Rafferty
Dublin has a way of getting under your skin if you let it. The rain, the noise, the pubs that never fully close. I've been here for three weeks and I'm starting to think in an accent that isn't mine.
I watch the door of Grogan's from across the street, collar up, hands in my pockets. It's a nothing pub on a nothing street in a part of Temple Bar the tourists don't reach. The kind of place where the regulars know to keep their eyes on their pints and their mouths shut.
Artyom Yakanov walks in at nine fifteen.
Right on schedule. The Baron's right hand.
His enforcer, his fixer, the man who's been making our operations in Ireland a living hell for the better part of the last month.
All because his boss can't accept that Anya Agapova married my brother instead of being handed over like a party favor to a man whose wives depart this world under suspicious circumstances.
That's what this is really about. The Baron wanted Anya. The Council pushed for it, even. Then she turned up at my family’s door and begged to marry an Orlov.
The Baron took it personally, and instead of swallowing it like a man with any sense, he started picking at the edges of our business.
Shipments delayed. Contacts leaning away from us.
A warehouse in Cork that caught fire at a very convenient time.
All of it traceable back to Yakanov, which means all of it sanctioned by the Baron.
I give him ten minutes to settle. Order a pint, find his booth, get comfortable. Then I cross the street and walk in.
The pub is half full. Working men, tired faces, nobody looking for trouble. Yakanov is in the back corner with a whiskey and his phone. He's a big guy. Thick neck, heavy hands, the kind of build that intimidates people who don't know what they're looking at.
I know exactly what I'm looking at.
He sees me when I'm three steps away. I watch the recognition land. The way his shoulders tighten and his hand moves toward his waistband.
"Don't," I say.
He stops. Smart. The dumbest thing he could do right now is reach for a weapon in a room full of witnesses. The second dumbest thing is to run. So he sits there, jaw working, eyes calculating.
I slide into the booth across from him.
"Rafferty Orlov," he says. Like saying my name out loud might give him some kind of advantage.
"Artyem." I fold my hands on the table. "We need to have a conversation."
"I've got nothing to say to you."
"That's fine. I've got plenty to say to you.
" I lean back. The booth creaks. "Your boss has a problem.
He wanted something that wasn't his to have, and when he didn't get it, he started acting like a child pulling wings off flies.
The shipments. Cork. The pressure on our contacts in Europe.
All of it traces back to you, which means all of it traces back to him. "
Yakanov's expression doesn't change. Professional. I'll give him that.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't." I study him for a moment. He's got about forty pounds on me and six inches of reach. None of that matters. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to deliver a message to the Baron. Word for word. Can you do that?"
"I'm not your errand boy."
"Tonight you are." I hold his gaze and wait.
This is the part most people get wrong. They talk too much, threaten too loudly, fill the silence with noise that dilutes the point.
I've learned that the silence does the work for you.
You just have to be willing to sit in it longer than the other person.
Yakanov blinks first.
"What's the message?" he asks.
"Find another family to fuck with. Anya is Connor's wife. That's done. It's settled. If the Baron keeps pushing, the Council will be the least of his worries. I will go to his territory, and I won't be having a conversation."
Yakanov stares at me. Trying to figure out if I mean it. They always do that. Try to find the bluff. The gap between the words and the willingness to follow through.
There is no gap. There never has been with me.
"And if he doesn't listen?" Yakanov says.
I move fast. Faster than he expects from someone sitting down. My hand closes around the back of his neck and I slam his face into the table hard enough to crack the wood. His whiskey glass shatters. Someone at the bar flinches but doesn't turn around.
I hold him there. Cheek pressed into the wet wood, blood already running from a gash above his eye. He's strong enough to fight me, but he doesn't. Because he can feel my other hand now, pressing something cold and flat against the base of his skull.
"Then I'll kill everyone he sends," I say quietly. "One by one. Starting with you. And when I run out of his men, I'll go to his house and finish it there."
I let him go. He pulls himself upright, blood dripping onto his shirt, fury and fear fighting for dominance in his eyes. Fear is winning, which surprises me a little.
"Deliver the message, Artyem."
I leave the pub without looking back. The rain has picked up. My phone is buzzing in my pocket before I reach the car.
Liam.
I answer it leaning against the hood, the adrenaline still ticking through my blood like a second pulse.
"It's handled," I say.
"The Baron?"
"His man. Yakanov. The message is clear. If the Baron keeps pushing over Anya, the Council won't be his biggest problem."
A pause. "And Yakanov?"
"Alive. Bleeding. Motivated."
Liam exhales. That particular exhale he does when I've done exactly what needed doing but in a way that's going to generate paperwork. "Good. Come home."
There it is. I've been waiting for this conversation since I got here. Every time he calls, I can feel it circling. The real reason he wants me back.
"I've got a few things to wrap up. Give me another week."
My brother’s voice is short and sharp. "No."
"Liam."
"You've been out there long enough. Come home, Rafferty."
"There's still the—"
"Connor can handle whatever's left, now he’s back from his honeymoon."
I tip my head back and look at the sky. Black and starless. Rain hitting my face like tiny needles. Twenty-six years old and my eldest brother still talks to me like I'm twelve.
That's the thing nobody tells you about being the youngest. You never outgrow the position.
Liam was running operations by twenty-three.
Killian had his own crew by twenty-four.
Aidan was managing the financial side of the family before he turned twenty-five.
Connor carved out his own territory right here in Dublin, and held it right up until he had to marry.
Me? I'm the one they send. The fixer. The problem solver.
The brother who's always on a plane to somewhere because there's always something that needs handling and I'm always available.
I've made myself useful in every city except the one that matters because being useful somewhere else means I don't have to figure out what I am at home.
"The Council met yesterday," Liam says.
My jaw tightens. "And?"
"You're the last one, Raff. They're done waiting."
The mandate. The same one that married off every one of my brothers and cousins.
Killian first, then Anton and Aidan, Yevgeny and Connor.
Every Orlov son paired and settled, bloodlines secured, alliances locked in.
I've watched each of them walk into it. Some fought harder than others.
All of them ended up exactly where the Council wanted them.
I've been dodging it for almost twelve months. Taking every job in every city that wasn't home. All over the US, Belfast, Dublin, London, three miserable weeks in Moscow in January. Wherever there was a problem, I volunteered to be the solution.
"I'm twenty-six, Liam. I haven't even figured out where I fit yet."
"You fit here. With your family." His words punch through my chest like a cannon ball.
"That's not what I mean, and you know it."
"I know exactly what you mean." His voice softens. The brother, not the boss. "You think you need to earn your place before you deserve a life. You don't. You've more than earned it. Marriage won’t change that. If anything, it’s meant to strengthen it."
I don't answer. The rain is soaking through my jacket. Somewhere behind me in the pub, Artyem Yakanov is pressing a bar towel to his face and memorizing a message for his boss.
"Who?" I ask.
"Nadia Semakina. Faddey Semakin's daughter."
I don't know her. I know the Semakin name. Connected family, respected, Bratva by blood. Faddey has a good reputation.
"When's the wedding?"
"Two weeks."
I laugh. I can't help it. "Two weeks? I'm twenty-six, Liam. I'm not ready for this."
"Nobody's ever ready for this. Come home. Meet her. It won't be that bad."
We both know that last part is meaningless. The Council has made the match and the match will stand. Liam can soften the edges, but he can't change the shape of it.
"Fine," I say. "Tomorrow."
"Tonight," he counters. “Theres a flight in three hours.”
I hang up and stand in the rain for a while longer, letting Dublin wash over me.
Two weeks. A wife. A marriage I didn't ask for to a woman I've never met. All because the Council decided that controlling the Orlov bloodline matters more than any single Orlov's preference about his own life.
I get in the car and drive to the airport.