Chapter Twenty-Five - Akim
Why did she have to ask me that question about Mat? Forcing the irritation out, I focus on the meeting ahead. I have to if I’m going to stop Ethan in his tracks. Luka and Boris enter the home office finding their seats.
“Sit. We have a lot to discuss.” This is one of the most important meetings I’ll ever hold, and it’s all to do with the woman occupying my penthouse. A hard pill to swallow, but I can’t lie to myself any longer. She’s the one and has always been ever since she disrupted my world.
“Yes. We do. Do you think Veer should be here? He’s our eyes and ears on the ground,” Boris deliberates as I nod.
“That’s not a problem if he isn’t here. I can get him on speaker phone. Let me call him,” I say, dialing Veer into the conversation. “Good morning. We need you to join us for a meeting. Are you in a place where you can talk?” I ask him, careful about wanting to keep the phone lines clear. The Bratva are in a compromised position, and I’ve already had numerous conversations with the Pakhan and his advisors, convincing them I have everything in hand.
“Fine, fine, I’m in my kitchen eating breakfast. Go ahead. Is this about Ethan?” Veer quizzes.
“Yes. Any more hits on the clubs?”
“No. Ryurik and I have been working on that. We’ve put that to rest, and the increase in security personnel seems to have done the trick.”
“Good. Good,” I reply in relief, but for the first time in my life, I’m scared. Scared to lose Kiara as I lost my mother.
“The first thing we have to do is eliminate Ethan quickly before he can get more men on the ground. Discourage him. His confidence would be growing from the fire, and you, Boss, were lucky to make it out alive. It was a reckless move,” Boris scolds. I’m left speechless. He’s right, but if I had to do it all over again, I would rescue Kiara from any burning building. I couldn’t rescue the one woman I loved, but this one, I could.
“You have a weakness, brother. I’ve never seen you so recklessly putting your life on the line. You might as well start training your predecessor at this rate.” Luka chuckles and I take a hard look at him for a long second not caring what he thinks.
“I would have done the same for both of you. Let’s get back to the meeting and work out our next ambush. Boris, I want you to work with Veer and the cyber team to find him. And Luka, we can work on a plan to make Ethan, or any other faction think twice about challenging the Bratva.”
“Excellent plan,” Luka concedes as we get into the nitty-gritty of taking Ethan and the Genoveses down.
Later, in the study, I sit quietly, avoiding Kiara. She wants to talk to me, and I can feel her desperation of trying to break down the wall I’ve built brick by brick to keep her and others out.
I want to… but I’ve been this way for so long, I don’t even know where to begin. I sip the vodka in my hand, a loop replaying in my head of her limp body lying unconscious on the cold floor of Ethan’s warehouse. Seeing her like that tore down the wall, the old, buried feelings finding a way out of the darkness and into the light. The same pain and excruciating grief I experienced when I was wrenched from my mother’s sick bed long ago.
“Mat! No! Let me stay. Please. Please. I don’t want to go! I want to stay with you. Don’t let them take me,” I screamed as my mother made a tough choice. She died from chronic heart disease, and that was a shocking irony in and of itself because all she ever showed me from her heart was nurturing love, support, and protection.
My father’s men stole me from the only woman I’d ever loved, breaking and molding me into the cold, calculating Bratva boss I am today.
Shutting my eyes, I numb out the day’s events. My eyes are tired, but Kiara and my relationship timeline floats in front of my eyes. I smile when I think back to how she hypnotized me, entering Sky Lever—a deadly young woman on a mission in a lavender dress that I couldn’t wait to take off.
At first it was all about claiming her, but now… it’s about finding the right way to show her I’m in love with her. She’s all I’ve ever thought about since…. So many memories already…. Her ingenuity in hacking the Bratva system. Her loyalty and true love for her father. I laugh out loud, thinking about the hot spices in my food, her defiance only making me want her more. She’s the only woman who hasn’t bored me, rather she’s pushed my buttons, hiding my socks so I’m late for work and wearing hoodies because she knows I detest them.
But the truth is, I love them. Only because Kiara wears them. Anybody else. Hell no. But on her, she’s adorable and snuggly, but I can’t tell her now….
Smirking, I swirl my vodka, loving her playful spirit, and it’s the best thing waking up to find her head laying on my chest and smelling her shampoo. In her sleep, she curls into my back unconsciously. God. What you do to me, Kiara. And every time, I find myself cocooning her into my arms, wanting to protect her even more.
She triggers dead parts of me I’ve long forgotten or yet undiscovered, including seething rage—Ethan providing the tipping point. I lost the cloak of composure I worked so hard to maintain when I saw her put his hands on her at the estate. If I wasn’t on estate grounds that night, I would have shot him—that’s how much I care for Kiara.
She stirs every single emotion in me so effortlessly. And every day I’m more enthralled with her, enjoying her quirks, and the life she’s introduced me to. And from the start, when I made the agreement to marry her, it was more than payback. I loved her then, like I love her now. The shock of this realization makes me drain the rest of my vodka and pour another.
Terrified, I stare at the bookcase, willing the unrest to go. Loving her is dangerous, because any woman I’ve ever loved has been taken from me somehow. My brother’s words float in my head.
Weakness. Weakness. Weakness. Kiara is mine, and I can’t afford to be vulnerable, and Ethan’s tapped into my weakness. That’s why I have to take him out as fast as possible. But he has his own weakness—his revenge vendetta because of his lousy brother, Kevin. And when Kiara recovered enough, she confirmed my suspicions.
The harsh ringtone of my cell phone sucks me out of reflection—Veer on the other end of the line. “Veer. Talk to me.”
“I’ve got a location lock on Ethan.”
Sliding up in the leather chair, adrenaline brings me back to an alert state. “Go.”
“He’s in Lake View, holed up in a luxury villa. I’ve got the team on surveillance, and he’s up to something. There’s been cars and trucks coming and going night and day.”
A silent fury builds inside me, but the lessons my late Bratva father taught me are kicking in. “In the face of the enemy, never show defeat. Keep them guessing.”
“Good. More of them to kill in the same spot. Ethan’s making it easy for us,” I reply in an even tone.
“Yeah. I agree. The peak time seems to be in the afternoon. The villa is gated, but the good news is it’s isolated from the rest of the neighborhood. Now, I will warn you, the villa is guarded with more men than the warehouse.”
“I expected that, but Ethan has no idea what he’s in for. I want our best men fully armed, bulletproofed and ready to go by tomorrow afternoon. Does he have any idea we know?”
Veer pauses. “No. But the cyber team has tracked the men coming and going. Most of them are from defunct factions of the past, but Ethan is targeting their offspring, capitalizing on information being passed down from generation to generation.”
Snickering, I nod. “A worthy idea, but dumb on his part. Mobilize. I will text details of when we leave.”
“Done. Talk later.” I hang up from Veer, ringing Luka and Boris and relaying the information.
This is not an attack Ethan will expect, and I’ve spent all night mapping out the surrounding geography of the villa. I evacuated the population of the street. The Bratva have the power to do that, and it’s something Ethan could never do.
The street is eerily still, but the promise of bloodshed hangs in its place.
“Alright. Boris and Luka, you’re my covers. Veer, take half your men out at the back door. All of them are complacent. Kill them. Distribute three each on the sides of the villa, once you knock them off, meet in the middle. If you get to Ethan before me, don’t kill him. He’s for me, and me only. Understood?”
A series of balaclaved men nod as we stand in the long grass, no less than half a mile from the Tuscan style villa. The sun is hiding behind the Chicago clouds on one side, and on the other full thick clouds spell rain. Either way, it’s a win-win for the Bratva. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a raid, but I’m ready, and have studied it from every possible angle.
I could have called in Ryurik’s help as a sharpshooter, but this is my own battle to win. I look through the binoculars from behind the trees keeping us camouflaged. Ethan is standing on the balcony, yelling into his cell phone. Trouble in paradise, bitch?
“We do this for the brotherhood. Once we move, there’s every chance Ethan’s going to see us, throw the tear gas over the gate as soon as you can, and shoot. Don’t hesitate otherwise you die. Let’s go.” I give my brother’s one last pep talk as we run at the gate, a unified front. Ethan and his faction don’t move fast enough, but we do, the tear gas smoking them out, and my men knocking them down like ten pin bowling balls one by one. By the time Ethan and his crew find their footing, it’s reactionary. Kicking down the door, I pick off two men with their weapons laying on the table while they cut up drugs.
A couple of my men are shot as I run upstairs to take out Ethan. “Ah, fucker. I knew you would come.” He holds a gun in his hand, the heat under the balaclava causing me to sweat as I creep forward like a cat.
“Ethan. The game is up. Fight me like a man. It’s only you and me,” I tell him, ripping off me cover so he can see me.
“Like a man, huh? How’s my girl? Pretty little Kiara isn’t so pretty now is she?” he spits back, taunting me, but I’m not falling for it this time. My eyes drill into him as I walk forward, and he waves his gun erratically.
I grin. “You made one lethal mistake Ethan. You thought you could take what’s mine and live to tell the tale.” I’m one lunge away, and I take it, raising my elbow, knocking the gun out of his grasp. It falls to the floor, and I kick it over the balcony, gritting my teeth, the rage of a violent storm ripping through me. “What are you going to do now?”
Ethan swings first, a whoosh of air breezing past my face as I dip my head right, avoiding his jab. I respond in kind with a nasty jab to his nose, his face gushing with blood. I don’t wait, stepping on the inside of his body and punishing him with a heavy gut punch.
“You prick!” he whooshes out fighting back, kicking my knee in from the front. Unexpectedly, I tumble back—stumbling, giving him an opportunity to land two fresh jabs to my face. The sting hurts, but I’m amped up on adrenaline and still have a loaded gun. “What did you say about living to tell the tale?”
As I reach for my gun, a gunshot from below the balcony skitters past my head. Distracted by it, I lose focus for a mere second. Ethan dramatically kicks the gun out of my hand, skidding to pick it up. Waving it in my face. “I’ve dreamed of this fucking day. You killed Kevin and I plan to destroy everything you hold dear.”
Panting, I taste the metallic of blood, as an image of Kiara floats past my face, her honey-caramel hair and soft giggle reminding me what to fight for. Stomping on Ethan’s hand, I kick him in the teeth, and he flies back. Wincing in pain, I crouch down, scooping up the gun, shooting him twice. Once in the leg.
“You shot me!” he crows in disbelief. I shoot him the stomach, letting him bleed out so he can feel the pain chamber he put me in. Blood gurgles from his mouth as he wheezes, his eyes rolling back in his head. Good riddance. He sneers as I wheeze, coughing—residual left-over inhalation issues from the warehouse fire. “You will never have peace as long as you’re a part of the Bratva.”
Standing over him, I frown, his last words unsettling me, but giving me enough strength to realize I must protect Kiara at all costs. She’s everything to me.