Nikolai (Underworld Daddies #4)

Chapter 1

Nikolai

If only life were as simple as chess.

I moved the white knight to f3, then walked around the mahogany table to consider black's response. Eleven PM on a Tuesday, and I was alone in the war room—exactly how I preferred it. The board was Italian marble, each piece hand-carved ebony and ivory. My grandfather Mikhail had given it to me when I won the New York Championship at nineteen. Back when winning felt simple.

The war room sat in the basement of our Brooklyn compound, all exposed brick and recessed lighting. Every angle calculated. Every shadow purposeful. The table was solid mahogany, big enough to seat twelve but usually hosting only me and my brothers. On the wall behind me hung a framed architectural blueprint—the main floor of the compound, every room, every exit, every sightline measured and documented. My design. My precision.

I studied the board. Fischer versus Spassky, 1972, Game Six. The game that broke Spassky's confidence, the one where Fischer's Queen's Gambit Declined evolved into something unprecedented. I wasn't just replaying it. I was improving it. Finding the moves Fischer missed, the lines he should have seen.

My whiskey sat untouched beside the board. Two fingers of Pappy Van Winkle in cut crystal. I'd poured it an hour ago. The ritual mattered more than the drinking.

Black needed to respond to the knight. I circled the table again, my footsteps silent on the concrete floor. From this angle, I could see the mistake coming. Black would castle kingside—the obvious move, the safe move. But obvious and safe weren't always correct.

I made black's move anyway. Castling kingside. Sometimes you had to let the obvious mistake play out to understand why it failed.

Control is everything. My father taught me that before the heart attack killed him three years ago. Before Mikhail had to shoulder the burden again at seventy-eight, when he should have been enjoying retirement. Before the weight of the Besharov bratva fell to me, piece by piece, move by calculated move.

The recessed lights hummed above me. I'd specified the exact color temperature—4000 Kelvin, neutral white, no warmth to soften the edges. I didn’t care if things were attractive. Aesthetic. No. I needed to see clearly. Always clearly.

I moved white's next piece. Pawn to e4.

It looked simple, but it was the breakthrough that transformed a quiet positional game into a stranglehold. It shattered black’s pawn structure, leaving them with weak, hanging pawns in the center. Seventeen moves from now, white would have total dominance. I'd already calculated all of it. Every variation, every desperate attempt by black to break free.

That was the beauty of chess—you could know the ending if you were smart enough to see it coming.

Life should work the same way.

My phone vibrated against the mahogany, face-down. Kostya's ringtone—a double buzz, pause, double buzz. I glanced at it but didn't reach for it. The move wasn't finished yet. I walked around the table one more time, studying the position from black's perspective.

Always finish what you start. Another lesson from my father, delivered over this same board when I was twelve years old. He'd been teaching me the Sicilian Defense. I'd wanted to abandon a losing position, start over with a fresh game. He'd made me play it out to checkmate. Made me feel every consequence of every mistake.

"Life doesn't let you start over, Kolya," he'd said, his voice rough from vodka and cigarettes. "You play the position you're given. You find the best move in a bad situation. You never surrender."

Four months later, he was dead. Heart attack in his study, alone, probably calculating debts and territories the same way I now calculated chess positions. Grandfather found him slumped over his desk, a pen still in his hand.

I picked up my phone. Eleven seventeen PM. Kostya never called this late unless something needed immediate attention. But I made black's next move first—pawn to d5, challenging white's bishop. The wrong move. Black should have developed the knight. But that wasn't what Spassky played, so I followed history's script.

My phone vibrated again. Same pattern. Kostya was persistent.

I completed white's next three moves in quick succession, walking around the table between each one. Development, control of the center, pressure on black's kingside. The game was unfolding exactly as I'd calculated. Fischer's brilliance, refined by my analysis. Perfect.

The whiskey caught the light as I finally sat down. I should drink it. The ritual wasn't complete without the drinking. But my stomach hadn't been right for weeks—stress burning through me like acid, no matter how many times I told myself I had everything under control.

Everything is under control.

I'd been telling myself that since my father died. Since Grandfather pulled me into his study and said, "Six months, Kolya. I'm giving you six months to prove you're ready. Then the families vote, and you become Pakhan."

Six months had become six months more, then another six. Mikhail kept finding reasons to delay. "You're not ready yet," he'd say, even as I handled every crisis, solved every problem, proved myself over and over.

What he meant was: You're not hard enough yet. You still think strategy can replace violence. You still believe in control over chaos.

Maybe he was right.

I reached for the phone, but stopped. One more move. Just one more. White's queen to e2, cementing control over the critical center files. Black's position was deteriorating. In eight moves, it would be hopeless. In seventeen, it would be absolute paralysis.

The phone buzzed a third time. Kostya didn't give up. It was one of his more irritating qualities, paired with his most useful one—absolute loyalty.

I picked up the phone, glancing at the screen. Three missed calls. A text: "I’m coming to the war room. We have a problem."

I set the phone down and looked at the board one final time. White was winning. Black was losing. The outcome was inevitable, assuming both players saw the position clearly.

But that was the flaw in chess, wasn't it? Both players had to be equally matched for the game to matter. Otherwise, you were just executing an algorithm. Playing out a script written seventeen moves ago.

If only life were as easy as chess.

But I was about to learn it wasn't.

Kostya didn't knock. He never did. The steel door swung open hard enough to make the frame shudder, and my middle brother filled the doorway like a natural disaster given human form. Six-five, two-forty, all of it muscle and bad intentions. His boots were loud on the concrete despite his training.

"We've got a problem," he said in Russian. His default when it was just family.

I didn't look up from the chess board. "Define problem."

Kostya's jaw tightened. I could feel his impatience from across the room, radiating off him like heat. He wanted action. He always wanted action. That was why Mikhail made him our enforcer instead of our strategist.

"The Belyaevs—" he started.

"Let me," said a smoother voice from behind him.

Maksim appeared in the doorway, somehow making Kostya's bulk look even larger by contrast. My youngest brother was dressed like he'd just stepped out of a Forbes photoshoot—tailored charcoal suit, cashmere scarf draped casually around his neck. He carried his ever-present tablet in one hand and balanced two paper cups from The Brooklyn Bean Bar in the other.

"Move," Maks said to Kostya in English.

Kostya moved. Not because Maks could make him—that would require a tactical nuclear weapon—but because Maks had coffee and information. In our world, both were currency.

"I brought you the Ethiopian roast you like," Maks said, crossing to the table and setting one cup by my elbow. His movements were precise, economical. He didn't disturb a single chess piece. "And before Kostya makes the situation sound like the apocalypse, it's not."

I finally looked up. Met Kostya's dark eyes first—frustration and barely leashed violence simmering there. Then Maks's lighter brown gaze—amused, calculating, already three steps ahead of wherever Kostya had stopped thinking.

My brothers. Both necessary. Both dangerous in their own ways.

"The Belyaevs are sniffing around our territory in Brighton Beach," Maks continued, setting his own coffee down and pulling up something on his tablet. "Three cars, six men, asking questions at the restaurants on the boardwalk. Dimitri's place, the hookah lounge, Vladimir's jewelry store."

The Belyaevs were a new force in New York. They’d come over from Moscow recently and were making waves. Bad waves.

Kostya crossed his massive arms. "They're testing us."

"Obviously," Maks said.

"We should send a message."

"Obviously," Maks repeated, this time with that edge that meant he was mocking Kostya's bluntness.

I picked up the coffee Maks brought. It smelled delicious.

"Sit," I said.

One word. Quiet. But they both moved immediately. Kostya dropped into the chair nearest the door—his exit training never turned off. Maks took the seat across from me, positioning his tablet so I could see the screen.

The hierarchy was clear. It always had been. Not because I was bigger than Kostya—I wasn't. Not because I was smoother than Maks—I wasn't. But because our grandfather chose me, and in the bratva, the Pakhan's word was law.

Even when that Pakhan was seventy-eight and supposedly retired.

Even when his chosen successor was thirty-three and unproven.

I studied my brothers over the rim of my coffee cup. Kostya was vibrating with barely contained energy, his scarred knuckles drumming an impatient rhythm on the mahogany table. Maks looked relaxed, but his fingers were dancing across his tablet screen, pulling up files, cross-referencing data, doing a billion things at once the way he always did.

They were opposites. That was the point. Grandfather taught me that years ago: "You need both the sword and the pen, Kolya. The man who only has muscle makes stupid mistakes. The man who only has brains can't enforce his decisions. You need both."

So I had both. Kostya was my sword—brutal, efficient, loyal to the point of death. Maks was my pen—intelligent, connected, capable of finding information that didn't want to be found.

And I was supposed to be the balance between them. The strategist who knew when to use force and when to use finesse.

Most days, I wasn't sure I'd figured that out yet.

"Show me," I said to Maks.

He turned the tablet. Surveillance footage from three different locations, all timestamped within the last six hours. The quality was good—Maks had either hacked the businesses' security systems or paid someone for the feeds. Probably both.

A tall man in an expensive black coat moved through each frame. Lean build, sharp features, the kind of face that would be handsome if it wasn't so cold. He spoke to the owners. Smiled. Gestured to the men flanking him. Then left.

"Alexei Belyaev," Maks said. "Nephew of Sergei Belyaev, the Pakhan in Moscow. Arrived in New York six weeks ago. Staying at a warehouse complex in Red Hook. Seventeen known associates, most of them fresh from Russia."

I watched the footage loop. The way Alexei Belyaev moved. The way he smiled. The way his men positioned themselves—not like security, like predators.

"He's shopping," I said.

"Da," Kostya growled. "Shopping for our territory. We should—"

"The Settling is in two days," I interrupted.

Silence. Kostya stopped drumming his knuckles. Maks's fingers paused on his tablet.

"The Settling?" Kostya leaned forward, confusion clear on his brutal face. "What does that have to do with—"

"Everything."

I set down my coffee cup. Looked at both of my brothers. Saw the moment they started to understand.

Maks got there first. He always did. His eyes widened slightly, then a slow smile spread across his face. "You're not going to retaliate."

"No."

"You're going to let them dig their own grave," Maks continued, his voice warming with appreciation.

"Da."

Kostya's confusion shifted to frustration. "We do nothing? That makes us look weak."

"It makes us look controlled," I corrected. "There's a difference."

I stood, walking to the wall where a large map of New York showed our territory in red ink. The Volkov territory in blue. Kozlov in green. Two other families in yellow and purple. And now the Belyaevs, unmarked but encroaching on our red.

"The Settling is neutral ground," I said, more to myself than to them. "Run by the Sidorov family for fifteen years. All five families use it to liquidate assets, settle debts, move contraband without starting wars."

I turned back to my brothers. Kostya was listening now, his tactical mind engaging. Maks was already typing notes, cross-referencing something.

"Violence at The Settling violates the old codes," I continued. "It would unite every family against the violator. The Belyaevs are new. Moscow money trying to make a statement in New York. They don't understand our traditions yet."

Understanding dawned on Kostya's face. "So if they fuck up at The Settling—"

"All five families would have justification to move against them," Maks finished. "And we'd be the reasonable ones. The ones who followed the rules."

I nodded. Returned to my seat. Picked up my coffee again.

"It's a theory," I said. "Based on the assumption that the Belyaevs are as reckless as they seem. That they'll make a mistake when given the opportunity."

"And if they don't?" Kostya asked.

I smiled. It wasn't a warm expression. "Then we have contingency plans. But we let them make the first move. We control the board by controlling our response."

Maks was grinning now. "I love when you get strategic."

I glanced at the board beside me. White dominant, black dying. Control and patience winning over aggression.

"Life is chess," I said quietly. "Calculate every move. Control every piece. Never let emotion cloud strategy."

Kostya snorted. "Until life decides to flip the board."

He wanted blood. He wanted to send a message written in broken bones and burnt property. That was his language—brutal, efficient, immediately comprehensible.

I understood it. Sometimes it was even the right language. But not today.

"They hit three of our protection clients," Maks said, pulling up photos on his tablet. He swiped through them methodically. "Dimitri's restaurant on the boardwalk—they came in during lunch rush, ordered food, complimented the borscht. Then suggested that times were changing and new management might offer better terms."

He swiped again. "The hookah lounge on Brighton Beach Avenue. Same script. Compliments, casual conversation, then the suggestion that the Belyaevs could provide 'more comprehensive protection.'"

Another swipe. "Vladimir's jewelry store. This time they were more direct. Asked how much he was paying us. Offered to match it and provide additional services."

I leaned forward, studying each image. The same tall man in every frame—this Alexei Belyaev. He had an aristocratic face, the kind that suggested old money and expensive education. But his eyes were dead. Shark eyes.

"Additional services," I repeated. "Meaning?"

"They didn't specify," Maks said. "But Vladimir said it sounded like a threat wrapped in business language. He kicked them out. Called Kostya immediately."

Kostya nodded. "I sent two men to watch Vladimir's place. Three more to patrol Brighton Beach. Dmitri and the hookah lounge owner are both asking if they should close until this blows over."

"No," I said immediately. "They stay open. Business as usual."

"Business as usual while the Belyaevs recruit our people?" Kostya's voice rose slightly. Not quite a challenge. Almost.

I looked at him. Just looked. Let the silence stretch until his jaw tightened and he dropped his gaze.

"Our people are loyal because we protect them," I said quietly. "Not because we start wars on their doorsteps. The Belyaevs are testing our response. If we escalate, we prove we're unstable. If we do nothing, we prove we're weak. So we do neither."

"Then what?" Kostya demanded.

I picked up my coffee. It was still hot.

"Like I said—we wait for The Settling."

Maks was grinning now. That sharp fox smile that meant he'd caught up to my thinking. "Let them make that mistake."

"Maks, I want full surveillance on their operations. Every property, every car, every phone call. I want to know what they eat for breakfast, what they dream about at night, which of them has a gambling problem or a mistress or a drug habit."

Maks's fingers were already flying across his tablet. "On it."

"Kostya." I looked at my brother. Saw the resistance there. The violence he wanted to unleash. "Pull our men back from Brighton Beach. All of them."

"What?" The word came out like a growl.

"Pull them back," I repeated. "Make it obvious. Make it look like we're retreating."

"That makes us look weak—"

"It makes us look like we're giving them rope," Maks interrupted, catching on fully now. His grin widened. "They'll see the pullback as fear. They'll get bold. And at The Settling, with all five families watching . . ."

"They'll make their mistake," I finished. "And we'll be the reasonable ones. The ones who showed restraint. Who respected the old codes."

Kostya stood, his chair scraping against concrete. He paced to the wall and back, working through it. I could see his tactical mind engaging, setting aside the emotion, looking at the strategy.

I walked to the map, trailing my fingers along the red lines that marked our territory. Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, parts of Coney Island. Russian Brooklyn. Our home for thirty years, carved out by my grandfather's generation and defended by my father's.

Now it was mine to protect.

"The Belyaevs are here," I said, tapping the unmarked area in Red Hook. "Warehouse district, near the ports. Strategic position for import-export operations. They're smart enough to know that controlling shipping means controlling supply chains."

Kostya joined me at the map, his bulk casting a shadow across Brooklyn. "They chose well."

"They did," I agreed. "But location isn't everything. They're isolated. No allies. No established relationships with the other families. They're trying to buy their way in through aggression, which means—"

"They're desperate," Maks finished from his seat. "Organizations that expand this aggressively are usually compensating for weakness somewhere else."

I nodded. "Exactly. Either their Moscow operations are failing and they need New York to succeed, or they're running from something. Either way, they're vulnerable."

I traced the route from Red Hook to Brighton Beach. "They're pushing into our territory because we're the closest. And because . . ." I paused, choosing my words carefully. "Because the other families see us as transitioning to legitimacy. Less violent. More business-focused."

"They think we're weak," Kostya said flatly.

"They think we're changing," I corrected. "Which to men like the Belyaevs means the same thing. They don't understand that strength isn't just about who can hit hardest. It's about who can survive longest."

I turned back to my brothers. "Maks, I want surveillance on every Belyaev property. The warehouse, the office building they're using as a front, any apartments or safe houses. Phone intercepts if you can manage it. I want to know their structure—who answers to whom, who makes decisions, where the weak points are."

"I'll need to bring in the Volkov's tech guy," Maks said, already typing notes. "Our systems are good but theirs are better. Ivan Volkov has toys I've been dying to play with."

"Then coordinate with him," I said. "Ivan's reasonable. He'll see the benefit of knowing what the Belyaevs are doing."

"And if the Volkovs want something in return?" Maks asked.

"Then we negotiate. But the information benefits everyone. All five families need to know what we're dealing with." I paused. "I want the preliminary reports on Belyaev movements by tomorrow morning. Anything unusual, any deviation from their pattern, I want to know immediately."

"You'll have it," Maks promised. "Though I should warn you—if they're smart enough to choose Red Hook, they're probably smart enough to run counter-surveillance. This might get expensive."

"How expensive?"

He calculated for a moment. "Fifty thousand for comprehensive coverage. More if we need specialized equipment."

I didn't hesitate. "Do it."

"Confident in your strategy," Maks observed.

"Confident in my information gathering," I corrected. "Strategy is only as good as the intelligence behind it. You taught me that."

Maks looked pleased. He'd been running intelligence operations since he was twenty-two, back when I was still finishing my degree and pretending I might have a life outside the bratva. He'd built our entire surveillance network from scratch, using a combination of hacking skills, bribery, and sheer charm.

"Both of you will attend The Settling," I continued. "Kostya, you're visible security. Maks, you're there to observe and document. I want to know who shows up, who talks to whom, what the other families are thinking."

"And you?" Kostya asked.

"I'm there to look controlled and reasonable," I said. "To show the other families that the Besharovs are stable, strategic, and not interested in starting wars. To be everything the Belyaevs aren't."

Silence settled over the war room. My brothers looked at each other, some unspoken communication passing between them. Then they both nodded.

"It's a good plan, Kolya," Maks said quietly. Using my childhood name. The one only family used.

"It's a risky plan," Kostya corrected. "But good."

Something warm moved through my chest. Pride, maybe. Or relief that they trusted me despite the risk. Despite the fact that I was asking them to do the opposite of what their instincts demanded.

"Thank you," I said. Meaning more than just the agreement.

They understood. They always did.

Kostya stood first, his chair scraping loudly. "I'll start pulling the men back at dawn. And I'll call the owners tonight. Make sure they know we haven't forgotten them."

"Good."

Maks collected his tablet and his coffee. "I'll coordinate with Ivan Volkov first thing tomorrow. And I'll start running preliminary searches tonight—property records, shipping manifests, anything public that might tell us more about their operation."

"Don't stay up all night," I said, though I knew he would anyway. Maks ran on coffee and information. Sleep was optional.

He grinned. "Pot, kettle, Kolya."

Fair point.

They moved toward the door together. Kostya paused, looking back. "You sure about this? About waiting?"

I met his eyes. "No. But I'm sure that acting rashly would be worse. We have one chance to handle this correctly. If we escalate and we're wrong, we start a war we might not win. If we wait and we're wrong, we've only lost time."

"And if the Belyaevs hurt someone while we're waiting?"

The question hit harder than he probably intended. That was the calculation I'd been running since he walked through the door. How many moves ahead could I see versus how much damage could happen in the meantime?

"Then we respond with everything we have," I said quietly. "But we respond with justification. With the backing of the other families. Not as aggressors, but as defenders."

Kostya nodded slowly. "Good enough."

They left together, Maks's polished shoes clicking softly, Kostya's boots heavy and deliberate. The steel door closed behind them with a solid thunk, and I was alone again.

With the meeting done, I returned to my seat, studying the board with fresh eyes. Fischer versus Spassky, improved. White was seventeen moves from victory.

Now I finished it.

I walked around the table, playing both sides faster now. Black’s rooks shuffled aimlessly, having no good squares. White’s bishop sliced through the queenside.

Every one of black’s responses was forced. Desperate. The noose tightening with each push of a pawn.

Seventeen moves later, exactly as I'd calculated, black was in zugzwang—a position where any move they made would lead to immediate disaster.

I sat back, looking at the completed game. In 1972, Spassky had resigned right here. He hadn't waited for the checkmate; he’d known when he was completely, utterly mastered.

Beautiful. Precise. Controlled.

I’d said life was chess but it wasn’t true. Chess was so much more simple.

My whiskey sat where I'd left it an hour ago. Two fingers of Pappy Van Winkle, probably warm by now. I picked it up anyway. Took a small sip. It was warm, the caramel notes turned cloying, but I drank it. Completing the ritual.

My stomach immediately protested. The burning sensation that had been my constant companion for weeks flared sharp and acidic. I set down the glass and pressed my palm against my abdomen, breathing carefully.

Stress. That's what the doctor I'd seen three weeks ago said. "You're thirty-three and your body is reacting like you're sixty. Reduce stress, improve sleep, watch your diet."

Helpful. Really helpful. I'd reduce stress right after I finished preventing a war, consolidating my position as Pakhan, and managing a bratva organization with dozens of different operations running simultaneously.

My jaw ached. I realized I'd been clenching it again, grinding my teeth the way I did when I was thinking too hard. I rolled my shoulders, trying to release the tension that had taken up permanent residence in my neck.

Four hours of sleep last night. Three the night before.

Control is everything. But control was exhausting.

The photograph on the corner of my desk caught my attention. Face-down, same as always. I'd placed it that way three months ago and hadn't turned it over since.

I didn't reach for it now. Didn't want to see her face looking up at me, young and hopeful and completely unaware of what was coming. Didn't want to remember that some things couldn't be controlled no matter how carefully you planned.

My mother. Katerina. Twenty-four years old in that photograph, pregnant with me, smiling at the camera like her future was bright.

Six years later she'd abandoned us. Run away with a member of a rival bratva. The ultimate betrayal. The wound that never healed, not for my father, not for Mikhail, not for any of us.

Vulnerability equals danger. Emotional connections are weaknesses. Control is the only way to ensure safety.

That's what I learned from her absence. That's what shaped everything I became.

I stared at the face-down photograph. Wondered why I kept it. Wondered why I couldn't quite bring myself to throw it away or turn it over.

My phone buzzed against the mahogany. Once. Pause. Once again.

Grandfather's ring pattern.

I checked the time. Twelve forty-seven AM. My grandfather kept odd hours, always had, but this was unusual even for him.

I picked up the phone. Let it ring twice before answering.

"Dedushka."

"Kolya." His voice was rough, amused, that particular tone that meant he was about to say something cryptic. "Are you ready for what's coming?"

My spine straightened. "What's coming?"

He laughed. Deep, knowing, that sound that used to comfort me as a child and now just made me suspicious.

"You'll see. The Settling will be very interesting this year."

I stood, pacing to the map on the wall. "You know something. What do you know?"

"I know that you're a brilliant strategist. I know that you see patterns others miss. I know that you've planned for every contingency you can imagine."

"But?"

Another laugh. "But life isn't chess, vnuchok. Sometimes the board has pieces you didn't see. Sometimes the game changes while you're playing it."

Frustration coiled in my chest. "If you know something about the Belyaevs—"

"This isn't about the Belyaevs." His voice shifted, became serious. "Not entirely. This is about you, Kolya. About whether you're ready to be Pakhan. Really ready."

"I've proven myself—"

"You've proven you can strategize. You've proven you can lead. But can you adapt? Can you handle the unexpected? Can you protect something you didn't know you needed to protect?"

My hand tightened on the phone. "You orchestrated something."

"I made an arrangement. For the good of the family. For your good, though you won't believe that at first."

"What arrangement?"

"You'll see at The Settling. Trust me, Kolya. Everything I do is for you. For your brothers. For the family."

"Dedushka—"

"Get some sleep. You'll need it."

He hung up.

I stood holding the phone, staring at the dark screen. Mikhail had done something. Arranged something. Set something in motion that I hadn't calculated for, hadn't seen coming.

The perfect strategist, blindsided by his own grandfather.

I wanted to call him back. Demand answers. But that wasn't how Mikhail operated. He planted seeds and watched them grow. He tested people. Pushed them. Forced them to adapt or fail.

I returned to the table. Looked at the chess board where white had achieved perfect checkmate. Looked at the map where five families competed for territory and power.

"Life isn't chess," I murmured to the empty room.

I turned off the lights. Left the chess game on the table—white victorious, black defeated, perfect strategy executed perfectly.

But as I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd just played the wrong game.

And somewhere in the darkness, the real board was being set up.

With pieces I'd never seen.

Including one that would checkmate everything I thought I knew.