Chapter 16 Matysh
Chapter sixteen
Matysh
My mind is racing, and all I can do is pace back and forth helplessly in the parking lot of this empty office while I wait for Bogdin to come pick me up. Police are all over my exploded motorcycle, but I had to fucking bail. I can’t wait around for stupid reports.
I hit the call button once more on Bogdin’s name, and once again, it just keeps fucking ringing.
Where is he? Why the fuck is he not answering?
Everything is wrong right now, and I know that. I can’t reach Ivan either. Which is even more concerning to me.
I have half a mind to start running all the way back to Kings Point to go see the damage for myself.
Whoever the hell is responsible for this is going to pay. If they laid a single hand on her, I am going to rip off all of their goddamn fingers and feed them to them while I flay them alive. I'll make them regret every incarnation of their lifetimes on this earth. No penance will be enough.
But I don’t even know what’s happening for me to know what’s coming. It could be Mauricio Vitale making his move. It could be the Morokovs doing something really fucking stupid—or it could be something straight out of left field.
I don’t know, because I’m stranded when I should be dead.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I pull out my phone once more and scroll to the only contact I have left to try, and I’m not fucking proud of it.
“Yes?” Nikolai Sokolov picks up, his voice more annoyingly taunting than ever. He’s the nastiest fucking arms dealer in the city, and as much as I hate the idea of even having to deal with him, I need the favor. I’ll pay it back somehow.
“I need a ride.” I grit the words out, trying my best to ignore the humiliation and desperation laced around them. I’m not the kind of man that ever needs a goddamn favor from anyone. “The sooner the better,” I add through gritted teeth.
Nikolai is silent for a beat. “You were the explosion off 5th Avenue, weren’t you? It’s all over the news.”
“I neither confirm nor deny,” I keep my voice flat, ignoring the tic in my jaw. “Like I said, I owe you one.”
“Dangerous thing to admit,” Nik scoffs. “But for that, I’m already on my way. Send me your location.” He hangs up before I can make any comment back, and honestly, it’s probably for the best.
Because right now? I’m fucking weak. I got hit when I least expected it, and I can only assume that it’s about to get a lot worse.
At this moment, stranded in a parking lot about a fifteen-minute drive from home, I'm completely helpless. I feel like I could crawl out of my skin, I'm so on edge. My brow fucking sweats, my hands clench and unclench, and the loaded Glock in my waistband doesn’t feel like enough.
Who the fuck even uses explosives like this anymore? Didn’t we move forward to more discreet warfare? I shake my head as I think it through. Didn’t Boris say Mauricio Vitale liked the old-school gangster ways?
It piques my interest, but something about it just… It just doesn’t feel right. Yet, I don’t have any other angles. Surveillance on Boris Petrov has been uneventful.
Before I can mull it over any further, a black Mercedes pulls up along the curb, and the passenger window rolls down. I don’t even have to wait to see who it is.
“Nikolai,” I greet him, rushing toward the car and popping open the door. “Must’ve been in the area.”
He eyes me, his icy blue eyes glinting. “You know I’m always in the area.”
“Yeah, okay,” I mutter, unamused. The two of us go way back to childhood as friends, though Nikolai’s father, Pahkan of the Sokolov family, was murdered when he was thirteen. The whole family fell apart and was lost to the Morokovs. He became the grimiest arms dealer around.
And is hardly reliable.
“It’s been a while,” Nikolai comments as he pulls away, already speeding toward the estate. “You only call me when it’s bad. I know you don’t like the association.”
“Hmm.” I shrug my shoulders. “Maybe. Just get me where I need to go.”
He chuckles. “Got it.”
My old friend makes the fifteen-minute drive in eight, and before we even reach the driveway, I can see that everything is all wrong. The automatic gate is left open, and the entire place appears desolate.
“This isn’t good,” Nik mumbles under his breath as he rolls through the circle drive, stopping outside the front doors. “You usually have men posted everywhere.”
I nod, my stomach already clenching at what I see. “That’s because they’re out.” I gesture to the corner of the yard. One of my guards has a bullet hole right between his eyes, slumped up against the stone veneer of the house.
And when the image really hits, that is when the panic sets in.
Catarina. Holy fuck, Catarina!
I’m out of the car, Glock in hand, before Nik even realizes what I’m doing, scrambling to keep up. He grabs an AK from behind his front seat and follows behind me.
I guess some loyalties do run deeper than the ties that bind and loosen.
“Catarina!” I shout through the empty halls of the house, the silence deafening. We step around two more bodies, one of them being Ivan.
My heart pounds in my temple as the panic turns to fear, and the quiet in the house only serves to exacerbate it all. I remember the feeling when Mikhail died. I remember the promise I made him. But even that inkling of the pain I’d feel losing Catarina and our child?
It’s ten thousand times stronger. And as I sprint up the stairs to check my wife’s room, I realize I don’t ever want to let her sleep anywhere other than beside me ever again. She’s more than just mine.
She’s a part of my very fucking soul.
As I swing the bedroom door open and see the chaos of overturned dressers and the flipped mattress, my heart fucking sinks and my hands start to shake.
Maybe she made it out. She could’ve made it out.
“Matysh,” Nikolai’s voice explodes through the house, commanding my attention in a way that makes me feel sick.
“Yeah?” I race back down the stairs to find Nikolai standing at the patio door, his eyes out across the gardens.
“Bogdin.” He raises a hand, gesturing to a body in the garden.
My throat tightens at one of my best men, laying in the snowy path. I race out the door, the disbelief settling into my body.
I thought I was untouchable. I thought I had this. How did they get me in such a weak spot?
I get to his body and push away the trickle of grief that follows it. I’ve seen too much blood to be swayed by a dead man. A woman and child? That’s different.
But this is just another day.
“His phone,” Nik says, sweeping something up off the ground. “Oh fuck. Fuck.” He lets out a heavy breath, his eyes on the cracked screen.
“What?” I demand. “What the hell is it?”
He frowns up at me. “He was with your lady. His mid-text back to you states he was out here with her on a walk.”
My head fucking spins. My chest feels tight. I feel the need to gruesomely murder a whole goddamn city over this—and I just might. In a panic, I scan the area, searching for any signs that she might be here.
But there’s no body.
“I bet they took her,” Nikolai says, his voice softening to something almost unrecognizable for him. “Someone sees your weak spot, moy staryy drug (my old friend).”
I shake my head. I don’t have a weak spot. But the moment the thought comes out, I realize it’s a fucking lie. I’m in denial. A part of my soul is a weak spot.
Fuck. And that’s how they got to me.
“We need to find her.” I spin around to Nik, who’s going through Bogdin’s phone still. “She’s got to be with someone, somewhere.”
“Everyone wants her gone.” Nik tosses the phone to the ground. “So, I’m not sure where to even start, but you should’ve started with not having all your people in one place. That’s never smart.”
“I was focused on protecting her,” I say through gritted teeth as I head back in the direction of the house. “We need to see if they left any survivors at all.”
“Got it.” Nikolai falls into step beside me. “You know,” he muses as we go, “I sold a big batch of shit recently. It was a bigger order than normal.”
“Glad your business is going so goddamn well,” I snap at him, nearly taking the back door off the hinges as I step inside. I shake my head at my friend, and then stop, hearing a muffled sound.
My heart skips a beat as I chase it down, thudding down the steps to the basement. It’s locked from the outside, and I quickly slide the lever across, kicking in the door. I already know I won’t find Catarina, but at least there’s witnesses.
“Boss!” Helena calls from where she’s bound in the corner with the other house staff. “They took her! I watched them through the window.”
I nod, ignoring the sinking feeling that comes with that—but also the confirmation does mean that there’s a chance she’s actually alive.
And that’s the best I can hope for right now.
“Who was it?” I demand, as Nikolai starts removing the tape from some of their mouths. “Did you recognize anyone at all?”
Not a fucking soul has a word to say.
“Tell me what the men looked like,” I push, kicking one of the gardeners with the toe of my engineer boot. “Now.”
“Some of them spoke Italian,” someone admits. “But it was poor. They weren’t fluent.”
“And there was another man who looked familiar,” Helena says, suddenly. “But I can’t put my finger on it.”
“They’re useless.” Nikolai confirms my thoughts, meeting my gaze. “You’ve lost your goddamn closest crew members and the others won’t be able to come assist you in time as they’re spread out. On top of that, no one even knows who’s doing all of this.”
I shake my head, turning around and leaving them all in the basement, while Nikolai starts undoing the binds on them.
I pace the floor of the foyer, unsure where to even begin. My gut doesn’t seem to be in sync with my brain at this point, and honestly…
I feel fucking lost. All my intel is gone.
“Security cameras were trashed,” Nikolai mentions, gesturing to the cut wires I can see from where I’m standing. “Someone knew what they were doing. This is efficient, cutthroat level bullshit.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” I mutter, running my fingers through my hair. “We have to be missing something.”
“Then let’s fucking find it.” Nikolai meets my gaze. “I’m supposed to be neutral, but you know I’d fucking die for you.”
I nod. “Everyone else already has.” And as the words leave my lips, I can see it in my old friend’s face. “What is it?”
“I made a big arms deal,” he repeats his earlier information.
“I didn’t think much of it at the time, you know.
It’s just something that occasionally happens…
before an all-out war. But ever since your wedding to Catarina Petrov, everyone has been quiet.
I assumed they were plotting, or maybe for now we’d be stable. ”
“And?” I’m not following him.
“Mauricio Vitale bought the guns,” he says, but then hesitates. “But he seemed unsure of exactly what he was doing. He’s an easy kid to read. He’s not as seasoned as us. He makes mischief, not war.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” I say, narrowing my gaze at Nik. “I’ve heard he’s into the old gangster ways.”
“Then you heard wrong,” he chuckles. “The only thing Mauricio cares about is who’s the next fuck and when’s the next payout. He’s not that deep from what I can gather.”
“And?”
“And I think he’d be fucking gullible under the right situation.” Nikolai gives me the look that says it all.
“He’s a pawn.”
“I caught two guys down at the shop with the new guns,” Nik continues, digging into his leather jacket pocket as we step out into the winter air. “And I think I know exactly who we need to go have a chat with.” He stops me as we reach the car, pulling out his phone.
I stand there, waiting and, honestly, a little fucking pissed that I’m the last to know on all these matters. I’ve been so caught up in fighting my goddamn feelings for Catarina that I haven’t been able to focus on anything other than my war with her.
“Here.” Nikolai hands me his phone, which is pulled up to the security footage of the pawn shop he owns in Queens. “Right there. That’s one of the models I sold.” He zooms in on the picture. “You can see the defect in the hammer.”
I stare at the footage, my blood running ice cold. I don't know what's about to happen, but I'm going to put a stop to it.
And I think I know where Catarina might be.
Merry Fucking Christmas.