Chapter 18Vasily #2
“May I?” Miguel takes my phone from me, flips through it, scowls, and turns it back to face me. It’s his page in the address book, and there it is, plain as day, blocked.
“Shit, I don’t know how that happened. Gotta be this app. If nothing else, you know Kseniya would slaughter me if I blocked you.”
He nods and fixes it, making a test call and text, and everything works. I make one last promise to both him and Maribel that I will return with Kseniya, and head to the door.
I pause there. I don’t want to lay anything too heavy on him or give him any reason to doubt, but I can’t ignore the fact that I am in Flagstaff.
“Hey, I just found out about Artom yesterday, and I haven’t been able to do anything.
Anything official,” I tell him. “Anything with my will. Kseniya’s officially my next of kin, and I want to take care of her and you and Maribel and any other kids you have, but I need to make sure Artom is taken care of.
Safe. His mom, too. I’m going to be back, but. ..”
“But I know what you’re going to go do,” he finishes. “I’ll take care of them. That’s my promise to you.”
The shop was ransacked in the early morning.
According to the security feed, they arrived on a box truck at 5:37am, too early for most nine-to-five commuters to notice the odd truck and the crew loading it up, too late for the element who actually kept goods at the shop to still be on the streets.
Crime does have hours. Gang members have hours.
Drug addicts have hours. 5:37 is miserable to most people on both sides of the law.
The security feed doesn’t show much. No video evidence of the security guards’ murders, the thefts, or the vandalism.
All five outdoor cameras got tagged the moment the unmarked box truck pulled up with the same spray paint they graffitied the interior with.
They chopped the power lines, took the generator out with the crow bar, smashed most of the interior cameras.
They missed a couple, but those cameras were in odd corners and the men are masked in what footage we get.
But we get five seconds of footage that shows one of the men is wearing a biker cut with its gang affiliation emblazoned all over it. It’s a flaming skull with a mohawk.
“It’s Blazing Hell who’s been causing all the problems?
” I ask, ready to lose my shit. They’ve always straddled the line with us, as likely as not to sidle with the IRA.
When shit went down six years ago in Flagstaff, they played neutral, and I’m sure it was only because they knew the IRA had been obliterated, and they’d be next.
I’ve always questioned my decision to let them go, but I know them.
Personally. My girlfriend throughout high school was the best friend of one of their top members’ daughters. I thought we were good.
“We’ll find out,” Janson says as we load up one of the bulletproof SUVs we stocked up on to move guns around with.
Nothing is getting moved anytime soon. They took everything they could in the seven minutes they were inside the shop, according to a nearby traffic cam.
Four things are needed for a ghost gun: the legal, mass-produced upper construction of the gun, the printer, the file for the printed lower register of the gun, and the filament.
They took all the constructed ghost guns and the pieces still in the manufacturing process as well as the drives that had the files on them.
The computers themselves were all bashed in.
Only the 3D printers remained, graffitied but salvageable.
The guys who work with them are already busy cleaning them off with acetone, a delicate process, but they’ll be back in service soon.
But some of those files are gone forever, just like the prototype I lost in Santa Clarita.
And those guns and components? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in property.
Millions in retail. It’s not even the money I care about.
We distribute to some major channels who don’t like delays or excuses.
The sort of people who shoot first and only negotiate once.
This is going to fuck up everything I’ve done to feed power back into the Bratva, to turn our little outpost of exiles into a powerhouse that’s the envy of every avtoritet, every pakhan in Russia who thought they could ruin the Baranov family.
If I die saving my sister and my family’s honor, it will be a worthwhile death.
It’s mid-afternoon when we drive through the streets of Flagstaff. We have to battle a school pick-up lane. Buses have us stopping at every block. The elderly are already on their way to get their early bird specials at the local diners. For all the world, it looks like a pretty normal day.
We all have our guns out, loaded, and cocked as we cruise by the Blazing Hell’s old clubhouse.
Nothing looks out of the ordinary there either.
According to Vlad, who still spends a lot of time in Flagstaff, the row of bikes lined up out front is about half what he’d expect on his usual nighttime drive-bys.
He thinks that’s about right, that a fair number of the guys have families or day jobs, so what we’re seeing is a headcount of the guys who live there and spend their time on one-percenter activities.
Vlad even identifies a couple of their old ladies outside, unloading a sedan that’s parked around the side of the building, where the cars are hidden.
They’re not looking particularly hidden, though; one of them has about a dozen pastel helium balloons, several of which announce HAPPY BIRTHDAY, tethered to her wrist.
“Anyone thinking we were right about this being an IRA hit?” Janson mutters.
Yeah, the bikers are a low-key pain in the ass, but they’re not stupid or reckless with their old ladies.
I doubt they’d be around to host a birthday party at the clubhouse just hours after they stole millions of dollars of goods from the Bratva.
The other lady has a cake carrier, and through the translucent plastic, I can see princess decorations and the number 15.
It’s been almost twenty years, but I still remember trying to be the tough guy at this clubhouse despite having all of three hairs on my balls.
This was technically enemy territory, but I’d already decided I was going to marry Brooke.
I was breaking bread attending her best friend’s fifteenth birthday party.
When she died, an innocent bystander in the fight the men in her life dragged all their women into, and I first heard the voice of fate telling me I’d die in Flagstaff, I told myself I would never bring another woman into my life.
I told myself that it was so no woman would ever grieve for me the way I grieved for Brooke.
No child would be pulled into this curse that took Kostya’s father, then my father, then my brother .
I was lying to myself. Losing Ana— even if I was the one who ended it— was a stark reminder that I’m the one who can’t handle loss. I’m the weak one.
I can’t lose Kseniya.
I can’t lose Ana.
I can’t lose Artom.
And I can’t sentence him to this fucked up fate. So I’m just going to have to break the cycle.
Which means I flick the safety off on my gun and tuck it back into its holster. I pull my phone out, instead, and warn Dooley, Brooke’s best friend’s father and vested member of Blazing Hell to this day, that we’re about to come in.
He’s not happy. My guys aren’t either, especially Janson.
There’s a lot of bad blood and suspicions surrounding him.
Leaving Flagstaff was as much about saving his life as saving him from the FBI.
I nearly tell him to stay in the car, but I don’t want everyone else making fun of him.
Instead, I guide us into a formation where he’s next to me with Vlad and Kostya flanking us.
One of the gang’s prospects meets us at the door, but once we push our way past him, there’s a wall of beefy, gristled, weathered bikers who look like they beat each other up for fun behind him.
They flash their guns, their knives, their brass knuckles.
Between the filtered light through the warped, nicotine-yellowed windows and cloud of smoke lingering in the air, it’s hard for me to see anything well.
I plant my hands on my hips to show off both my holstered guns while my eyes adjust to the poor lighting.
“Dooley says you come here as a friend,” says Bernie, the leader of the biker gang. He’s the biggest, most gristled, most weathered, and also the most bruised. “And yet you come armed. ”
I brush off the obvious double-standard. “I did not say friend. I said ally. And that remains to be seen.”
The clubhouse has a bar running the entire length of the wall and line of bar stools.
There are pool tables and a foosball table.
A dartboard. An open area that has two lines painted on the floor, explaining why everyone’s all bruised up.
Bare-knuckle fighting, most likely, and right here in the front where any passerby might see them.
But there’s also some basic four-top tables and a long dining table where I imagine everyone can sit together for a family dinner.
It’s already decorated for the birthday girl’s party, those balloons and that cake, streamers and party favors.
The room is clearly a bar, but they’ve cleaned it up as much as they can, and two of the windows are open with giant fans attempting to pull the smoke from the air.
“As you see, this is not a place for you today,” Bernie says gruffly.
I nod. “And we’ll be out of your hair just as soon as we know why one of your men spent their morning murdering my guards and stealing from my warehouse.”
The air goes electric. I smell ozone, and the fact that it’s imagined makes it no less pungent. Some of the bikers are exchanging confused looks, but some are wrapping their hands around their weapons.
Vlad cocks his gun.
Three guns get pointed at us.
I push my palms down in front of my men, but Kostya has his gun out faster than I can stop it, pointing right at Bernie.
Dooley, who I once thought was going to be my surrogate father-in-law, having practically been a father to Brooke, points his gun at me.
I see the look in his eyes.
I wish I could tell him that I’ve always blamed myself for Brooke’s death, and even though I have a wife and a kid now, I never meant to replace her and I’ve never let her go, but this isn’t the time for that conversation.
“Easy,” I hum to my men. “We said we weren’t going to fight.”
Another hammer clicks back. I know it’s Dooley’s, and Bernie doesn’t help anything by saying, “You come into my house and you bring accusations to us, and you think that’s not a fight?”
I feel just like 15-year-old three-ball-haired me as I say, “I don’t think it’s a fight.
.. yet. As long as you cooperate.” We’re outnumbered.
My guys are all great shots. The ghost gun game has us in shooting ranges a lot.
I even have one in my basement. We’re also all in bullet-proof vests.
But that doesn’t protect our brains. This is a major gamble.
Bernie stares me down hard, and there’s some concern that we’re going to stalemate on this. But eventually, Bernie gives in and motions his guys to back down. He gestures to three of his men and my quartet to follow him into a meeting room so the women can go back to setting up the birthday party.
“Now tell me what this is about, and make it fast. Birthday girl’s arriving in half an hour. Sid’s daughter.”
I nod to both Bernie and the man he gestures to. Guy’s not much older than me, looks familiar in a blurry sort of way. Like I’ve done meth with him. He looks clean now, but he wasn’t clean when his daughter was a little girl.
It makes me wonder if he was in his daughter’s life then, if he was struggling to raise a kid while in the throes of addiction or if he was living his life hard until an old fling showed up on his doorstep with a kiddo in tow .
I wonder if he rewrote his life for her, and now she’s a teenager and this is his last chance to hold onto her before he has to let her go.
I tell Bernie what we know. The reports about the resurgence of the IRA, the bombing at our place in Santa Clarita.
Alex’s disappearance. Kseniya’s disappearance.
The ransacking of our shop. He listens through it all, clearly unsure why we think his boys have anything to do with it, but then Janson shows him the image that was lifted from the security camera.
“Well, shit,” Bernie mutters, waving a hand at Dooley.
Who hands him a set of eye glasses.
He studies the image again, holds it up close. Sid takes the phone from him and zooms in. It would all be comical if it wasn’t so grave.
“Who the fuck is that?” he mutters. “Dools, who is this fucker?”
Dooley shakes his head. Same with Sid.
It’s the fourth guy, the prospect, who says, “Look at the badge on the front. I don’t think he’s one of ours.” He reaches out and demonstrates the length of the patch that identifies Bernie as Flagstaff chapter.
Bernie slaps his hand away. Dooley smacks him upside the head.
The initiate isn’t even bothered by it. Frat house hazing, I swear. “San Antonio, I think.”
Sid straightens up at that. “One of their guys vanished. A week ago.”
“Convenient,” Kostya growls.
I glare at him. Not necessary right now. “Is San Antonio thinking a kidnapping or a defection? ”
“We’re about to find out,” Bernie promises me as Dooley and Sid both pull out their phones.
Dooley’s clearly calling San Antonio, but as Sid walks out of the room, I hear him saying, “Hey, babe? Do you think that room at the Olive Garden is still available?”
We all hear his old lady screaming on the other end of line.