Chapter Two
Sergi smiled faintly. “Maybe they will, but she made the choice to thumb her nose at them and us. She will pay the price for being stupid.” He looked at Nicky and shrugged. “What is that saying, FAAFO?”
Nicky chuckled. “Fuck around and find out. Yes.”
“I think that woman fucked around a lot,” Sergi added.
“Pretending to be us and forcing different factions to pay her. She has much to answer for, not only the money to the other factions but she’ll need to answer to the Council too.
” Then he turned to Viktor. “Was there anything at the compound she ran that would interest us?”
Viktor nodded as he spoke up, “Da, there was a lot in her compound that concerned us.”
Sergi looked over at him. “And just what did your men find there?”
“She had three warehouses on the property and they were full of a whole lot of shit that her customers could use to start a small war. Some of the boxes had Russian and Mexican markings.”
Sergi growled. “Russian markings? Are you sure?”
Viktor held up his phone and showed him some photos of the warehouse contents.
Sergi saw the markings for himself. Then he swore in Russian, “Kakaya zhe u etoy zhenshchiny zhadnost'!” The greed of this fucking woman. Sergi locked eyes with Viktor and he growled, “Do you see what I see?” He gritted through his teeth.
“Da,” Viktor agreed. “I see it.”
Nicky looked from one man to the other to ask, “What are the two of you seeing?”
“She got her hands on explosives,” Sergi explained.
“I believe these are the ones that were reported missing from secret Russian facilities, which are Bratva owned. No one should have been able to get their hands on those explosives, especially not someone outside the Bratva. That alone tells me we have a traitor and she’s got an accomplice inside the Bratva.
She could use them against anyone in the world and if they are traced back, the Bratva would be subject to accusations if they are identified as being used against our enemies.
All the while we would not know anything about it.
The whole world would call us liars and murderers. ”
Viktor nodded. “Da, but we took everything we could find, paperwork included. It shouldn’t take us long to find out who this traitor is.”
“Go through every little scrap of paper you can find and give us a name,” Sergi said.
“We need to uncover the traitor and then we need to link him to her. We need to lock them down. With proof they can’t deny.
Make an example of this connection and put them both on trial.
This cannot happen again. They tried to make fools of us and now they will both pay that price. ”
Viktor nodded, then left to review the papers they found at LaDonna’s compound.
Sergi turned to Serenity and Nicky. “Keep digging, find everything you can about her little operation.” He then turned to Kosta.
“Keep your eyes on that cell. I want to know if she can walk. Her medical records tell us she was left in a wheelchair after her mother’s attack but I need to see if she recovered after that attack.
If her use of the wheelchair is real or not.
” Sergi clapped his hands and announced, “Davayte pristupim. We need answers and we need them soon. Spasibo.”
Serenity smiled at Nicky and joked, “Wow, he gave us orders then thanked us.”
Nicky shook his head as he smiled back.
The whole room went to work with a renewed vigor.
Sergi wandered over to view Kosta’s camera video.
He watched as LaDonna just sat there contemplating her new surroundings.
She began looking around the area and Sergi smiled faintly.
He knew what she was looking for and he also knew she would never see the cameras the cell area had been installed with.
The cell was all fitted out with a bunk and a toilet that had just enough privacy without entirely obscuring the prisoner.
There was no way the prisoner could get out as the cell door had a hidden lock and that lock was unpickable.
It only opened with a special type of key and a fingerprint.
There was also a voice system in there and that speaker was out in the open but the cameras were hidden.
Whoever was looking could see inside the area but there was no camera that could be seen from the cell itself.
This was a special cell and right now this was the intended use.
To keep someone under the watchful eye of the Bratva without them being aware of themselves being watched.
Sergi stared at the screens for a while as his thoughts were running through his mind at an alarming rate. But at the moment there were too many questions and no answers yet. He hoped to have the answers soon enough but he growled as he needed them like yesterday.
The afternoon stretched on....
Viktor came back into the security room and handed Sergi a batch of papers while shaking his head. “You aren’t going to like what we found.’
“Da, I didn’t think I would but tell me a name.” Sergi growled.
“Dominic Russo,” Viktor whispered.
Sergi froze then crumbled the papers in his hand as he swore in Russian, “Blin. Etot sukin syn.” After a long moment, he asked, “How far back does this unholy union go?”
“At least three years,” Viktor told him. “We found evidence that went back that long. And we have someone watching the hotel. The Ghosts radioed in as there are at least half a dozen men outside these walls and they are circling the building. They seem to be looking for someone.”
Sergi snorted, “I’ll just bet they are.” He glanced at Yuri and Roman while shaking his head.
Then he looked back at Viktor. “Have your men round them up and bring them in.. Try not to start a shootout in the streets, unless they start it. But I’m sure your men can finish any fight they start.
At this point, we just don’t want any civilians involved. ”
Viktor nodded. “We’ll get them.” He left the security room.
Yuri joined Sergi and asked, “You know this Dominic Russo?”
Sergi sighed hard and nodded. “Da, I know this etot sukin syn. He’s a leader in St. Petersburg.
But he’s a pain in the ass as well. On the surface, he is the type of man who thinks he’s got more power than he actually does.
He’s wealthy but reckless and to find he sold off weapons he shouldn’t even know about?
It is surprising in one way for him to believe no one would find out.
But he’s also slimy enough to think he can do something like that and no one would ever try to stop him or call him out for breaking the rules.
He’s pushed the boundaries before but this is the worst thing he’s done, that I know of.
” He looked over at Serenity and asked, “Have you come up with anything else in your search of LaDonna’s past? ”
Serenity nodded. “Yeah, I got something. Viktor said this went back three years. I found something that went back five years and she didn’t reach out to him, he reached out to her. I found an email track on the dark web and he definitely reached out to her.”
“Show me.” Sergi growled his demand.
She swung her screen around and showed him email after email, dating back five years.
Sergi read the first three then nodded. “I want them printed out, so we have them as evidence. The High Council are going to need to read them.” Shaking his head he admitted, “Although the man doesn’t have as much power as he’d like, he does have some pull and we have to present irrefutable evidence he’s in this plot right up to his neck or the Council won’t act.
I want to see him in chains facing a firing squad for what he’s done. Etot sukin syn.”
Serenity glanced at Nicky and translated the slur Sergi used three times already to describe this man as she mouthed, “Sonofabitch.” They both smirked. He only did name calling this much when someone truly pissed him off.
Sergi went on, “We’ve worked too hard to go on the straight and narrow to be blindsided like this, especially by one of our own.
In the old days, the Bratva meant nothing but pain for the people of Russia.
They charged a good amount of money just for the people to be able to work or just live.
Me and other leaders like me had to fight the corrupt system just to make the changes we needed to rebuild the trust of the people.
We have that now but this could just destroy all the progress we’ve made in the last ten years.
So we are going to need everything we can find to combat the treachery this one man is guilty of. ”
Serenity nodded as the SOB slur made more sense now and went back to her computer.
Sergi now added to his rant, “Make sure you note his IP address. I want proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wrote those emails and that they came from his email address. I don’t want him to claim they aren’t his.”
She gave him another nod.
Yuri snorted. “Would he be stupid enough to claim he didn’t write them?”
Sergi shook his head. “I don’t want to give him the chance. If he’s caught, he knows exactly what the punishment is for treason against the Bratva. If he’s convicted of treason, he knows he’ll face a firing squad.”
Kosta looked up and cleared his throat to inform Sergi, “LaDonna is on her feet and walking around the cell.”
Sergi moved quickly and when he got to where Kosta’s screen was he sneered. “I knew it...Get a video of this.”
“It’s already running,” Kosta assured him.
Everyone gathered behind Sergi and they all watched.
LaDonna was pacing the cell. She seemed to be arguing with herself as she paced back and forth, walking the entire length of her cell. Then she paused and looked around the area.
Sergi wondered out loud, “What is she looking for?”
LaDonna then went over to her chair and reached underneath it and pulled off a small bag.
Kosta reached out and flipped a switch. He looked up and shrugged. “I initiated a jammer. Now, she can’t reach out and touch anyone outside that room. It doesn’t affect the cameras but it does cut off any outside power. If there’s a phone in that bag she won’t get a call through.”
Sergi smiled faintly as he watched her open the bag and bring out a cell phone. It appeared to be a phone you could buy anywhere but he knew if she got the call out she would or could set up an ambush that might end up freeing her.
They all watched as she powered the phone up and tapped a number.
Suddenly, she stopped, pulling the phone away from her ear.
She redialed then brought the phone to her ear.
Again, she didn’t hear anything. LaDonna looked around the room and quickly put the phone away.
She slipped it under her chair again. Sitting down on the cot, she looked down at the floor.
She wrapped her arms around herself and just sat there.
After a few minutes, she reached for the blanket at the end of the cot and quickly wrapped it around her shoulders. Then she scooted back and laid her back against the wall behind the bed. Her expression looked desperate but she never called out, instead she just stared at the floor.
Sergi looked at Yuri and the other brothers. “I think she’s finally beginning to understand who and what she’s up against.”
Yuri shook his head. “I don’t think she’s ever faced herself before. She’s always had three brothers at her back if she ever needed them and now she knows they are gone and there’s no one out there she can call to storm in and rescue her.”
“Da, she doesn’t know yet,” Kosta added as he watched her begin to shrink.
“That the men she left behind are being rounded up and put in a place where they can’t reach her.
She was hoping they would be right behind her.
That they would bust in here and get her out before she had to face us.
” He looked up at Sergi and smirked. “You think we should tell her nobody is coming to help her?”
Sergi snorted. “I think she’s beginning to realize that. The hard way I might add.”
Serenity snapped her head up and whispered, “Oh my god, we might have a problem.”
Sergi also snapped his head up. “What do you mean?” he asked her.