Chapter 27 #3
“I was thinking about that conversation you told us about. When Tricia spoke to Ewan. I don’t think we can rule out the possibility that the Volkovs still have something to do with this.
First, Ewan, then Salvatore. I doubt they’re speaking to each other, but they both named that family.
You even prompted Tricia to ask about them. ”
“I’m never counting them out, but I haven’t figured out how they play into this.”
I look over at Alejandro, our chief strategist. I don’t know what he’s been working on while Jorge and I got sucked into the stock market. Whatever he was doing, he puts down his phone.
“I was just chatting with Shura Zaitseva.”
Anyone who wasn’t looking at Alejandro is now. He shakes his head.
“I do not have a death wish at my wife’s own hand. She knows.”
The women in my family are no less territorial of their partners than the men are.
It’s not like the men can’t have female friends or the women can’t have male friends.
We’re not that primitive. But Shura sure is trouble.
She has no boundaries and ignores anyone else’s.
None of us know her well, and we’ve kept it that way for a reason.
She’s the type to claim exactly what Alejandro was accused of.
It’s why it shocks the shit out of us that he’s talking to her.
“Did Toria tell you to talk to her?”
“Of course. While you were up in Boston, she gave me names of people in each family to talk to if we needed loose lips for the right price. None of them come cheap, but at least that means they’re less likely to tell anyone what we asked about. How do you think I got Shura’s number?”
“And?”
I prompt my cousin because I don’t want us to digress into whether he’s discussed too much with Toria.
She’s in a unique position with her knowledge and connections, but she’s not a Cartel member and never will be.
For her sake, she’ll never be part of our inner circle.
Technically, neither is Tía Elle, but she’s la esposa del jefe de jefes—the wife of the boss of bosses.
It makes me wonder what Tío will share about Salvatore’s thoughts on Tommaso.
“She said there have been rumblings behind Rurik’s back that he’s squashing. It’s coming from Yuri’s old guard. They don’t blame the dead cabrón for everything that went to shit over me. They’re blaming Rurik.”
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” Tío Enrique knows better than anyone.
“Who’s fueling this? There must be a reason these men are willing to go against Rurik. None of them are young. They can’t physically fight off Rurik’s retaliation. They’re closer to death than life. Do they figure they have nothing left to lose?”
I’d be curious about this shit even if Tre and I weren’t involved somehow. My questions must be ones everyone else is thinking. Treason that isn’t squashed immediately leads to a ruling family ending up like King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette—off with their heads!
“Shura says they’re getting paid from someone to foster dissent. They want to put Rurik’s cousin in his spot.”
“Dimitri?”
Five voices speak at once, all with the same degree of disbelief.
“Yeah. He’s such a fuck-up they think he’ll be easy to control. A puppet, so they can restore the Volkovs to their glory days.”
“What fucking glory days?” Pablo’s expression screams bullshit.
“Exactly. Shura said Rurik’s got Dimitri on lockdown. The man hasn’t seen daylight in like a month. No one knows where he is, but the fresh teeth that keep showing up match his dental records. The guy’s spent thousands in veneers. It’s a dead giveaway.”
“Where’s the money coming from?” Trust my accountant brother to ask that question since we got sidetracked.
“She isn’t positive, but she has reliable evidence that it’s from here.”
Alejandro looks at his phone and taps the screen a few times. All our phones vibrate. He’s forwarded some screenshots and photos.
“That motherfucker.”
Heat rises up my neck, and I’m ready to spew fire.
I fist my hands so tightly the knuckles ache and my short nails dig into my palms. I want to pace, but that solves nothing.
It looks melodramatic and is distracting.
I settle for how I always deal with heightened emotions when I can’t make any outward sign.
I scrunch my toes and relax, scrunch and relax, over and over.
“Remember that patent Aleks wants to sponsor for bacteriophages research?”
“No one but you does, Pablo.”
Javier shoots our cousin his most bored expression. It’s not like our eyes glaze over any more when Pablo goes on one of his science rants than when Javier does one of his legal lectures or when Jorge drones on about finances.
“He’s been investing heavily in R&D, and his biotech companies are making huge progress.
He stands to make millions if he can get that patent.
The problem is he has no one inside the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office to push his paperwork through.
His old contact got laid off. We don’t have the same problem.
We have three people on the payroll there.
I bet they’d appreciate a random bonus—tied to performance, of course. ”
“Do you want us to have it just to piss him off? What’re we going to do with it?”
I’m certain Javier’s thinking of the legal ramifications that’ll come our way once Aleks discovers what we’ve done and loses his mind.
“No. We have no use for that. We submit our own patent based on his company’s application.
It gets pushed through before his, then we sell it to whichever Georgian biotech will pay the most. Not only will he lose all his investments, he’ll also have to accept all that work and money went back to an Eastern Bloc country Mother Russia once terrorized.
A country where the O’Rourkes have heavily invested in biotech. ”
“Fucking over the Kutsenkos is certainly a better future for the Georgians than their past. They gave the world Stalin after all.”
Trust Javier to throw shade through a history fact.
“Pablo, can you and Javier begin work on the patent tonight?”
Neither looks thrilled to work through the night, but the early bird catches the worm.
“Come to my place. Madeline’s on call and staying at the hospital. We won’t disturb Florencia that way.”
“Thanks.”
With nothing left to discuss, we head out to the living room to find our women.