Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
KIRILL
I pull open the rear door and slide into the backseat of the armed Land Rover parked deep in the shadows behind Apollon. Matvey’s behind the wheel, Dem riding shotgun. From here we have a clear view of the exit Elio will use to get to his Maserati.
“Look who decided to show up.” Matvey turns, giving me a shit-eating grin. “We were about to send out a search party.”
“Traffic sucks in this city,” I drawl. “You know how it goes.”
“Traffic my ass.” Matvey snorts. “You ride a Ducati.”
Dem glances at the backseat. “Word is you were doing a very thorough employee interview with a certain smoke show you hired.”
This was inevitable. The second I called Evelina upstairs, I knew they’d needle me about it.
“Good to know Oksana reports to you. And for the record, fuck off, both of you. We have bigger worries right now.”
Matvey raises his eyebrows, enjoying himself. “Must have been some audition. Never seen you personally vet talent before.”
“I gave her a job as a server. She needed work. End of story.”
Dem’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wasn’t she applying to be a stripper? That was the whole point of her grabbing you by the dick and dragging you upstairs.”
“She wasn’t good enough to dance.” Lie. She could’ve set that stage on fire. “She can serve drinks or find work somewhere else. Makes no difference to me.”
Except it does make a difference. The thought of her stripping for other men, grinding on their laps the way she did on mine, makes something territorial and violent twist in my gut.
“You’re full of shit,” Dem says flatly. “You don’t hire out of charity.”
“Can we focus on why we’re here, or are you two planning to spend the rest of the night busting my balls?”
I crack my neck, irritation coursing through me. As much as I want to deny it, they know this isn’t normal behavior for me. Evelina has gotten under my skin, and they can smell it like blood in the water.
“How much longer is this mudak going to be?” Dem flicks open a switchblade and starts cleaning under his nails. “We should walk into his club and drag him out by his throat.”
“No. This is better,” I point out. “We catch him alone, away from his crew. We can use the element of surprise.”
Elio Valenti thinks he’s untouchable. Tonight we’re going to teach him otherwise.
“Eyes up,” Dem says, straightening in his seat.
The rear door of Apollon swings open and Elio steps into the alley. He’s tall, built like he spends serious time in the gym. Dark hair swept back, stubble shadowing his jaw, black ink crawling up his throat and disappearing under his collar.
Two women hang off him. A brunette in a dress barely holding itself together, and a blonde on his other side.
“About fucking time,” Matvey mutters.
“He’s mine,” I warn my brothers. “Don’t step in unless there’s a gun to my head.”
With that, I throw open my door, my boots hitting pavement. My brothers fan out behind me, cutting off any escape route.
The women notice us first. The brunette’s giggle cuts off mid-laugh, her face going pale. The blonde freezes, eyes wide.
Elio clocks us and his hand drifts toward his waistband, but I shake my head.
“No need to make a scene. This is a social call, nothing more.”
His gaze shifts to my brothers, then back to me. “This doesn’t look like a social call.”
“Elio?” The blonde’s voice shakes.
He doesn’t look at them. His focus stays on me. “Go back inside.”
When they hesitate, Matvey makes a shooing motion and they scramble. Guess we ruined his chances of getting laid tonight. Shame.
Elio shrugs, loosening his shoulders. “So what is this? You here to talk wedding venues? Because I have to tell you, I was thinking Katya and I would go to Vegas. Get it over with quick so we can at least get to the good part. I admit, it’s been a long time since I fucked a virg?—“
I close the distance, swinging at his smug face. He blocks it with his forearm, the impact jarring up to my shoulder, then pivots and drives his fist toward my ribs.
I twist away, his fist cutting through air. “Watch your fucking mouth when you talk about my sister. And for the record, we’d kill you before letting you marry Katya.”
“Touchy.” He ducks under my next swing and comes up with a hook grazing my jaw. “You think I want to marry a virginal bratva princess?”
I feint left, go right, drive a fist into his kidney. He grunts, but doesn’t go down. “You’d be lucky if Katya even looked at you.”
“Yeah, lucky.” He fists my jacket, uses my momentum to slam me into the brick wall. Stars burst across my vision. “Being chained to your psychotic family. Real fucking lucky.”
I bring my knee up hard. He doubles over enough for me to break free, shove him back.
“You’re not welcome in my psychotic family.”
He circles me, hands up, trying to read my next move. He won’t be able to. We’re both trained in Krav Maga and Sambo, courtesy of Saint Augustine’s mandatory combat training. We’re equally matched, which means this is going to get bloody.
“Funny, because your father seems to think otherwise.”
Matvey leans against the car with his arms crossed, watching like he’s waiting on his order at a drive-through. Dem’s smoking. Neither of them looks remotely concerned.
“I’d sooner bleed out in this alley than let a piece of shit like you anywhere near my sister.” I throw a combination but he’s fast, blocking most of it and absorbing the rest on his shoulder instead of his face. “A man who killed his pregnant girlfriend.”
He doesn’t like that. Elio moves so fast Dem and Matvey’s shouts of warning come a beat too late.
The hit catches me full in the chest, drives me back into the dumpster with a crash. My head bounces off metal and everything whites out for a second.
“Say that again,” he snarls. “I fucking dare you.”
I don’t give him the satisfaction. I slam my forehead into his nose. Cartilage crunches and blood pours down his face.
We go down together, rolling in garbage and filth, trading vicious hits. He gets his hands around my throat. I drive my elbow into his temple until his grip breaks.
I reach for my blade but Elio’s already moving, going for his ankle. When his hand comes up, he’s pressing a Glock against my temple.
We freeze. My knife’s at his throat. His gun’s at my head. Neither of us moves.
“Well,” Elio says, breathing hard. “This is cozy.”
“You going to pull that trigger?”
“You going to use that blade?”
We both know the answer. Our families have a truce, however tenuous. Killing each other would start a war neither side can afford right now.
I lower the knife. He lowers the gun.
“Don’t believe everything you fucking hear, asshole.” His voice roughens, and for a second something raw flashes across his features. “I didn’t kill Mara.”
His words give me pause.
I spit blood onto the pavement. “I don’t care what you did or didn’t do. You say you don’t want to marry my sister, then help us take down the Ghost.”
Elio’s chest heaves, sweat cutting through the blood on his jaw. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I made a deal with my father. If I kill the Ghost in twenty days, he’ll call off the engagement.”
Elio laughs. “And how the fuck do we do that?”
I push upright, wincing at the pain in my ribs. “We combine our men, share what we know, set a trap. Between us, we can gut this motherfucker.”
“Right. The Russians and Italians join hands and sing Kumbaya? Our families have been at each other’s throats for years.”
“Which is why we’re not telling our fathers shit. We have soldiers loyal to us, who understand we’re the future, and if they want to stick around long enough, they’ll follow our orders.”
My father’s in Russia right now and Elio’s old man is in Italy, busy turning his two youngest into made men. Point is, we run the show on the ground.
“We take care of the Ghost, and when it’s all over, we go back to our own corners of the city and pretend this never happened.”
Elio’s mouth tightens and his gaze slides from me to Matvey and Dem. “And I’m supposed to trust you assholes?”
I give him a sour look. “Do you have a choice?”
Elio and I get to our feet, both moving like old men.
Elio spits, but he’s not throwing any more punches. I have his attention. “Fine, I’m listening. What’s your big plan?”
“We have a heroin shipment arriving by ship this Friday. It’s already paid for, en route from Afghanistan.
We’d planned to reroute it up to Canada and warehouse it until shit settles here, but I have a new plan.
We unload the dope at our docks here and wait for the Ghost to hit.
Except this time when they do, we ambush them with soldiers from both of our families. ” I finish.
Dem grinds his cigarette under his boot. “Best case scenario, we capture their soldiers, interrogate them, find out who’s running the show.”
Elio scoffs. “Ambitious, don’t you think? Considering how hard the Ghost has kicked your ass.”
“All of our asses,” Matvey points out. “They hit your warehouse last week, didn’t they? We’ve learned from our mistakes.”
Elio crosses his arms, jaw working as he thinks it through. “How much manpower are we talking?”
“Twenty-five soldiers from us, twenty-five from you,” I say.
“I don’t want to lead my men to their deaths.”
“You think I do?” I bristle. “We plan this together and keep the details locked down. Only the people in this alley know the full plan until the day of the attack. Our men get their orders an hour before they’re in position. The Ghost won’t see us coming.”
Elio stares at the pavement, his jaw tight as he weighs the odds, before giving a stiff nod. “Ground rules: we share intelligence. No holding back. If you learn something, I learn it. Vice versa. When we find the Ghost, we deal with them together. This is a joint operation.”
“Fine.” I extend my hand. Elio stares at it a long time before he clasps it.
This is a bad idea. Trusting Elio Valenti is like trusting a snake not to strike. But we’re out of options and out of time.
“We just have to play nice for a little while,” I say.
“Until the end of the month,” he agrees.
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Can’t wait,” Elio drawls, wiping blood from his nose.