5. Laszlo
Bodrov was hosting a private party at his house on the outskirts of Arkham.
The rest of his brigade was cautious of me, and a more relaxed setting was an opportunity to test and see who might be useful. So, despite not being a party person, I drove my Aston Martin down the rainy streets. My wants and desires didn’t matter. They all paled in comparison to what I had to do.
My life had been forfeit since I was thirteen-years-old.
That was the divergent point.
There was the Laszlo Szász of before, and the Laszlo Szász that was created that night.
Once I got out of the psych ward at seventeen, I was single-minded in my mission to avenge Lilien. The trust fund, the material wealth I’d accumulated, the skills in finance and tech that I’d relentlessly improved, were all scaffolding I needed to get to this part.
A year back I’d approached Bodrov about a position in his organization, warming him up to the idea of bringing me in. He told me their money was in good hands but if anything happened to Nikolas, he’d let me know.
I had wondered, at the time, if it was an invitation to get rid of him.
Once I realized Nikolas was fucking up the accounts and making Bodrov look bad to his Avtoritet, I was almost certain of it.
That was why I originally wanted to make a loud announcement with the bombing, but then Belle came into the picture and threatened it all.
In the few days since sitting with her in the club, I looked into her background, given the scarce details she revealed. The debacle with her grandmother and her missing husband was the clue I needed to unravel the threads.
Her grandmother, Lilly, had an obituary in the Arkham Herald from two years ago. It mentioned her daughter Rosie—no partner listed—and granddaughter Evelyn Blake. It was the only proof that my angel even existed.
She had no birth record, no government ID.
She was a ghost.
A ghost that knew about bombs.
A ghost that seeped into my skin, that appeared on the backs of my eyelids when I was trying to sleep. She had become an obsession, and the lack of information about her online or in government records was a grating agitation.
Large trees gathered around the driveway and provided a canopy cover from the relentless rain. I opened the thick, wooden door, and the stench of booze and cigars assaulted me.
Bodrov honed in on me before I could enter.
“Moneyman!” He went to clap me on the back but I side stepped it. My leather jacket was slick from the outside, but he already knew better than to ask me to remove it. A sign of begrudging respect.
He ushered me into a party already well underway. On his arm was a naked woman with dark hair and fake breasts. She looked similar to the one he liked at the Gilt and Gloam, Fiona, but she wasn’t familiar to me.
More strippers danced in the living room where connected men drank and smoked and leered. The music was loud, a jarring boom-boom-boom of some Euro dance shit. It put me on edge, but I forced my body to relax.
They had to believe that I was one of them. I gave Bodrov my best, jovial smile, but it felt strained.
“The moneyman is here!”
A few men in the living room looked me up and down. It was Bodrov’s power that reminded them of their place, and they gave their own strained calls of greeting.
Jimmy was further along than the others in his personal cocktail of drugs and drink.
He tugged a busty brunette towards him. She giggled and danced out of reach, wearing nothing but a tiny g-string and heels.
I couldn’t make a move on him and risk my position, but hatred burned in me just as bright as his red face.
“Go get a drink. Then we talk.”
I wished I could get shitfaced.
Unfortunately, I was a professional. Every motion, every subtle tick of my face, had to be accounted for. They could know nothing about my true purpose here. If they suspected I was going to rob them all blind and kill the upper echelon of the Vasilyev Bratva, death would be a mercy.
I poured vodka on the rocks. Swirled it. Watched the room.
Some women were disoriented, unsteady on their feet as men plied them with drinks that they all readily accepted. It offered them an escape, and I didn’t blame them for wanting one.
Belle—Evelyn—wasn’t at the party. The tracker I’d placed in her purse showed that she was at the Gilt and Gloam. I had to get her out of the city. Out of the state. Away from me.
My money shut her up for now, but I wasn’t na?ve enough to think it was handled.
She was still green to all this, drank nothing harder than prosecco, and had no hospital visits. Her veins were clean, her nose perfect.
If she was around them much longer, that could change. Her tongue might get loose. She might want to impress someone with her knowledge of a potential bomber infiltrating the brigade.
But she had dreams I could finance; her jewellery making. That might be enough. I’d set her up in a little studio far away, let her forget all about me.
The thought of caring for her made my palms sweat.
I gripped the glass tighter. The entire room was drenched in machismo and the looming threat of escalation.
I pulled out a fresh-rolled smoke, lighting it up, feeling it burn my throat.
Jimmy wrestled the brunette into his lap, holding her in place. He tipped a bottle of vodka into her mouth. Most dribbled down the edges of her lips, over her bare torso. She laughed, tight and stringy, and Jimmy licked the liquor off her skin.
My jaw tensed, and I sucked in air, turning away.
I couldn’t throw away my entire mission over anything happening at this party. I couldn’t save every woman and child abused by the Bratva. If I intervened, it’d be another girl, another party, and the brigade wouldn’t trust me. All this would’ve been for nothing.
A man I didn’t recognize was in the corner, jerking himself off.
He didn’t think anyone would notice because he was doing it through his clothing, but when he popped off, the man beside him realized what had happened.
He was on his feet, and there was a sickening crack as his fist connected with the stunned man’s face.
I didn’t see what happened next as Bodrov reappeared, oblivious to the fight. The woman he was with was gone. His pinstripe suit was askew, a button missing from his shirt.
“Good, good! Vodka. A man’s drink. Come, my office is down this way.”
I blew smoke circles down the hall.
He’d done some renovations since he bought the place five years ago. I’d studied the realtor’s photos of the sale, greedy for any detail about these men’s lives before I got involved with them.
The blueprints were saved on my computer.
I had dirt on the entire brigade, but I hungered for more. I wanted to rival the Pakhan in my knowledge about these men’s private affairs.
The office was an odd mix of colours and finishes with no cohesion.
He bought expensive things to showcase his wealth, not his taste.
There was a new hidden exit in the corner.
The bookshelf was out of place, and there were already scuff marks from where it opened on the shabbily installed marble floor.
I sat down on the uncomfortable wooden chair, and Bodrov moved behind the desk. I discretely poured the vodka onto his rug, and when he faced me again, I mimed taking the last sip.
“Some celebration, da? I bet you enjoyed being the man of the hour the other night.”
“I don’t need kudos like that.”
“It does a man good to be around his brothers! Like in the trenches. That’s where real men are made,” Bodrov said without an ounce of irony.
He’d dodged service back in Russia, fled to the west with the aid of his Bratva father.
Yet there he was talking about being in the trenches as if he knew anything about it.
Next, he’d tell me about how he pulled himself up by his bootstraps when his nepotism should’ve landed him in the role of Avtoritet, not a lowly Bratok.
I nodded obediently, forced a smile as best I could. “Very nice place you have here.”
He glanced around, seeing something very different from what I did. He was puffed up with pride, stroking the leather writing surface on his desk. One of his rings was almost swallowed by his flesh, red with the constricted circulation.
“I decorated this room myself. My wife, she does not come here. Some men have man caves. I bought a whole house! That is what this family does for each other.”
I chuckled, leaned back in the chair, and crossed my ankle over my knee.
“You’ll be able to afford an upgrade soon.”
Bodrov’s pinched eyes sparkled. He was a greedy man. Everything else for him was a means to an end, the easiest way to get more.
“Then your plans?”
“Yes. But…”
He leaned in. I had his full attention, and I needed to be precise in how I pitched this to him. My elbows rested on my knees.
“There are limits to my reach. If I can get access to the rest of the organization’s resources, I can make us many times more than what this has produced. We could engineer a big win. These investment opportunities don’t come around often, not with returns like this.”
The Obshchaka was the primary accountant for the Vasilyev Bratva. The man I needed to be working for.
I was going to take them down from the inside, and the most effective way of doing that was by siphoning all their finances from the organization. It was risky, deadly. I would have to outsmart the entire brotherhood to pull it off.
But when I did, they would never recover.
Their power structure would be demolished.
Bodrov’s nails grated against the leather. He gulped down the alcohol. The door rocked in its frame with the beat of the music.
“It is a party. We should talk about happy things.”
“This is a happy thing, Bodrov. But the Obshchaka has connections that I don’t. If I could get higher clearance—”
He held up his hand, shaking his head.
“You are young, impatient!”
I swallowed, sitting back in my chair. It creaked. A knockoff replica of an antique. A cheap one at that. The stupid details were seared into my mind, filed away in my memory. I drank it all in, a welcome distraction from reality.
“You know as well as I do that regulations will come and close this loop on the CullCoin opportunity. I’m not impatient for the sake of myself, but because if we don’t move fast, we will lose our shot,” I pressed.
He knew it to be the truth, and his face constricted as he was forced to swallow that bitter pill.
Why was he dragging his feet on this? The reason I chose Bodrov’s brigade was because he was old school.
He didn’t understand crypto or, fuck, even the internet.
It was supposed to be a fast track to my stars, but I didn’t account for something.
I wasn’t sure what. Was he selfishly keeping me to himself? Afraid the upper brass would take me and all the profits I earned him away?
“You will be vor when and if it is time. Until then… What would it look like, huh? Recommending you when you are still new? I must be able to know you can be trusted.”
I couldn’t be, but he would never know that once I dealt with Evelyn.