Chapter 40 A Very Dangerous Man
A Very Dangerous Man
Isla
I waited at a small table in the lobby café of John's office building and fidgeted with my nails, eagerly waiting for John and my third cup of coffee. I had only slept for two hours in the morning, having devoted most of the night to reading and rereading all the documents Roman sent me.
I was exhausted, drained, and fucking destroyed from it all.
There was so much to go through in that envelope. No one would have access to this kind of information unless they knew exactly what to look for and exactly where to find it.
Roman did.
“Isla?” John’s caring voice and warm smile greeted me like my nightmare life had never happened. He and my dad had worked together for many years, and I’d met him and his wife many times over the years and had been to their house for dinner.
We caught up, and after ten minutes of polite chitchat, I cut straight to it. "John…was my dad involved in something illegal?"
John's smile faded immediately. He was around my dad’s age, almost sixty, with a kind smile and gentle presence, but as soon as I asked that, something shifted in his gaze. Not just surprise—he was offended.
He looked angry and defensive. Without missing a beat, he began denying everything, acting like the question was an insult, and I knew right then…he was pretending. The reaction was too strong.
He questioned my morals, inquiring why on earth I would think that about my poor late father and how dare I corrupt his memory. After he was done lecturing me, I pulled out the email exchange and dropped it on the small table between us.
Visibly curious, he leaned over and read it, afraid to touch it.
"I deserve the truth, John.” I nodded, encouraging him to tell me.
“I've been through a lot. I have no one. The amount of money my dad left me is astounding.” I still couldn’t believe the number.
“I doubt anyone could have earned this much money if they had a regular medium-sized construction company, like he claimed to have. Tell me."
But John remained silent. He simply sat there with his hands in his lap and looked from the paper to his hands and back again, as if hoping to find something different on the page.
I prompted with something I knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid answering. “Who is R? Is that...Roman Agapov?"
I hit the jackpot. John’s eyes widened in shock, and he leaned back in the chair, staring at me like I was an apparition.
"How—how do you know that name?" he whispered, all of the blood draining from his face.
Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Up until the last possible second, I held out hope that it was all not true. I was waiting for John to tell me he had no idea who R was! Naively, I prayed that R was not Roman and everything was just a huge mistake, a colossal misunderstanding.
John snatched his espresso cup off the table and shot it back in one swift motion.
Then, he leaned in closer and lowered his voice.
“R is Roman. You clearly know more than I ever expected you to.” He searched my eyes, looking for confirmation of his words.
“Roman is a very dangerous man, Isla. How do you know his name?”
Yeah, no shit, he was a dangerous man. His name. His name was all that occupied my mind. Roman, Roman, Roman. My heart, my mind, my soul never rested, playing memories of him on a loop, torturing me day and night.
I calmed my racing heart and put on my best performance, pleading with John. I needed the confirmation. “Please, John. Tell me who my father really was. I have nothing. I have no one. Please tell me the truth.”
John held the pause, as if contemplating if this was a wise choice for him. But at this point, I wouldn’t leave him alone, and he realized it when I scooted closer, giving him my full attention.
“Your father didn’t build Anders. It belonged to the three brothers, and they ran it as a construction firm.
And it was prospering. I joined a few years after him, and we were probably both in our mid-thirties.
Dave saw the potential. The brothers always had a good reputation, and in their last years, they started landing big contracts. ”
Afraid to breathe, I nodded quickly, praying that he would continue talking.
“One by one, the owners…began disappearing. But not only them.” John’s eyes gazed into mine, sincere and regretful.
“The lawyer who held their wills…gone without a trace. The relatives of the brothers—wives, sisters, parents, kids—all came under pressure to back down. Your dad just…took it over. He was smart.” John chuckled darkly but my stomach dropped from hearing it all in real time.
“He made it look legal. Quick and easy. He and I weren’t partners yet; I merely got to witness it from the sidelines. ”
Holy fucking shit. My lungs were barely catching up with my breathing pattern, and I was sure John had a lot more to say. “What happened after?” I asked quietly.
Again, John waited a beat. “The relatives who contested his takeover? They all slowly withdrew their cases. And then…someone’s daughter went missing.
” John looked up at me again, the meaning spelled out in his eyes.
“And after that…the family never approached him again. Never gave him any trouble. They backed off…for good.”
Someone’s daughter went missing. Do you think he didn't use the same tactics?
No. Not my dad! Not my loving, caring, gentle, fun, and silly dad!
But notwithstanding my inner panic, John continued.
“I didn’t know any of this when it was happening.
I put it all together later, when I started working with him closer.
Suddenly, he started landing these astonishing state contracts—we’d never had such high-profile work before.
” John smiled wistfully, as if reminiscing about the good times.
“But then I figured out that he was greasing palms and doing favors, all the while bankrupting our competitors. He would loan money to smaller firms that posed a threat. When they couldn’t pay because Dave made sure to land all the lucrative work—he’d take over. ”
The coffee crowd of the café bustled around us, but I was in a vortex.
John leaned in a little closer and lowered his voice.
“But Dave made a mistake. And that mistake was California.” And there it fucking was.
“Dave knew about the Russians on the West Coast. He didn’t have any illusions; he knew it was the Bratva that controlled that territory.
But he worked very diligently to undermine them.
” John nodded, staring into one spot on the little coffee table.
“He went to war with them. Worked overtime. Paid exorbitant amounts of money to land that huge contract, and believe me, Isla…that contract was out of this world. It would have taken us to another level. But I warned him. I warned him…” John gritted his teeth, as if the memory was frustrating for him.
“Not only was it across the country, but it was an open declaration of war. The Russians sure as hell weren’t going to take it lying down. Dave knew the rules.”
It's either our way or death. And your father knew that. Roman’s voice echoed in my mind again just as John pronounced his name.
“Roman reached out. At first, he was very subtle, just offering Dave the chance to give it up. No harm, no foul, no grudge. But Dave brushed him off, so Roman decided to negotiate it. He offered smaller contracts or to clear the path for us here, in New York, but your father didn’t take him seriously.
” John fiddled with the espresso cup again, gulping in discomfort.
“Your father knew the risks, Isla.” John’s gaze shot up into mine as if to hammer down his point.
“He knew that if we didn’t back down, the Russians were going to kill him or worse…
take his kids, but he powered on, confident that they didn’t have the balls to act on it.
Roman made several trips to have the conversation, but it led to nothing.
So, he came one last time…and Dave didn’t take the meeting.
He just didn’t show up at the office. And the next week… there was the car accident.”
John was running out of energy, slumped down in his chair, perfectly mirroring my inner state.
“After your dad passed, there was a court order to dissolve the company. Everyone was let go. All the assets and liabilities were written off or sold. Sold to a small company in California. The court order and the sale of assets to a company in California weren’t an accident, either. ”
John finished his life-altering story, and we just sat there in front of each other, both broken in our own ways. I lost my family, and John lost his partner and livelihood, having had the misfortune of watching from the sidelines how my father self-destructed.
"Did my mom know?" I asked pitifully, hanging on to the last smidgeon of hope that something was right in the world and she had no clue. But John didn’t even hesitate.
"Yes.” He stunned me with his confidence. “She knew about the extent of it all, and she helped him. She was beside him every step of the way, and a lot of the decisions that they made…they made together. She was his ride or die."
Shell-shocked into silence, I repeated John’s words over and over. She was his ride or die. Wow. Look at my mom go! Look at both my parents! Living a life of crime—while putting on a show of normality—their kids never suspecting anything was off.
The wind was picking up outside, as if to match my inner state. But before I abandoned John, I had one last question. "Did the Russians know that my dad...had a family?" I wasn't sure if John could answer that, but I wanted to hear his theory.