Chapter 11 - Yakov
She tells me to call Simon, and the look in her eyes makes it clear this isn’t a suggestion. I make the call five minutes after she’s left the room. He picks up on the second ring. He was probably waiting by the phone, knowing full well the influence she now holds over me.
“Yakov,” he barks.
“Simon.”
“I need you to explain to me, clearly and without any bullshit, what your actual plan is.”
“I need two weeks.”
“For what?”
“I’m compiling a complete map of my father’s operations.
His eastern and western contacts. He started using the moment your alliance with the Nikolais made him nervous enough to start hiding things properly.
Every single corrupt official he has on his payroll across three different jurisdictions.
I’m not talking about a conversation, Simon.
All together this is a package. A weapon that can actually be used to destroy him. ”
A heavy silence stretches across the line.
I know exactly what he’s doing on the other end—he’s trying to work out if I’m bullshitting him, if the data I’m promising is real, or if this is a desperate play to buy time with his sister.
Simon Volkov doesn’t take anything at face value, nor does he fly off at the deep end, which is exactly why he’s the brother I’m talking to.
“What makes you think we’d be interested?” he asks, his tone dropping an octave.
“Because we’re on the same side. I hate the fucker as much as you do, more in fact, for what he’s done.
And I have access to the stuff that exposes how a man who calls himself The Ghost has been running his syndicate in plain sight.
Names, dates, financial trails. The kind you take to a judge if you want to dismantle his empire legally, or you keep in your back pocket as permanent insurance if you don’t.
Either way, you get options you don’t have right now. ”
“And you can have this ready in two weeks?”
“I’ve been building the file for years, Simon.
I need two weeks to compile and verify the latest data.
” I don’t give him a chance to get a word in before I lay the rest of it on the table.
“I’ve been running my own supply chain for years, which he knows nothing about.
My own contacts, routes and products. Something the alliance may find handy if this turns into a bigger fight than it already is.
I don’t need you to trust me because Slelne vouches for me.
I’m asking you to look at what I can provide and decide it’s worth giving us a little more time. ”
“What kind of product?”
“The kind that’ll win you a war.”
“Yakov.” Simon’s voice is laced with warning. “Keeping my sister holed up in a safe house is not a solution.”
“I know that.”
“She needs to come home. And you’re going to come with her. You’re going to stand in a room with us and make your case to our faces. No more relying on Selene. You, me, Matvei, and whoever else he decides.”
“Agreed.”
I hear the shift of his breath as he makes his decision. “Two weeks,” he says finally. “Not a single day more. After that, I come and drag her back myself, and you and I have a very different kind of conversation. There won’t be a lot of words.”
“Understood.”
The line goes dead. I lower the phone and sit in the silence of the kitchen, running the logistics through my head.
Two weeks. It’s tight as hell, but doable.
I’ll have to squeeze the contacts I’ve been hesitant to trigger, but I’ve a decent stockpile of weapons to one side that I can offer instant access to.
My old man has absolutely no idea how much of his infrastructure I’ve mapped out, which is an advantage.
I have to bleed him. One wrong move and he’ll start burning his own tracks.
He’s meticulous, but a meticulous man is predictable, and I have been studying his patterns for a very long time.
I find Raya in the living room and give her the raw reality of the call, not some watered-down summary. When I finish, she stares out the window for a moment. “Simon isn’t doing this out of the goodness of his heart.”
“I know. I don’t want his goodwill. I need time to put something together that your family can’t afford to ignore.”
She turns her head, looking at me steadily. “Can you actually pull it off?”
I don’t answer right away. I don’t give her some empty, macho reassurance because she deserves the truth, not reflexive confidence. “Yes,” I tell her, my voice quiet and absolute. “I can.”
She holds my gaze for another second, searching my face. Then she gives a single, sharp nod and picks her book back up. I walk back to the kitchen table and flip open my laptop. The terms are set.
There’s one loose end I can’t sort from the laptop, and it can’t wait two weeks either. An hour later I tell Raya. “I need to go out. Need anything?”
She looks up; the expression on my face must give away the fact it’s not just a grocery run, because her eyes are scrutinizing my face. “How long?”
“A few hours. My phone is on. You know where the gun is. The perimeter checks I’ve been running show noone’s set foot near here. You’ll be okay. Unless you want me to stay? I won’t leave if you’re scared.” Fuck it, if she’s scared, I’ll just have to get Sergei to deal with it.
“No, it’s fine. Be quick though.” She doesn’t push or ask any questions.
I pick up a few things from a convenience store first before heading out to the yard.
It’s a good forty-minute drive, far from anywhere that could be called a neighborhood, down a service road that runs alongside a rail spur that’s been unused since the port consolidated its operations a decade back.
Rows of shipping containers stand in ranks under half-working lights, throwing everything into long orange stripes with deep black shadows between.
I don’t own the place. It’s not anyone’s officially.
More a long-forgotten graveyard of rusted metal. Exactly why it’s useful.
Sergei’s already there waiting for me to arrive, leaning against the container smoking.
I brought him over from Ukraine myself three years ago.
He was working the back end of my operations out of the Black Sea.
He has no ties to my father, no mixed loyalty, so I was more than happy to bring him over.
His son is working his job over there now.
Misha, the motherfucker I’m here to see, I’d vetted just as carefully.
It doesn’t matter. Money will always buy some people’s loyalty.
“He’s ready for you,” Sergei says, blowing out the last of his cigarette, flicking it to the ground.
“Talking?”
“Nyet. Given him plenty of reasons to want to, though.”
Inside, the container smells like motor oil and, on top, the coppery tang of fresh blood. Misha sits, zip-tied to a chair bolted to the floor, one eye swollen shut, breathing shallowly in order to protect his cracked ribs.
“Yakov,” His voice cracks. “Whatever they told you-”
“Do I have the word ‘cunt’ tattooed across my forehead?” I crouch down so we’re eye level. “Do I?”
He shakes his head, eyes darting between Sergei and me. “I swear! I never!”
My fist connects right between his eyes, snapping his head back, blood gushing out of his nose. “Are you trying to say that Sergei’s son here is stealing my merchandise?”
“You motherfucking fuck!” Sergei bellows at him. It’s only because I’m here that he doesn’t finish the job himself.
“I’ll tell you what happened, shall I?” I don’t take my eyes off him.
He’s frozen in fear. He knows what’s coming.
He knows he’s fucked. The blooming piss stain across his pants tells me so.
“You wanted to feel like the top guy. So when some fuck came to you wanting my guns, you skipped the chain of command, cut the deal yourself. Taking my merchandise and their money. And this isn’t the first time, Misha, is it?
I wouldn’t be about to punish you if this was the first time. ”
His face has drained of all color except the red of his blood smeared over it. Normally men clam up right about now. Knowing what’s about to happen. Misha doesn’t. “It wasn’t meant to get like this. It was just a gun here, a gun there, nobody ever counted close enough to notice-”
“I noticed.”
“Yakov, please-”
I snap his index finger before he finishes the sentence. His scream bounces off the corrugated steel. I wait for him to shut up, for his breathing to settle a little so he can tell me what I want.
“Who bought them?”
It takes two more broken fingers and taking off his pinky before he breaks—the whole story spilling out.
I don’t know why men are disloyal like this.
They’re always so relieved when they finally get to unburden themselves, even when it comes with the knowledge that they’re going to die for their betrayal.
It turns out some random fuck called Krakov from the other side of the country is currently in possession of a crate full of my AK-47’s.
The only saving grace is he’s not tied to anything or anyone near us, and had no reason to believe he was buying stolen weight.
It’s one less war to fight, at least. Krukov is going to have to be a write off, he’s not my problem right now. Misha is.
“Thank you,” I tell him, and I mean it. At least I don’t have to worry about where and who the guns are with.
He gives me a desperate look of hope, that somehow, in telling me the truth, his death sentence will be reprieved.
“The trust is gone, Misha.” I shrug, raising my Glock, ending this swiftly.
A quick death is all the reward he gets for his honesty at the end.
“Clean this up.” I turn to Sergei. “I want a stock check by the end of the day tomorrow.”
I don’t stay. I know how competent Sergei is.
When I get home, I leave the shopping on the kitchen table and head straight to the shower.
When I’m done, I head back to the kitchen.
She’s unpacked the shopping, so I pour two mugs of tea and carry them into the living room.
She’s sat on the couch with her book. I set her mug down on the side table without a word.
She looks at it, then up at me, and a tiny, soft smile tugs at her lips.
I reach over, my fingers catching a loose strand of dark hair, tucking it back from her face.
She stills, and I can feel her battling with herself not to lean into my touch.
I smile to myself, move to the other end of the couch, sit down, and grab the remote to turn on the TV.
Before the screen even flashes to life, I reach over, lift her ankles, and settle her feet firmly across my lap.
She lets me do it, shifting her weight without a single word of protest. We sit there in the quiet.
Neither of us says a damn thing about last night, or the storm coming for us. We let it be.