17. Nikolai
NIKOLAI
Yakov and I stalked across the shipping yard toward our dock as large rigs rolled past, rumbling the ground as they hauled containers toward the cranes that would stack them for storage.
The wind whipped off the river making my jacket flap in the breeze and tossing my hair.
With word that Markin's shipment had come in hours ago, I found it strange we hadn't heard a thing from him.
"Still can't believe he's been so quiet, Boss," Yakov grumbled, flicking the ash off his cigarette into the wind away from us before taking a long drag.
"That bothers you?" I asked him, feeling the same as him. It didn’t sit right with me how silent he'd gone, but we had taken out twelve of his men in one strike, while having lost none of ours.
I knew the instant we started fighting back, we'd be winning, but we also had police presence sniffing up our ass now too.
It was impossible to push our product through stores where there were welfare checks every third day.
"He's planning something." Yakov spoke and the smoke from his lungs danced on the wind. "Something bigger… I can feel it."
I didn't disagree. The silence from Markin's camp had been eating at me since the first week passed without incident.
He wasn't the type to absorb a loss and let it sit.
He hit back, always, and the fact that he hadn't made a move yet meant whatever was coming would be bigger than a street-level skirmish over a bodega.
But I knew we'd be prepared for it. We were all healing up now, including my side, which had mostly scabbed over, sans infection. And if we confiscated this shipment, Markin would lose whatever he hoped to push, costing him money too.
Gregg and Vlad were waiting for us near the container yard on the eastern side of the port. They stood talking to the dock foreman, Vander, and when they saw us coming Vlad broke off the conversation and met us halfway.
"What do we know?" I asked, continuing my push toward the containers Gregg was standing by.
"Vander says three containers came through two hours ago on a vessel out of Rotterdam," Vlad said. "The manifest says auto parts, but the weight doesn't match. They're about four hundred kilos heavier than what's listed."
"Where are they now?" My eyes skimmed over the horizon but there were hundreds of containers stacked everywhere, with more being hauled off the boat now. With my men standing guard on every corner, there was no way Markin had been in to retrieve his contraband, and if it was heavier than the manifest, it wasn’t drugs. We were probably looking at guns.
Vlad pointed toward a row of containers stacked two high near the eastern fence. "We pulled them aside before they could get loaded onto trucks. They're over there."
Gregg had already gotten the bolt cutters from the car, and he met us next to the containers where he snapped the seal on the first container. Yakov hauled the door open with a groaning screech that rent the air.
Inside was exactly what the manifest described.
Crates of auto parts, brake rotors and alternators, and catalytic converters packed in foam and shrink wrap.
I climbed in and started pulling crates aside while Yakov and Vlad worked from the other end, checking behind and underneath everything we could move.
And we found nothing.
If Markin was moving product or weapons through these shipments, he had found a way to hide it even from us, and we did it for a living too. I knew all the tricks, and not a single thing sent up a red flag.
We went through the second container the same way.
Gregg and I pulled crates out and stacked them on the ground while Vlad checked the walls and floor for false compartments.
I knocked on every panel looking for hollow spots and ran my hands along the seams where the floor met the walls.
And I even ripped apart the foam packaging, biting off a piece to taste the composite and make sure it hadn't been impregnated into the packaging materials.
And it was clean. Automotive parts and nothing else.
I stood outside the third container with grease on my hands after digging through at least fifty more crates and all I had to show for it was frustration.
"Dead end," Yakov grumbled.
"For now." I wiped my hands on a rag Gregg handed me and tossed it back to him. "But Markin's moving product through this port. Vander confirmed the chatter and I trust his ears more than I trust a clean shipment."
"So what do you want to do?" I turned to face Gregg with a scowl on my face. That was the problem. I had no clue what to do. We couldn’t very well waste the time and manpower, but it wasn't an option to let any single crate come through here if it had more product to make him more money.
More money for Markin meant a better chance to recruit more hands and that meant a bigger army.
"I want every container that comes through this port tracked. Origin, destination, weight discrepancy, who signed for it, which vessel it came from. Everything. Nothing moves without my knowledge."
Vlad scowled at me. "That's a massive job, Boss," he said.
"Then get more eyes. Hire people if you have to. I don't care what it costs. Markin's not gonna run product through my port and I'm not gonna sit here guessing which box it's hiding in."
Gregg stepped in and lowered his voice. "Well, Boss, there's more…" His eyebrows tilted downward as they drew in. "He said he's gonna kill you, and that you're not safe no matter where you are."
I looked at Gregg and then at Yakov who'd gone still beside me. A direct threat wasn't Markin's style. He preferred to let his actions speak, which meant either he was rattled enough to make it personal or he was trying to spook me into making a mistake.
"Good," I said. "Let him come. I'd rather deal with a man charging at me than one hiding in the dark."
I told Vlad to stay at the port and oversee the tracking operation and to call me the second anything looked off. Then Gregg went with him and Yakov and I walked back across the yard to the car.
We pulled out of the port and merged into traffic heading west. Yakov drove and I sat in the passenger seat going through my phone, checking messages from my guys posted on the block we'd reclaimed. For now it appeared that all was still quiet and holding peacefully as repairs finished up.
"You really think Markin's gonna try to kill you?" Yakov asked after a few minutes.
"Markin has wanted me dead since before I took Kira. Any head of any family in this city wants me dead. Nothing's new… Markin's just saying it out loud now instead of pushing in quietly."
"I don't like it, Boss." Yakov and I had been together since we were in diapers probably, and having him around was like having a brother. If I fell, he would rain fire down on my enemies until I was avenged. It was why I slept peacefully at night.
"Neither do I. But we stay the course…" The car bumped over a few potholes as I continued.
"Markin's learning, albeit a bit more slowly than I'd like, but he'll see everything he's doing is futile.
We have enough manpower to destroy him, and he pushed me to the point where I don't even care if the whole city knows. I'm not taking his shit anymore."
Yakov turned onto the avenue that ran along the east side and I was looking out the window as we passed the Tatiana. I was supposed to take Kira to dinner there, and knowing what I knew now, I believed I would've liked it very much.
It made my mind wander to her, sitting in my home wasting away.
For the past almost six weeks now she'd done nothing but wilt like a flower.
Her hasty arguments and vibrant personality was fading down to controlled resistance, and she was losing weight too.
Every time I saw her she looked more fragile and pale, refusing meals, not getting out of bed until noon some days, or so Anya reported.
What she needed was fresh air and maybe an outing to perk her spirits. Kira was a socialite, trained to harness the power of connection at every turn. Locked in my home she was out of her element entirely, and I had just the thing.
"Stop by that florist on Nineteenth please…" I told Yakov, whose eyes flicked at me like I was crazy. But I had a plan formulating in my head that energized me.
"Sending funeral flowers or something?" he asked, turning on the next cross street to move north.
"No, I’m taking my wife some flowers… And I'm going to take her to dinner tonight to show her off." Yes, that would work perfectly. Kira would get out of the house to lift her spirits and when people saw her on my arm in public it would confirm to every one how very real our wedding was.
Markin would be forced to comment, if not to me, then to his allies. The silence would end, and he would come crawling out of the woodwork like the cockroach he was so I could step on him and end this once for all.
Then I'd figure out how to handle his beautiful daughter who had become my kryptonite. She might not be fond of the idea of being married to me now, but maybe that would change over time.
Regardless, she was mine, and I wasn't letting her go.