Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
"Where have you been?”
Yuri sneered and extended his middle finger at the cell phone clipped to the Escalade’s console. Mudak. Nikki really was becoming an asshole.
“It has not gone unnoticed,” Nikki continued, whining like a little girl, “that you have not been present for big meetings. You’re pissing me off.”
Yuri tapped the ashes from his cigarette into a paper coffee cup, being careful to keep the glowing tip below the dashboard. Go fuck yourself. “I’m working on something.”
“Now that Boris is in prison, you need to be present for all business meetings. So, tell me, my friend, what are you working on?”
Friend?
For the last six years, his friend had been on the outside—free—while he’d been stuck in prison.
Not once had Nikki visited him there. Now his so-called friend’s voice was beginning to grate on his nerves worse than those federal prison guard dickheads.
He hadn’t come to New York for the honor of being treated like pig shit.
Before answering, he took a drag from the cigarette, inhaling deeply into his lungs and holding it there to steady his anger before blowing it out. “All you need to know is that it is something very lucrative. But there are many details to be worked out.” Because things had just become trickier.
The security guy was gone, but now there were two federal pigs watching the front and back doors to Vika’s building. He could smell a fed a mile away.
“There is a rumor,” Nikki rambled on, “that Vika is here. Somewhere.”
“What?” Yuri straightened. “How do you know this?”
“You would tell me if you found her, yes?”
“Yes, of course, my friend.” He took another drag on the cigarette, watching one of the feds get out of his SUV and go to the front door, checking to see if it was unlocked.
“Where are you staying?” Nikki inquired in a suspicious lilt. “I set you up in a nice apartment, all expenses paid until you get back on your feet, but you haven’t stayed there. Not once since Boris’s trial.”
Yuri narrowed his eyes as he looked in the rear- and sideview mirrors. “Have you been following me?”
“Of course not. My cousin helped me get that place for you. He lives on the same floor.” He paused, leaving Yuri wondering if Nikki had set him up there intentionally to keep an eye on him. “You shouldn’t let a good apartment go to waste. It is one of the very best, in a good neighborhood.”
“Right.” He sneered at the phone. “I won’t.”
“You see? I don’t forget about my friends. You should not, either. When you get your money back, I expect half. Remember, you brought Tarankov—that agent—into the Brotherhood. You should be thanking me for convincing Semyon not to have you shanked in prison for that.”
“I should be thanking you?” Yuri scoffed. “I spent ten years locked up. You did less than half that because I didn’t say anything about the things we did.”
“It doesn’t matter. It was still your fault.”
Yuri jammed the half-smoked cigarette into the dashboard, not caring if he set the entire Escalade on fire.
Tarankov had been introduced by someone who said he’d been introduced by someone else, and by someone before that.
Only now did he realize what he should have seen all along— Tarankov had checked out at every level, but the trail back to whoever had initially vouched for him had been too many hands back to positively identify.
That’s what they got for trusting a Russian without a single tattoo.
Nikki sighed heavily. “I want you at meetings starting tomorrow. That’s an order.” The call went dead.
“Shit.” He lit up another cigarette, taking a long drag as he watched the fed get back into his SUV. His plans would have to be delayed, but time was on his side.
The moment he’d seen Vika in that courtroom, he’d known exactly what to do.
First, he’d rented a cheap room in Jersey City, closer to Vika and farther away from the Brotherhood’s prying eyes.
He’d been paying by the week in cash with what little was left of his own funds.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t missed a tail.
He would have to be more careful. Nikki suspected he’d grab Vika, get his money, and run. Nikki wasn’t wrong.
Vika would still have the money. She’d be too afraid of him to spend it, and from what he’d seen inside her apartment, she had no expensive things.
No designer clothes or handbags. Barely any jewelry.
Compared to their life in Chicago, she lived like a pauper.
It had been stupid to give her control of his money in the first place, but he’d needed to safeguard it from the FBI.
He’d been counting on having total control over the bitch, never imagining she would leave him, let alone divorce him.
Like Nikki, not once had she visited him in prison.
He curled his fingers around the wheel, watching smoke spiral from the cigarette.
Nikki and Vika had once been family. Soon Vika would be again.
As for Nikki, their friendship had come to an end.
His friend didn’t deserve half the money.
It wasn’t his fault Nikki hadn’t been smart about hiding his half of their take from the kidnapping scam.
Nikki had power but wasn’t big on brains. He, on the other hand, was.
With the feds outside, getting back into Vika’s apartment would be more difficult but not impossible.
His life in a Russian Gulag had been brutal, facing starvation and harsh conditions even a polar bear would fear.
Federal prisons were sissy country clubs, openly allowing prisoners to play games and build muscle in weight rooms. Unofficially, prisoners learned other skills. Like lock picking.
When he held the cigarette to his lips again, the burning orange tip glowed brighter.
The plan to get into the apartment building and get Vika out had just come to him. Soon he’d have everything.
His wife.
The money that should be all his.
Then he’d find a way to kill Kyle Gates.