Chapter 2
“Aw, you missed me,” Alexi teases as he answers his phone.
“Fuck you,” Brian Sullivan says on the other end of the line.
Alexi knows the Irishman hates calling him, so naturally, he tries to be as annoying as possible every time.
Brian is the second-in-command of the local Irish Mafia contingent.
For all intents and purposes, he’s the underboss for Liam, who is head of the Mafia.
While Liam provides overall direction and leadership for the Irish organization, Brian oversees the daily operations.
It’s similar to the relationship between a normal CEO and a COO.
Except there’s no annoying board, and their bond is forged in blood with a loyalty that knows no bounds.
Not for the first time, Alexi wishes he trusted someone enough to promote to the role of his underboss.
Sadly, it’s only been a few months since he overthrew his father, and he’s still sorting out the placement of the men.
Some he knows are loyal to him because they helped him oust his father, but others were originally Boris’s men, and their loyalty is still in question.
Until he knows without a doubt who he can and can’t trust, he needs all his most loyal soldiers embedded with the other men to keep an eye on them.
But eventually, he’s going to reach a breaking point. He’s stretched thin as it is.
Before taking over the Bratva, his primary role was working as the leader of an elite hit squad—a group of highly-trained men and women who specialize in extraction and extermination.
Like the military’s black ops teams, his team gets the jobs done that no one else can.
His personal specialty is as a sniper, and he often serves as overwatch for the team.
Over the past several months, since taking over the Bratva, he’s been forced to let his team do several jobs without him.
He doesn’t like it. His job is to protect them while they make their entry, watch for enemies, and eliminate threats so they can focus on infiltration and locating their targets.
Without him, they’re more vulnerable and have less intel during a job.
Just thinking about it makes him twitchy.
Removing Boris from power was necessary.
His father was running the Bratva into the ground and using it as his own depraved playground.
But Alexi seriously underestimated the amount of asinine administrative tasks that would come with the takeover.
It seems everyone needs something from him, and they all need it right now.
He’ll never admit it, but he’s struggling to shoulder the burden of managing his team and running the Bratva. Carving an hour or two out of each day to spend with Ulayna has become the only thing keeping him sane.
He needs someone like Brian to help shoulder the burden, and he needs to figure out who can fill that role for him before it’s too late.
In the meantime, he’s been relying on his new partnership with the Irish and outsourcing some of the responsibilities when he has to.
It’s not how he’d prefer to do business, but that relationship has proven useful.
The Irish have used him and his team for several tricky hits recently, and in return, they are helping track down the men who sold Ulayna to Boris.
Hopefully, that’s why Brian is calling him now.
“You found something?” Alexi asks.
“Maybe,” Brian responds. “Rumor and speculation only, but there’s a man in Canada who would be worth questioning. Our sources say he’s connected to the Program somehow.”
“Good. What’s your price for the information?”
Brian pauses. “Liam is willing to waive the fee if you train our men in the infiltration tactics your team uses.”
Surprised, Alexi takes a few seconds to think it through.
It’s an unusual request, and he’d be sharing information he’d rather not share.
His elite team is a major source of income for the Bratva, and it’s his main source of power.
Everyone knows not to fuck with him because no one can get past his team.
Training another organization to have the same skills would be giving them a major advantage over him.
He’d rather contract his team out to the Irish or put them on retainer. But he can’t do that right now because he needs them close for security. He can’t split the team up either. It would make them ineffective. But if he had a second team…
Suddenly, his mind spins with ideas.
With a second team, he could maintain protection here at the estate while still accepting jobs. He could even rotate the teams to give them more time off and keep them sharp.
He has plenty of men working for him now. Men who would love to prove their loyalty and have a strong desire to rise in the ranks. He’d have no problem recruiting a few of the best to form a second team. An intense training program would also help weed out any remaining disloyalty in the ranks.
He turns his attention back to his phone call and asks Brian, “How do you promote men in your organization?”
“Ah… What?” Brian asks, confused by Alexi’s change in subject.
“Just answer the question, Irish. Consider this part of our price negotiation.” Alexi smiles to himself when he can practically hear Brian’s teeth grinding together over the phone line.
“Fine. If two men want the same position, we let them box for it. We have a ring set up at the warehouse. The bareknuckle fights keep the men sharp and serve as entertainment when things are slow.”
“Fucking Irish and your boxing.” Alexi scratches his fingers through his beard in thought. “But… that could work.”
“What could work? You want to use boxing to train our men?”
“Not exactly. I need to work out a few things. I’ll get back to you.” He hangs up on Brian and grins.
Thanks to Brian, he might have just thought of a way to solve several of his problems at once. He needs to work out the details, but for the first time in months, he thinks he has a direction forward.
Working quickly, he sends a message to his team asking them to meet him in his office as soon as possible. They’re not currently on a job, so they’re probably relaxing in the bunkhouse on the other side of the property.
Within seconds, he receives five affirmative responses. He smiles and heads inside the house.
Making his way toward the back of the house, he scans the empty rooms looking for signs of Ulayna. Finally, he finds her in the kitchen making breakfast.
The scent of bacon and frying eggs permeates the air, and his mouth waters.
“Smells good.” Alexi steals a piece of bacon from the plate next to the stove.
“Hey!” Ulayna swats him on the wrist with a spatula. “No stealing.”
“Cook let you take over the stove?”
Ulayna grins and nods. “Yes. I asked her to show me how to make the egg sandwiches I like so much. At first, she wanted to make it for me, but when I told her I wanted to learn, she was happy to show me. She said she’ll teach me how to make homemade biscuits tomorrow.”
“That’s impressive. Cook must really like you.
” Alexi thinks for a minute. “Cook has been around since I was a boy. She seemed old back then. She’s got to be over eighty at this point, and so set in her ways that she never lets anyone in her kitchen.
When I was younger, she used to threaten me with a rolling pin if I came in here when she was cooking. ”
He reaches out to snag another piece of bacon, and Ulayna whacks him with the spatula again. “That’s probably because you were always trying to steal the bacon.”
He grins. “Probably.”
“Did you need something, Pakhan? Or was it the smell of bacon alone that lured you in?”
“I was looking for you. The bacon was just a bonus.”
Alexi watches as Ulayna deftly transfers two perfectly cooked eggs to a piece of toast already topped with sliced tomato.
He waits until she adds three pieces of crunchy bacon and completes the breakfast sandwich with a slather of sriracha mayo on the top piece of bread.
Then he nabs it off her plate and dashes away.
“Hey!” Ulayna yells at his retreating back. “If you wanted one, all you had to do was ask!”
Alexi pauses in the doorway to the kitchen, safely out of reach of her spatula. “Make yourself a sandwich, then meet my team and me in my office.”
Ulayna sighs and cracks two more eggs into the pan. “Your team? What do you need me for?”
Alexi takes a giant bite of the sandwich and groans in appreciation. Through a mouthful, he says, “You’ll see.” He takes another bite and heads to his office on the other side of the mansion.
A few minutes later, licking his fingers to get the last of the delicious bacon grease, he shoves his office door open and steps inside.
As expected, four men and one woman are already there.
Some of his team are seated on the couch and chairs along the far wall, one is leaning against the wall by the window, and one is sitting in his chair behind his desk.
Uncaring, he leans a hip against the desk, putting his back to the man.
The man sitting in his chair narrows his eyes at Alexi and flares his nostrils. “Why do I smell bacon?” he asks.
Alexi smirks at him over his shoulder. “Perks of being the boss.”
The man’s eyes narrow further.
The only woman in the room throws a wadded-up piece of paper at the man’s head. “Learn to make your own bacon, Ruger,” she says, using the man’s nickname.
Ruger throws the paper wad back at her and opens his mouth to argue.
“Enough.” Alexi butts in before they start squabbling like children.
Everyone on his team is close. They trust each other with their lives.
Every person in this room has helped the others out at some point when shit has gone sideways.
But with that trust and familiarity comes a tendency to fight like teenage siblings.
They tease each other, push each other’s buttons, and it usually ends up in a fight.
Alexi makes eye contact with everyone in the room as he waits for them to settle down. “I have an idea.”
Immediately, everyone complains.
“Here we go.”