Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
KIRILL
The warehouse district is dark when I arrive, nothing but rusted chain-link and abandoned buildings. I park next to Dem's G-Class and head inside.
An hour ago, Dem sent me security footage. One of our guys meeting someone who doesn't belong to any family we know, late at night, in a warehouse we own. The kind of meeting you don't have unless you're selling secrets.
As much as it pained me to end my night with Evelina, I had to. We've come across too many dead ends lately. The dead Ghost soldier’s body held no clues. No fingerprints on file, no dental records, no identifying tattoos. Like he was a real ghost.
At least we caught a break on one thing—one of our hackers discovered the Ghost broke through the encrypted app we used to plan the pier operation.
We've shut it down, switched to burner phones and face-to-face meetings only, but the damage is done. They had access to our communications for weeks.
The smell of blood and piss hits my nose the second I step inside.
Dem’s leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette.
Matvey’s circling the man tied to the chair in the center of the room.
Petr. He coordinates the logistics, tracking every shipment, every warehouse transfer, every goddamn time we move product across the city.
If anyone knows what’s happening in our organization, it’s him.
He’s been with us for eight years, loyal the whole time. Or so I thought.
His face is a mess. Split lip, swollen eye, blood crusted under his nose. Three fingernails gone from his left hand, the stumps still oozing. His right hand hangs at an unnatural angle. Broken in at least two places.
“I see you got the party started without me.” I walk forward, my footsteps echoing off bare concrete. “Did I miss all the fun?”
Dem takes a drag and exhales slowly. “Our friend here has been spinning stories for an hour. Not one of them checks out.”
I stalk closer to Petr, taking my time. His head lolls to the side, but his eyes track me. Good. He’s still conscious.
“We caught him on camera letting someone into the Red Hook warehouse at two in the morning,” Dem continues. “The person kept their face hidden and hood up. They were in and out in three minutes.”
“Plus, his personal phone is locked down like Fort Knox,” Matvey adds. “Now why would he need to be so secretive?”
“Maybe he’s working for the Ghost?” I raise my eyebrows and fix my stare on the man in front of me. “Sound familiar, Petr?”
His head jerks up despite the pain. “Who the fuck is the Ghost? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I exchange a look with my brothers. We haven’t told anyone outside our inner circle about the Ghost. As far as our soldiers know, we’ve had to slow operations because of increased police surveillance and supply chain issues.
Better they think we’re being cautious than admit we’re getting beat by a phantom.
I’m done talking. I walk to the table lined with tools, grab a hammer, and bring it down on his left kneecap. The crack echoes through the room. His scream is loud enough to make my ears ring.
I grab Petr’s hair and wrench him up so he’s looking at me. “Last chance to tell the truth before I use this hammer on your face. Who were you meeting?”
“My cousin, Konstantin.” His voice is wet and broken.
“A family reunion at two in the morning behind a drug warehouse?” I circle behind him. “Do you think we’re idiots?”
“It’s the truth, I swear.” His eyes are wild and desperate. “I’m not working for anyone.”
I pull a knife from the table and test the edge with my thumb. Sharp enough. I press the blade against his throat, just enough pressure to draw a thin line of blood.
“I’m going to count to three. If you’re lying, I start cutting pieces off. Starting with your ears, then your fingers, then your cock. One.”
He spits blood. “We were stealing.”
Matvey steps closer, his shadow falling over Petr. “Stealing what, exactly?”
“Product from the warehouses. Small amounts from different shipments. I cut it with lactose powder, repackage it so the weight stays the same, and Konstantin sells it on the street. We split the profit.”
“Prove it,” I say.
“Test the product,” Petr begs. “You’ll see it’s cut. That proves I’m telling the truth.”
“All that proves is someone’s cutting the supply.” I lower the knife but don’t put it down. “Doesn’t prove you weren’t also selling information.”
“I wasn’t! I swear on my mother’s grave. Give me my phone. I’ll let you look through everything. The only person I ever communicated with was Konstantin. It’s all there. He’s the one who organized the street side.”
Petr’s remaining fingers shake as Matvey unties one wrist and shoves the phone at him.
It takes him three tries to unlock it, blood making everything slippery.
Dem grabs the phone and starts scrolling.
The only sound is Petr’s ragged breathing and the occasional click as Dem navigates through screens.
After what feels like forever, Dem looks up. “Messages are all about cutting the dope, pickup times, street prices. Nothing about our operations. Nothing about shipments or security. Just him and Konstantin running their little side business.”
“This cousin, Konstantin,” I growl. “What does he do?”
“Works for some tech firm. He’s the smart one.” Petr’s voice cracks.
The pieces fit together. He’s a tech guy with access to Petr’s inside knowledge about our operations. What if Konstantin wasn’t just selling drugs on the side? What if he found a more lucrative buyer for the intel his cousin was handing him?
I meet Matvey’s eyes. He’s thinking the same thing.
“Where does Konstantin live?” I ask.
“Brighton Beach.”
“Where, svoloch ? I need an address.”
The light drains from his eyes. He knows how we deal with anyone stupid enough to steal from us. He closes his eyes and whispers his last words.
“Little house on the corner of Brighton Sixth Street and Brightwater Court. Blue shingles, white trim.”
I raise my gun and end his miserable life.
Two days later, my phone buzzes at four in the morning, pulling me from a dead sleep.
I press the phone to my ear and mumble, “What?”
“Konstantin just pulled up,” Matvey says. My brother’s been on watch duty all night, parked outside the house. We’re keeping this tight, only the three of us, to make sure word doesn’t spread. “He stumbled out looking like he’d been on a three-day bender.”
He might have been. We’ve been watching this place for days, and Konstantin hasn’t shown his face once. Like someone warned him to disappear.
I’m already out of bed, pulling on clothes. “Don’t let him leave. We’re on our way.”
By the time Dem and I reach Konstantin’s house, the sky’s lightening with that pale gray before dawn. This stretch of Brighton Beach is dead silent, not even a stray cat moving through the streets.
The house is exactly as Petr described. A small single-story with blue shingles and white trim. Dark windows. A gray Honda sits in the driveway, nothing flashy. Looks like every other house on this block.
“Lights were on when he got home,” Dem says as we crouch in the shadows near the property line. “Went dark about ten minutes ago.”
“Let’s split up.”
I signal my brothers. Matvey circles to the back door, Dem positions himself at the side window, and I take the front. If Konstantin tries to run, one of us will catch him.
I give them thirty seconds to get in position, and then I kick the door in.
The lock splinters, wood cracking as the door slams open. I move inside fast, gun up, sweeping left then right. Living room’s clear. I hug the wall, checking angles, weapon trained on the hallway leading deeper into the house.
I flip the light switch, and nothing happens.
“Power’s cut,” Matvey mutters as he moves past me, sweeping rooms with his gun drawn. “Clear. No one else here.”
Dem clicks on a flashlight. The beam cuts through the darkness, landing on overturned furniture. A laptop smashed on the floor. Papers scattered everywhere.
Then the light finds a body.
“Fuck,” Matvey breathes. “That’s him.”
Konstantin’s sprawled in the center of the room, a single bullet wound in his forehead. His eyes are still open, staring at nothing, and a dark stain has spread beneath his head.
I crouch next to the body. Maybe thirty, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans.
Dem kneels beside the body while I scan the wreckage. The laptop’s destroyed, hard drive ripped out. Phone in Konstantin’s pocket, screen spider-webbed and dark. Whoever was here didn’t want us finding anything.
“Kirill.” Matvey’s voice goes tight. He holds up something that catches the flashlight beam.
A silver coin. Bird of prey on both sides.
I take it from him. The metal is cold against my palm. Hot pressure blooms in my chest, poisoning every breath.
They’re fucking with us. Playing a game where they know all the rules, and we’re just stumbling around in the dark.
“Grab everything,” I say, standing and pocketing the coin. “Every piece of tech, every scrap of paper. We’ll see if our guys can salvage anything from the wreckage.”
Dem collects devices while I take one last look at Konstantin. Another dead end. Another coin. Another message.
“Let’s go,” I say. “We can talk outside.”
The predawn air is damp with salt. I walk toward the beach and my brothers follow. We don’t stop until we’re at the water’s edge, the ocean stretching out black and endless in front of us.
For a long moment, nobody speaks.
“How the fuck did they beat us here to kill him?” Matvey’s the first to break the silence, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
“Petr must have realized we were closing in and tipped him off.” Dem drags a hand across his brow and flicks his cigarette toward the water. “That’s why Konstantin went dark.”
“The Ghost could’ve been monitoring Konstantin’s communications,” I say. “Waiting to see if he’d resurface. The moment he came home, they moved.”
Matvey’s jaw tightens. “Makes sense if he’s working for them and they realized he was compromised.”
“They moved in before us,” Dem finishes. “In the time it took us to get here.”
Motherfucker.
“We can’t keep doing this alone.” I turn to face my brothers. “We need to unite with the other families. If we keep fighting separate wars, we’re all going to lose.”
Matvey drags a hand over his face. “You want to bring Elio back in? After the fuck-up with the heroin drop?”
“I want to bring everyone in. Elio, the Irish, the Triad, whoever else is bleeding from this Ghost. If we keep working in silos, we’re all going to lose.”
This won’t be an easy union. Elio’s still pissed about the pier, and the other families don’t trust us any more than we trust them. But the alternative is worse.
“That’s a big ask.” Dem lights another cigarette, the flame lighting up his face. “These families have been at each other’s throats for decades.”
“And now there’s something worse at all of our throats. They’ll see reason or die stupid. Their choice.”
My mind drifts to Evelina. She has the kind of technical expertise we need to bypass the Ghost’s digital traps and build a security system no one can penetrate.
“First thing,” I say, pushing thoughts of her aside, “we recover what we can from Konstantin’s hardware. Then we start making calls.”
The sun cracks the horizon, spilling pale gold across the water. Another day gone, another coin in my pocket.
I’m running out of time.