Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Severin Volkov
One hour later, the box sat open on the heavy wooden table in my conference room.
I was at the head of the table with my half-brother, Mikhail, across from me.
He was my father’s eldest child—five years older than me—but a bastard, which disqualified him as heir.
Half the men around this table seemed perfectly fine overlooking that fact.
They wanted him to lead the Bratva instead of me.
Maksim Petrov sat on my right and Ilya on my left. Right where they belonged: my right and left-hand men.
Ilya’s father, head of the Bratva intelligence unit, sat next to his son with Nika Morozova on his other side.
The other four brigadiers stretched across the rest of the table. Leon Orlov and Kazimir Kaloshin flanked Mikhail. Roman Balinsky and Grigori Larin sat in the middle—neutral.
Everyone was here. Allies and threats.
All of them waiting to test me.
Let them try.
I welcomed it.
I wasn’t weak like my father. I didn’t have emotional outbursts or make decisions with my dick. Funny, now that he didn’t have one.
It was time to figure out why.
The lights were low in the conference room, setting a somber and domineering tone. All eyes were on me, waiting for me to start the meeting. I tapped my fingers on the table, letting the silence lengthen and grow stifling. “As you can see, my father no longer enjoys his favorite appendage.”
Roman snorted, but the rest of the room remained grim.
“I will not let this stand,” I continued. My focus shifted to the Morozovs, the Bratva’s intelligence arm. “Report.”
“No ransom notes, no demands, and no one is claiming it…” Ilya paused, and his gaze zeroed in on the severed penis in the middle of the table. He coughed. “No one has taken credit for the dismemberment either.”
Dimitri Morozov leaned back in his chair and squeezed his son’s shoulder. “It’s psychological warfare with the hope of destabilizing you. This is a challenge to the Volkov authority in New York.”
Dimitri was a matter-of-fact man when it came to business. He never sugarcoated anything and tended to speak in very direct sentences.
“It has to be those dirty Irish,” Leon Orlov spat out. He’d had a grudge against the Irish ever since an Irish mafia princess refused to marry him or fuck him. I wasn’t sure of the details, but what mattered was that Leon Orlov was a petty little bitch when he felt slighted.
“The Irish have nothing to gain from targeting us. They’ve been trying to broker an alliance with us for over fifteen years.
” Dimitri Morozov sighed. His demeanor was that of a parent trying to explain something obvious to a toddler.
He knew it was useless yet endeavored all the same.
“Which, by the way, given the circumstances, it might be a good time to reopen negotiations with them. They want access to our trade routes, and we could use their protection and networks. Possibly a marriage alliance would do the trick.”
The glare I shot Dimitri could’ve melted metal. Everyone knew I’d never go through with a marriage alliance with anyone.
“The Irish don’t move like this.” I waved off Leon’s concern.
They didn’t need to. The Irish had the best hacker in the world and incredibly loyal men.
Their infrastructure wasn’t as extensive as the Russians’, but they made up for it in profit.
They were useful, wealthy, and connected.
They did not need to dismember my father.
“As far as a marriage alliance goes, keep it on the table, but let’s move our attention to this situation. ”
I left the idea open because I’d never wanted anyone to know the cards I held. Plus, an engagement could be useful, as long as I managed to get rid of the girl before the aisle.
I steepled my hands under my chin. “Is the kidnapping isolated?”
“Most likely not. Over the last five years, Aleksandr grew cagey, and so have half of the boyeviki. He’s been hiding things from us and making it nearly impossible to run intelligence.
” Dimitri Morozov shrugged. “Which, in turn, made it hard to protect him and the organization. However, Malenkov, Kirovsky, Nikitin, Gromov, Zorin, Sokolov, and Karsin have all lost men in the last five years. Simply disappeared.”
“And many of my men from the docks, too,” Kazimir Kaloshin said, the newly appointed brigadier of logistics and supply chain.
“Fifteen men in the last year alone have vanished,” Nika cut in, pushing her glasses up her nose and opening the file in front of her. “Yet no one said a word or raised a concern. That’s strange, so the real question becomes: Are they kidnapped or just running?”
“Running from what?” I sat forward in my seat. “And why is this the first I am hearing of this?”
“Your father knew about the men,” Dimitri said.
“And?”
“He didn’t seem to want to do anything about it.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t matter to him…” Dimitri tapped his fingers on his vodka glass. “They were collateral damage in whatever secret dealings he was up to.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
“He mostly tied my hands. He was the Pakhan and my leader and you know more than anyone, the Pakhan’s word is law—“
“But you’re you…” I raised an unbelieving eyebrow.
His smile sharpened, and he gave a slight nod.
Message received. “I’ve been investigating the disappearances”—and everything else.
His voice lowered, and he looked me in the eye—“and I’ve found bits and pieces, but someone is obscuring the evidence.
Whether it is the kidnapper or someone working with your father.
What I do know is the dates the men have gone missing and the information surrounding their abductions.
All the same pattern. Taken without alarms sounding and all vanishing without a trace, as if they disappeared into thin air. ”
“Or like a ghost took them.” Kaz raised his glass to his lips and took a slow sip as he glowered at me. We’d been rivals and frenemies since we were kids, and it seemed like Kaz would be his equally disrespectful self even now that I was Pakhan. “Same as what happened to your father.”
I shook my head. What the fuck were you hiding, father? He allowed men to vanish without a trace, without reports… it could only mean top-secret, shady dealings. And that was dangerous.
Because while the mafia was dangerous, there were far worse organizations in the world. Ones without codes and without any morals at all.
And it appeared my father was knee-deep in things he shouldn’t be.
“Not to ask the obvious question, but who stands to benefit the most from Aleksandr’s disappearance?” Roman Balinsky shifted his weight in his seat.
I fixed my glower on him. He was generally neutral, but that question was a missile launched directly at me.
Leon let out a low chuckle. “It would be Severin, wouldn’t it?”
The room went silent as my glare landed on Leon first and then Roman. No words were needed. My gaze traced the outlines of their bodies like chalk at a crime scene. My movement was deliberate and slow.
No one moved. The temperature in the room felt like it dropped forty degrees, as if I could control it. I, of course, couldn’t. This was no fairytale.
This was a cold, deadly reality.
I didn’t need to say anything. The silence spoke for itself, but I decided to engage anyway. I dragged my thumb across the rim of my glass without drinking from it, as if dragging a knife along their throats. “Say that again.”
I leaned back in my chair, my gaze landing on every man in the room in turn.
“I hope you did not just accuse me of cutting off my own father’s cock, wrapping it up in a pretty box, and sending it to myself.”
Roman visibly gulped, and Leon lifted his lips into a smile, his hands rising in surrender. “Of course not, Pakhan.”
These men were not nearly afraid enough. Perhaps they needed a reminder. “Severed cocks are not my style.”
I wanted to rule with loyalty. I wanted respect and trust, but if I had to, I would eliminate everyone in my path. I would hunt, torture, and slaughter anyone in my way. I didn’t need to mention what I had done to the Caruso family and how I continued to hunt them for killing Xeniya. They knew.
Everyone knew.
I had a garden full of heads for a reason.
And as they looked at me right now, I could see it in their eyes; they were remembering the horrific things I had done to the Italians. I skinned one alive over three months. I burned another from the inside out. And on and on it went.
Xeniya may have died in an instant, but I made it my job to make every man responsible for the explosion that killed her die as slowly as possible. My current prisoner had been in my basement for the last three weeks, and I liked to take a chunk out of him every night, when possible.
I was patient. I was thorough.
Two traits I shared with this ghost.
“Neither Severin nor I had any motive to kill Aleksandr,” Mikhail said sternly. “Both of us were extremely happy running our sectors and becoming unreasonably wealthy, and neither of us particularly wanted to take over dealing with you all.”
Mikhail Volkov, my ever-loyal brother, leaned back in his chair and adjusted his cufflinks with deliberate precision.
I nodded at him, acknowledging his support. Mikhail was quiet, but when he spoke, everyone listened.
“Are we sure it isn’t the Italians?” Nika cut the tension with the question everyone, including me, was now pondering.
For the most part, the other four Italian families kept out of our feud with the Carusos because they were the rogue sector of the Italian mafia, and besides, my retaliation was merited.
They killed my uncle Viktor Volkov, the second in command of the Bratva, and Xeniya in the explosion at Viktor’s restaurant thirteen years ago.
My retaliation was slow but understandable.
But perhaps the other families were getting fed up with my hunt. Perhaps they were stepping in.
“If it were the Italians, they would have claimed it,” Dimitri said. “I reached out to my contacts, and none of them seemed to think it was them. Not even my connection with the Carusos.”
“Whoever it is, we need war, Severin,” Leon growled. “We must not show weakness. We must attack with the full weight of the Bratva.”
“Which would be nice if we knew who was responsible,” Grigori Larin said. “A ghost is attacking us.”
Aside from the Morozovs, Grigori was my most loyal brigadier. Leon wished Mikhail were in charge, and the rest were opportunists, and the old guard supported whoever had the most power at the moment.
Kazimir Kaloshin let out a sound of agreement.
“The ports are already impacted by this ghost. My men are disappearing monthly. Which, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, causes disrupted routes, compromised deliveries, port delays, shipment risks, and exposure of our movement channels.
” His gaze locked on mine. “You need to get your house in order.”
I gritted my teeth and glowered. Sometimes there was far more power in silence than in any words. But Kazimir continued anyway.
“Or I may begin to question if you’re the right man for the job.”
I raised one eyebrow slowly and laced my words with venom. “Is that a threat?”
Kazimir shrugged. “Merely an observation.” He was the least afraid of me. Kazimir was both the most muscular and the tallest at the table. With sheer brutal force, he could take any of us. But luckily for me, I always outsmarted him, and I had a nice right hook too.
We’d been rivals as children and were rivals now. Frustratingly, Xeniya had always gotten along far too well with him.
She had loved him, and I hated him for it.
If I could get away with killing him, I very well might. But I couldn’t kill my underbosses without a just cause.
Well, I could, if I wanted a future mutiny. But I played long games, and it would be far better for me to win Kazimir over than start internal strife.
Leon leaned forward and slapped his palms on the table hard. “This is why we need war, Severin. We need to strike and strike them hard while we can. We need to rip them limb from limb.”
“Which would be a great idea,” Nika cut in. “If we actually knew what or who we were dealing with. Do you plan to shoot into the dark?”
Leon let out a quiet, humorless breath. “Since when do we take strategy from analysts?” His gaze slid slowly, deliberately, cruelly to Nika. “Or did I miss the part where we started inviting them to the table?”
Leon didn’t just hate that Nika was an analyst; he hated that she was allowed a seat at the table. But truthfully, I would prefer Nika’s counsel to Leon’s anytime and anywhere. Nika was levelheaded, brilliant, and strategic.
Unlike the ancient leaders at the table, I didn’t consider women lesser.
Leon, on the other hand, was a blunt, overused hammer, on its last legs. Unfortunately—mostly for me—Leon had the loyalty of his men, so I had to appear to appease him.
Slowly, I lifted my whiskey to my lips and took a sip. This meeting had nearly exhausted its usefulness, and I was starting to lose patience. I wanted only my inner circle, but politics required everyone.
I turned to Dimitri. “All right, Morozov, dig. I want everything. Tear through my father’s life and anyone else you deem necessary.
” My gaze moved from Dimitri to Nika. “And Morozova, look into these disappearances. Find patterns and see if you can predict who might be next. So, as Leon so aptly put it, we can go to war.”
With that, I planted my hands on the wooden table, stood up, and strode out of the room. They’d follow.