Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
ARTEM
"W hat happened?" I asked, cold and direct as I stormed into Gregor's home office.
Kostya and Pavel were already there, faces tense and arms crossed, staring down at Mikhail and Damien. They looked as pissed off as I felt.
Gregor himself sat in a large wingback leather chair, staring into the fireplace. The red and orange flames cast eerie shadows over his face that were probably very useful when he was trying to intimidate a rival, or even a subordinate who fucked up.
I wasn't a rival; I was family.
My father taught me the same dramatic methods. I also wasn't the one who fucked up, so his little intimidation tricks were fucking useless.
"Solovyov," Gregor answered, his focus staying on the dancing flames in front of him.
"I know Solovyov." I rolled my eyes, not giving a fuck about the sign of disrespect. If there were more than just family here, it would have been different... probably. "What did that motherfucker do now?"
Different ideas and scenarios all flowed through my head. Did he turn someone important to his side? Did he actually kill a congressman or a senator, ruining some lucrative government contract?
Clearly whatever he was up to had made an impact, but I needed to know what the fuck that impact was before I could deal with it. It must have been dire to call me away from Viktoria. I had given strict orders not to be disturbed all night. If the evening had gone to plan, I would've been balls deep in my little princess when the phone rang for this urgent meeting.
The night may not have gone as planned, but Gregor didn't need to know that. Neither did my brothers.
Everyone was silent for another moment, the tension growing thick. Which meant it was bad enough that the others felt it was up to Gregor to tell me, and he was pausing for dramatic flair.
Jesus, next he'd be playing Russian roulette with an unloaded gun again.
"What was so important I had to drop everything?" I said. What little patience I had evaporated.
"He hired a team that we had a contract with."
"Okay..." I said, not understanding why that was so shocking I had to race over here.
We rarely used independent contractors, preferring to keep most business within the family. Even when we hired them, none of our contractors handled the larger, or important, tasks.
Protecting our women, protecting the estate, even the team that ran the drug shipments and the lawyers that handled our business interests were, if not family, close enough. They were part of our crew. Not independent contractors.
We didn't even hire out for security or chauffeurs. Every man who worked for us was related to us by blood, by marriage, or had been with us for decades. It was how we kept our men so loyal.
Independent contractors just filled in spaces when we needed them to. They were, by definition and design, replaceable.
Then it hit me.
"The guns," I said as the realization sank in.
"The guns," Gregor repeated, getting to his feet and walking toward me in his deceptively calm way.
Once again, he was being dramatic, acting calm and controlled so I wouldn't expect the anger.
"Tell me cousin, exactly how do you intend to fix this?"
"Excuse me?" I stood my ground, refusing to let him intimidate me. "The guns were on you."
"You insisted you be the one to handle Solovyov. Over and over we heard how it was your responsibility because your brother brought him to my side of the ocean."
"Gregor—" I warned as he got closer, his hand lifted like he was going to poke me to punctuate each and every point.
If he so much as thought about touching me, we were going to have a problem. Family or not.
"No," Gregor yelled, getting in my face but putting his hand down. "You made a big show about how your brother brought that monster to my shores, so you were going to handle it. Said over and over it was for the good of the family because he was just going to be a problem back in Moscow, anyway. You made the case over and over for how you were going to deal with it, like we all didn't know that you were trying to make a play for my territory."
"Gregor," I warned again, stepping closer to him.
We were eye to eye, chest to chest. It was a tactic that kept the tension high but stopped it from coming to blows. Neither of us could have thrown an effective punch this close. We would have had to step back and that would have signaled the imminent hit, giving the other person time to block or counter.
He knew exactly what I was doing, and the fire in his eyes, his gritted jaw, told me we were going to have this fight. We were going to have it now.
"You don't get to 'Gregor' me, Artem. You said this was on you, that you were going to handle this. All you've done is cost me millions of dollars. Millions in payoffs and damages when your brother had a shootout in the middle of the Ritz with dozens of witnesses and then took it to the middle of the goddamn New Jersey Turnpike. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get rid of all that footage?"
His voice rose with each accusation, spittle flying from his lips.
"Millions more when this rabid bitch Solovyov tried to off a senator in my pocket and then you let him find out about it."
"I didn't tell?—"
"And yet somehow he still found out." Gregor cut me off, his finger jabbing toward my chest without actually touching me. "And then I had to hire personal security to follow him around twenty-four seven like a goddamn babysitter, so he would still feel comfortable working with me on these deals."
I hadn't known that. Kostya's brief firefight, I did know about, and I reamed him out for it. Not that he cared. The smug bastard looked me dead in the eye and told me Marina was worth every penny.
If he wasn't my brother, I'd have shot him right there.
Both Kostya and I had done the honorable thing and offered to pay Gregor back plus interest. He refused, likely so he could pull this card whenever he felt like he needed the moral high ground.
No one had mentioned that Solovyov's target was aware of the attempted hit. I hadn't leaked it. There was no benefit to it.
Yeah, it would have caused Gregor a headache and some money for security, but so what? I would have gained nothing.
Now, if that bit of information would have resulted in the senator insisting on working only with me in the future, then I would have leaked it, but I wasn't after the DC territory. I had no interest in dealing with the constant changes brought by the never-ending revolving doors of senators and members of congress.
No, I preferred to leave that bullshit to Gregor.
"Are you done?" I asked, as he opened his mouth to go on another rant. This fight was unproductive, and I had better things to spend my time and effort on.
"No, cousin. I'm not."
Gregor's face reddened, a vein throbbing at his temple.
"This shit has gone too far. Solovyov just killed five of my men. Not our men. My men. Then he stole a shipment of guns that was headed to the Colombians. Now not only do we have to hunt down the men who betrayed us, we have to gut them to send a message. Then track down the guns and get them to the Colombians before they come after our families."
"You are forgetting one tiny little thing, cousin." I kept my tone level, showing him exactly how not afraid of him I was.
"What's that?" he sneered, his eyes narrowing to slits.
"My brother didn't lead Solovyov here. It was your weakness that did that. He saw an opportunity and you should be down on your knees thanking Kostya for figuring it out before it was too late. He didn't have to help you. All he had to do was follow the girl. It would have been far easier for him to grab her and just take her back to Russia."
"That is—" he said, but I had no interest in listening to whatever bullshit was going to come out of his mouth next.
At the end of the day, I was right. Solovyov was after Gregor long before Kostya swore a deathbed promise to his first wife.
"What the fuck are you doing working with the Colombians?" I asked, cutting him off.
There was good crazy, the kind that struck fear in the hearts of men and forced their loyalty. Then there was the shit the Los Infieles Colombians did, and that went well past torturing to send a message. It was torture that was so extreme it had to be a sick fetish.
"That's not the point," Gregor hissed through clenched teeth. "I want to know what the fuck you are going to do about it?"
Gregor turned to pace, shooting Damien a loaded look. I took a step back, making sure to be out of his arm's reach in case he took a swing.
Before I could tell him, I was interrupted by the shrill ringing of my phone.
"What?" I answered.
"Boss, we found the guns. Solovyov's men took them and now he is in the process of finalizing a deal with the Colombians to sell them at a lower price."
Fuck.
"Is that it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then stand by." I hung up the phone and looked around the room. Everyone was staring at me, waiting for answers.
"Solovyov is selling our guns to the Colombians. He's trying to isolate us from other families."
"Of course he is," Gregor said before turning to Mikhail. "Get the women to safety. Keep them together. Marina too."
Kostya gave him a nod of appreciation.
"We are going to war. It will be brutal and bloody, but this shit ends now."
If Gregor was finally going to step up, my takeover was going to be a lot more difficult.
"This is still my problem to solve," I argued. "Solovyov will be handled by me."
"Fine," Gregor snapped. "You have twenty-four hours. But until then, I need to make sure the Colombians don't smell blood in the water and come for our women."
Our women. That phrase echoed in my head a few times. I needed to know Viktoria was safe.
While the others organized arrangements and called their wives, I called the security I had on Viktoria. They all reported that no one had come or gone, but I needed to be sure.
I sent Ivan to knock on the door. He texted back minutes later, telling me there was no answer.
Maybe she was asleep, or just didn't answer the door for people she didn't know. If it hadn't been for the worry pulsing through me, I might have been proud.
Instead, I pulled up the app and checked the cameras, which I had my men return to their proper positions while we were at dinner.
I couldn't find her.
I ordered Ivan to break down the door if he had to and find her. Watching the camera feed, I saw him walk into every room, open every closet, and check both bathrooms before he called me back.
"She's gone."