18. DANTE #4
Sal's family isn't involved. They aren't part of the business, and they don't know anything—we take family background checks on all our direct associates.
I know his kids' names, the school they attend, their trusted hospital.
Family names are for threats , for pulling information from those with something to lose. But this .
Making a clean getaway would mean taking your family with you. Either that, or Sal is a different kind of son of a bitch than I thought. This is forcing my hand.
"Keep the family isolated," I say, swallowing the rising hatred. It leaks into the undertones of my voice. I taste iron. "No contact with the outside. If Sal tries to call any of them, I want it intercepted before they even answer."
" We will. We're also accessing everyone who had alpha-level clearance. "
"Go through everyone's life."
" We will. "
I hang up. This retaliation against the Malakovs is too personal to let anyone involved walk away with all their limbs intact. Nyx is too dangerous, and he is, above all, mine , and I'm willing to burn the whole board down to find him.
The Malakovs' largest smuggling distribution center on the East Coast has been set on fire.
The nearby hydrants were sabotaged hours before, ensuring the firefighters would arrive only to watch a spectacle of total loss.
The heart of the Malakovs' territory in Brighton Beach was invaded, its manager had his knees broken in front of everyone, the safe was emptied, and the walls were tagged with his blood.
The car of the Malakovs' chief accountant was found intact with its doors open, the man himself vanished.
The transportation company they used as a front had twelve trucks sabotaged in the same night with slashed tires, punctured gas tanks, and sugar-filled engines.
Svetlana identified Krestol Holdings, a publicly traded company that served as the Malakovs' main "clean" front.
She initiated a massive, coordinated sell-off of shares, along with the leak of an anonymous rumor about an "imminent federal investigation.
" The panic sent the stock plummeting 30% before lunch.
Using contacts in Swiss and Cayman Islands banks, we raised red flags on two of the Malakovs' main offshore accounts, freezing millions in liquid assets.
The head of the port union, a chemical supplier, and a local politician partnered with the Malakovs received visits from us, and their contracts were suddenly canceled.
I haven't slept since Nyx disappeared. I coordinate operations, messages; I search for clues. The local news with stock quotes and city maps marked with Malakov properties bring me no relief. This is the easy part. Dismembering. Making logical connections.
"The value has plummeted fifteen percent in the last hour," Dmitry says to Svetlana on the phone.
The penthouse of one of our hotels has been transformed into a well-equipped base while the mansion we used with Nyx is being turned inside out.
We've reinforced the security at all our locations and are waiting for a response worthy of the Malakovs— if they can recover from our attacks.
They have to use Nyx at some point. He would be their only ace.
I watch Dmitry report the results to Svetlana. Financial and territorial blows, for entering our territory. He fits in well in this sterile, clean, methodical office. It almost sounds impersonal.
I bring a cigarette to my lips in a failed attempt to calm myself. To stop looking at the windows and remembering that he could be anywhere.
Dmitry hangs up the phone. He pulls a short stack of documents from the corner of the desk. "The first wave of attacks was successful. The Malakovs are trying to move their funds," he says.
I nod. I push myself off the wall and cross the bland rug in the center of the room. I was only here to listen to the update, hoping that, somehow, impersonal financial attacks could give us any hint of where Nyx is.
Millions of dollars in damages, blood from various hierarchical positions, the ashes of their control points, and we still have nothing. No one knows anything, no one says anything relevant.
I need to keep searching.
"Dante," Dmitry calls out before I reach the door. "Wait."
And I know where this is going.
Dmitry always softens his voice before he tries .
I turn around. I don't have the patience to play house right now, not with Nyx loose and away from me out there.
"What Sveta said earlier..." he continues, hesitant, "...about you and the boy. Is it true?"
What she said. Her words flash in my mind. This stopped being about an asset a long time ago.
Dmitry knows something is going on. He knows me, as much as I hate it, but he wasn't as close as Svetlana was at the mansion.
He didn't address Nyx, didn't see him, and spent the same period that Svetlana was yelling at me to stay away from Nyx consuming reports from guards who aren't permitted to mention any of the Volkovs' personal matters.
I prefer it this way. I prefer that Dmitry doesn't know.
A part of me fears he could unravel whatever the fuck exists between me and Nyx, that he could witness the monstrosity that Nyx pulls out of me.
I can handle Svetlana's confusion. But it shames me for my siblings to witness, with clarity, that I use that sick boy as a lightning rod for all the shit I've inherited—that unloading that hatred onto him is the only thing that makes the noise stop.
The impulse. The violence. Even if only for a second.
And that, from somewhere inside me, I like doing it. Unloading . That's the sickest part of it all. Nyx welcomes this despicable monster, and it grows quiet.
Svetlana fears the shadow. I can control that. But Dmitry could understand this disgusting symbiosis. And what a shame that would be.
"Sveta sees what she chooses to see," I say. I seek cover in her stubbornness, which we both know all too well.
"I don't know," he insists. "She works with evidence. She said the boy... lives for you? That sounds... intimate."
It irritates me how calm he always is. Svetlana, at least, would be armed with a passive-aggressiveness that would give me something to aim at.
Dmitry only gives me this: an unperturbed patience.
He fiddles with the contract sheets. Aligns them on the desk. Says, into my silence, "Have you slept? Since the attack."
I clench my jaw. He's cornering me—the lie that dies in my throat gives me away.
"Vinny needed surgery. You broke his wrist in three places," he continues. I clench my fist tighter. "You've always had a firm hand. I respect that. But I saw the reports. I need to know... the size of the risk."
A firm hand . That's what my father used to crush Mikhail Malakov's first attempt to expand to our side of the river, twenty years ago.
A war that lasted two years and filled the East River with their bodies.
Mikhail's sons never forgave. Neither did we.
This isn't a new war. It's just the next chapter of the same carnage.
"What are you implying?" I say through gritted teeth. The threatening tone is automatic, instinctive. Dmitry is unaffected by it.
"Sleep with whoever you want. But I can't quantify this if I don't know what's really happening. Is he a weakness?"
Weakness is an intrusive word in this context. A skinny boy with a death wish—a weakness . It's almost an insult.
"You don't understand," I say, looking away from him. I can feel his eyes on me.
"Try me."
I don't want to say it. I can't even vocalize the effect Nyx has on me.
"Not even I understand it," I say. My voice comes out low, refusing to admit the truth.
He looks at me. And, somehow, this answer, this declared defeat, is enough for him.
"Right," he says and nods. "I can work with that." He looks back down at his papers, as if the matter is closed. "If he's still alive, we'll find him. We always do."
If .
Before I can respond, there's a knock on the door. I tense up, slipping back into a leadership role as Luca's voice sounds out.
"Excuse me."
He opens the door slowly. The only thing that might betray his recent injury is a slightly stiff arm.
"Speak," I say. I take a drag to cleanse myself of this nauseating conversation and Dmitry's all-too-knowing understanding.
"Mrs. Coleman doesn't know anything," he says, bluntly. Sal's wife. "The kids are scared. We're not getting anything from them."
I sigh. Dmitry notices the tension returning to every muscle in my body and hurries to ask before I do, "And Sal?"
"We're turning everything upside down, but we've found nothing. IT also says his online activity is clean."
No lead from the family. No digital trail. Just another dead end.
I slam my fist against the wall. The vibration freezes Luca on alert; I feel Dmitry prepare to stand up.
I'm not one inch closer to finding Nyx.
I look at the screens, at the papers, at the faces of my brother and my soldier, and all I see are dead ends. I can't breathe in here anymore.
"Donya..." Dmitry starts, but I raise a hand to silence him.
Without another word, I leave.