Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“Why does this guy stink so much?” In the dark cab of Nikki’s truck, Yuri wrinkled his nose. The Armenian stockbroker had been stashed in the back of Nikki’s truck for two days, and he smelled like yak shit.
“This was your idea, my friend.” As they neared the cutoff, Nikki slowed. “The only reason Semyon lets you do this is because the money is so good.”
This was their seventh kidnapping, and a very lucrative one, at that. The guy’s family had forked over close to a million bucks without hesitation. “It is good, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but you need to find other ways to contribute that don’t involve such brutality.
” Nikki turned onto the dirt road that was barely visible in the unkempt grasses they’d intentionally allowed to grow wild.
“Semyon is changing his ways. The Brotherhood is changing. Chicago is not the Gulag. Semyon prefers subtle, behind-the-scenes financial transactions over bloody killings with bodies everywhere.”
“What blood?” Yuri hitched his thumb to the back of the truck. “This guy didn’t shed one ounce of blood.”
“That’s because you choked him so hard, I thought his head would pop off.”
Yuri made a fist and closed his fingers around his hard biceps. The Anadrol was turning him into a beast. Soon, he’d have to shop for a new wardrobe to accommodate his new and improved physique.
Nikki flipped on the bright lights, illuminating the lake dead ahead. “All I’m saying, is maybe it’s time to try something new.”
“Why fuck with something that works?” Yuri shook his head. “No, my friend. I’m sticking with what I am good at. But things have dried up here. L.A. has fresh prey. More Armenians. They have lots of money out there. I can lure them to Chicago.”
Uttering a disgusted sound, Nikki spun the truck in a one-eighty and backed up to the edge of the lake. “You’re lucky the lake isn’t frozen.”
“Stop whining.” Nikki did that a lot lately, and it was really starting to piss him off. There were days he regretted saving his friend’s life in the Gulag. Days like today.
Outside, their breath condensed into puffy white clouds.
Nikki rubbed his hands together, blowing on them. “I’m freezing my hairy balls off. We could be warm, drunk, and up to our eyeballs in caviar at Semyon’s party, by now, but you just had to nail this guy in the middle of winter. Next time, we do this when it’s not so cold out.”
“Not so cold out?” What a pussy. For Chicago on New Year’s Eve, this was a tropical thirty-two-degree-paradise. “How did you even survive the Siberian Gulag?”
“By not freezing my balls off.” Nikki unlocked the fiberglass cap door and lowered the tailgate.
After sliding out the lightweight dinghy and dragging it to the shoreline, they pulled the plastic-wrapped body from the truck bed and hauled it to the boat.
Winter wasn’t ideal timing, but the stockbroker was so stinking rich, he was too good and too gullible to pass up.
With nothing but the quarter moon as witness, they inched the boat closer to the water and hopped in.
While Yuri fitted the oars into the oar locks, Nikki sat at the bow. The body lay between them. With each dip of the oars, moonlight reflected off ripples on the lake’s surface.
“How is your accountant working out?” Nikki asked, humor in his voice.
“Good.” Yuri leaned back, pulling on the oars and rowing them into position.
With this much money, he couldn’t risk his house being searched, so he had his accountant hide it where no one would ever find it. Especially, not the fucking FBI.
At the center of the lake, he hauled in the oars. Slowly, so they didn’t capsize, they both stood.
Yuri slid his hands beneath the guy’s shoulders. Nikki grabbed the man’s legs.
“On three,” Yuri said. “Odin. Dva. Tri.”
They heaved the body into the lake, but Nikki stumbled, losing his grip. The body splashed into the water closer to the dinghy than intended. A wave of water crashed into the boat, soaking Yuri.
“Blyat! What the fuck, Nikki!” Near-freezing-cold water plastered his clothes to his skin and dripped down his pants into his boots.
“I’m so sorry, my friend.” Nikki held his arms wide, laughing. “Really, I am.”
“I’ll bet you are.” Yuri sat, reinserting the oars into the locks and rowing quickly back to shore. If he didn’t get his ass out of these wet clothes, he’d be the one freezing his hairy balls off.
“This is a good life lesson,” Nikki said, his stupid-ass grin making Yuri seriously consider whacking him over the head with an oar and adding him to the growing pile of bodies at the bottom of the lake. “God is telling you there are better, less frigid ways to earn money.”
Yuri stopped rowing, allowing the bow of the boat to ease onto shore. “This is who I am, and you know it.”
As they dragged the dinghy back to the truck, distant fireworks popped and crackled in the night sky.
“It’s a new year.” Nikki clapped him on the back. “A time to celebrate, and a good time to make changes.”
Yuri kicked off his wet boots and pants, then got into the truck to warm himself.
He didn’t like change. Change meant people like Alex Tarankov, not those like him, who’d grown up on the streets of Moscow and in Russian Gulags, fighting just to put food in his mouth.
Nikki headed them onto the main road and back toward Chicago. In the darkness, Yuri glared at the man who’d been his friend for most of his life.
But was he still a friend today?
Deep in his bones, he suspected change was coming whether he wanted it to or not. That didn’t mean he had to accept it.
Somehow, he would find a way to move up the chain, to surpass Nikki and become Semyon’s first line brigadier. The way to Semyon’s right hand was always about money.
Money bought power.
Money bought everything.