Chapter 44 Stan #2
“What?” His smile appeared. Cold and bitter. “She is.”
“What does this have to do with us?” Kitty prompted.
The question had me glancing at her. But she misunderstood why. Her arched brow told me that if I expected her to stay out of this conversation, I had another thing coming. I, on the other hand, focused more on the word ‘us.’
“My position gives me power—”
“New York has no Bratva presence. Just talking to you might be considered an act of malfeasance against my Forgotten Boys allies.” It was my turn to shoot Dmitri a pointed look. He was supposed to be Nikolai Veles’ right-hand man, for fuck’s sake. “So… why would I need your power?”
“Firstly, Ilya is no enemy of Maxim Lyanov or Nikolai Veles,” the younger man clarified. Interesting. “I can have them contact you to confirm this if you need it.”
“The usefulness of a favor never ceases,” Ilya continued like neither of us had spoken.
Seeing as we tended to hand tokens out like candy, I could attest to that.
“What kind of favor would you be offering?”
“My mother… she didn’t want to marry into the Brackton family.
My uncle had her forcibly exiled from Russia when, as a teenager, she fell pregnant with me.
He waited for her to give birth, murdered my father, raised me as his son and heir when he produced daughters, and only one of those made it to adulthood.
” His gaze flickered off Sofia. “He plopped my mother into NYC like she was a piece on a board game.
“Her ‘mission’ was to infiltrate the Brackton family or lose access to me. She had no way of knowing that she exchanged one monster for another, and their son, my half-brother, isn’t much better.
“Graham Sr. dumped Yseult in Shady Pines many times over the years, but when, as a preteen, she became difficult to control, he made her residence permanent. My half-brother did the same thing to our mother.”
“Why?”
“The Valentinis provided him with whores.” My nod was unapologetic. “You weren’t his only provider. His perversions were many and his final gift to her—an illness. It has made her… volatile.”
“He didn’t get an STI from our girls. We insist they use protection and we don’t let them work if they’re sick.”
He shrugged. “A man like that has many sources that feed his addiction.”
“She paid for the kill…,” I remarked, sensing this was the final piece to the puzzle that was Brackton’s murder—one that had evaded us all. “…because the STI was the final straw?”
Taube snorted. “She didn’t pay shit. I did it pro bono once I knew who was behind the request. When I saw it on the ledger, I contacted Stasia and told her I was offended she didn’t come to me first. She might be a nutcase, but she’s a product of her environment and Brackton was grade A cuntwaffle. ”
“Aunt must have been desperate to put it on the ledger,” Sofia whispered.
“With that twatface for a husband and dicknozzle Graham for a son, damn straight she was.” Taube soothed, “Things will be better for her soon, Sony. You’ll see.”
Kitty shook her head. “This is nuts.”
“Our world often is,” Sofia commented with a sorrowful smile.
“How did you know it was Anastasia behind the listing?”
Taube shrugged at my question. “Everyone else who wanted him dead had people to do it for them.”
“So you just reached out and asked if she wanted to murder her husband?!”
“Of course.” A gleam appeared in her eyes. “I’ll do yours for you pro bono too, Kitty, if you want.”
Her snort had me pouting. “I like him—”
“You do now. Talk to me in twenty years and remind me I offered you a discount.”
“Hey! You said you’d do it for free!”
“I am here, you know?”
When she patted my forearm, I heaved a put-upon sigh. “You want your mother out of the institution, Ilya?”
“I want them both out of Shady Pines. I can’t move against Graham Jr. Not in this country. She isn’t even listed on my birth certificate so my rights are few. You can move against my sibling.” He angled his head to the side. “A favor from me might not seem too impressive now, but it will be soon.”
“Why? What’s happening soon?”
“Any sense my uncle had burned away when he lost Sofia. He’s a chronic insomniac and, my second favor… I wish to use your compounds to torment him. As he has made Sofia suffer throughout her childhood. As he has tormented my mother.
“I want him to crave death. Taube told me about C-L-O and I wish to use this to exterminate him from this world. Will you help me do this? Will you earn the loyalty of the next Krestniy Otets?”
“Yes, Ilya’s very ambitious,” Taube joked, but the other man ignored her, just kept his gaze fixed on me.
I pursed my lips, hesitant to involve myself in this situation without conferring with my brother and sister, but Kitty slipped her hand into mine.
“It sounds like a worthy cause to me,” she rasped.
Though the look I shot her was definitely stunned, I shielded it from the rest of the table’s occupants.
Her head tipped forward in the slightest of nods.
I didn’t need her permission. If anything, I needed my siblings’ but…
Fuck, I knew how she abhorred the drugs I’d made. Even as their composition and pharmacologic effects fascinated her. That I had her acceptance in this meant more to me than she could ever know.
I’d already shown her every heinous side to my nature but here she was, loving me anyway, accepting me anyway. All while giving me a path to make a righteous kill that’d take out a cunt like the Krestniy Otets with my creations.
Slowly, I dipped my chin and, formally, declared, “The Valentinis will align themselves with the next Krestniy Otets.”
Ilya’s smile would have creeped out the Joker.
I’d take that as a good sign…