your inability to see through your deal. Now give me her address.”
Still muttering to himself, he did as I told him to. He scribbled on a piece of paper, then handed it to me. “That’s her last address. I wouldn’t be shocked if she moved since then, but that’s the university she is enrolled at.”
I skimmed the note before folding it and putting it in my pocket. I wouldn’t be shocked if Avilov already knew where she was and had men there to grab her. If that was the case, my job was halfway done already.
And then I can help with getting Dmitri back.
“I never had the funds to hire a guard or anyone to follow her. I paid for a PI once when she didn’t talk to me. Her first year at the school, she gave me radio silence. No calls, no texts. Changed her number and all. My PI tracked her down, but I don’t have the resources to bring her home. She never came home for any breaks, either, probably thinking I’d set her up to be taken if she gave me word that she was returning at all.”
Years. He’d gone years without seeing her, and it appeared as though he didn’t give a shit. Gregory hadn’t missed her, and I couldn’t understand it.
“Good luck.” Gregory scoffed. “I can’t make up any more excuses and hold off Lev. He wants her now , and this is it. You have to find her.”
I nodded, tossing him one last look of pure disdain. “I will.”
Sniveling little asshole. I hardly blamed the woman for wanting to run far and fast from the man who called himself her father.
I’d find her, but if she was this used to taking off and avoiding her fate, I wondered with mild amusement how hard of a time she’d give me in returning her here.