Chapter 2
Kirill
“It is agreed,” I say, casting my eyes across the dining table. “Our organizations work independently. But together. No conflict. Total respect. Together we will create something new. Something better.”
I don’t show any emotion in my face.
My voice is low, calm, and controlled.
I’ve known Viktor for a long time. His ruthlessness as a street soldier transferred into his ascension to pakhan. To be honest, I had often assumed that we would one day be headed for a clash where only one of us would walk away alive.
But now things are different.
The city’s Russian families need to work together if we are to keep the law at bay. Not to mention the rival Italian families or the Mexican cartels that seem intent on sticking their bloodthirsty noses into our business.
“It is agreed,” Viktor applies. “We’re stronger like this. We don’t need to be best friends. We don’t even need to like one another. This is respect. This is a shared goal. And it will work, you have my word on that. But your side must hold true to the pact also. Can you control your father’s men?”
I bristle.
“Do not worry about my men,” I say. “My father is gone now. His soldiers… they answer only to me. No compromise, no hesitation. And if anyone isn’t sure about how I run things, they will find out very quickly that I’m every inch the man my father was, may God rest his soul.”
“Good,” Viktor answers, seemingly reassured. “I think we are done here. The sun will be coming up soon. I have matters to attend to. We will speak again soon, I am sure.”
“Excellent,” I answer.
We both stand and shake one another’s hand.
The respect is there even if the real trust is going to be earned over time.
The truth of the matter is that our families have clashed many times over the years.
In fact, you could probably trace the various conflicts and tensions all the way back to Russia.
But this is the life we lead.
And it is business too.
There is no room for sentiment, old grudges, or ego.
The kinds of pakhans who fall into the trap of ego and emotion are the ones who rarely make it beyond five years before a rival puts a bullet into the back of their head. I am very much aiming to not fall to that fate.
I watch as Viktor and his two guards leave the restaurant. I turn to my two guards and tell them that it’s time for us to leave too.
“Home?” my lead guard asks.
“Gym,” I reply. “It’s too late for sleep now. I’ll catch up on that later.”
“As you wish,” my guard replies.
Together, the three of us exit the restaurant onto the city’s cold streets.
It’s not even dawn yet and everything is quiet.
I actually like this time. My life isn’t a peaceful one.
It never has been. I was born into a criminal legacy, my father being the fourth Antonov to lead the family.
From a very young age I understood what the sound of gunshot meant, the implications that came with it.
Even if I didn’t see a man fall until I was in my teens, I heard bullets fly and men holler in pain.
Fuck.
Sometimes I wonder whether this is the life I would have chosen. But that’s the thing… there never was a choice, not as far as I was concerned. Even my mother made it very clear to me that my destiny would be to one day take over the running of the family business from my father.
And when that day came six months ago, I knew that it was simply the next step in the destiny that had been mapped out for me since the very first day I came into this world.
“Boss… are you coming?” my guard asks, his hand holding the SUV door open as the other guard turns the engine on.
“Yeah, of course,” I answer, my mind back in the real world.
I step into the SUV and lean back in the plush leather seat as we pull away into the night. Viktor will no doubt be thinking on our meeting. And I know that is what I should be doing too. But now that my father is in my head, I find my thoughts are with him.
On the day he died, my father was old. There were murmurings that he had lost his edge, that he wasn’t quite the pakhan he used to be.
I could even see that myself. It was as if something changed in him after my mother died a couple of years earlier.
Yes, my father was still ruthless and more than capable of thinking tactically and seeing all the plays from his rivals.
But there was something missing.
It was as if the hunger to make us the dominant family had gone.
My father’s relentless ambition had given way to a kind of drifting malaise.
Now it all seemed to be about holding position, keeping control of what we had, rather than expanding and truly becoming the number one family in the city and beyond.
And this didn’t go down well with other senior figures in the family.
More than that, it gave a signal to my father’s many enemies elsewhere that he might be a softer target than before. And this is what proved to be his undoing.
All it took was a single gunshot to the chest as my father left his favorite coffee shop and his long reign was all over in a heartbeat.
The fact it happened on his own territory made it even harder to believe.
That the gunman managed to escape undetected will always be a black mark against the family—whoever organized the hit is still out there too, and this is something I won’t rest until I get to the bottom of.
Both my father’s long term guards took bullets too, one of them dying and the other one escaping only by a whisker as the bullet went in one side and out the other without hitting any major organs.
When the call came through to me, I knew it was my time now.
No time to grieve properly. No moment to contemplate whether I wanted to take on my father’s mantle. Not even enough time to say a prayer.
From that moment onward it was all about business.
And as the SUV heads across town to the gym, I know that now I have formally agreed to work alongside Viktor’s family, the real work might just be beginning…
* * *
I don’t like to hit the same gym every day. Call me paranoid, but I feel like the less obvious pattern of movement I have, the less likely I am to fall foul to any schemers who might want to remove a second Antonov pakhan in a short space of time.
Time is also a big thing for me, so I always try to keep my workouts as early as possible.
Or late, depending on your perspective. In fact, it’s not unusual for me to work out at three in the morning.
This drives my security team nuts, but I don’t pay them to question, only to be there as and when I require them.
But I enjoy training.
It’s an hour or hour and a half where I can escape the pressures of leading the family. I don’t think about enemies, plots, or how to keep the increasingly aggressive police clear of our operations.
I even put all thoughts of my father to one side too.
“Okay, time to work…” I mutter to myself as I step out from the locker room and stride over toward the free weights area.
I glance quickly over toward the gym’s entrance and see one guard leaning up against the empty smoothie bar. In his dark t-shirt and matching chinos, he doesn’t exactly look like he’s here to pump iron but trust me when I say I’ve seen some strange gym outfits in my time.
And anyway, it’s not even six in the morning yet, the gym is still quiet. The few souls here are pretty much locked in on their own routine to notice anyone else.
I pick up some dumbbells, choose one of the empty benches and take my seat, ready to work a warm up set. But as I look into the large mirror in front of me, I can’t help but notice a couple of boys working out behind me.
Damn.
They’re both cute.
But him in the lemon yellow t-shirt… he’s… fuck.
I shake my head and break myself out of any horny thoughts that might be developing. I’m here to train, not fuel any ridiculous fantasy that I might actually be able to carve out the time and space in my life for any kind of social life.
As far as boys go, I’m very much not interested.
Ever since assuming the role of pakhan, my mind has been focused on running this family.
I’ve stopped going to clubs, bars, or anywhere that might actually lead me to meeting someone.
And with the added threat on my head now that I’m pakhan, I really can’t imagine any time soon where I would feel even remotely comfortable at the thought of brining someone new into my life.
But as I finish off my warm up set and get up from the bench to choose a heavier dumbbell to work toward my top set, I can’t help but look in the mirror again…
Petit but strong.
Athletic but with softness in the right places.
And cute. Real fucking cute…
“Focus,” I growl, my voice low as I skip the next warm up and pick my top set dumbbells as a means of refocusing my mind.
No matter how sexy that boy is, I don’t have the time to indulge myself in any wishful thinking. Hell no. This is my time to train, work out the stresses of my life, and then get the hell out of here.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t perhaps choose to train here again tomorrow…