5. Nikolai
NIKOLAI
When I got the call at three in the morning, I was on my feet before I was fully awake, stumbling through my office where I'd been sleeping toward the door.
I hadn't heard back from Markin after that message I sent him yesterday concerning my having his daughter, but it didn't appear that he cared much.
I struggled to the car, rubbing sleep out of my eyes, and Yakov drove me to the warehouse on the east side where my men were regrouping after Markin's latest hit.
This on the heels of the convenience store strike yesterday, and my head was spinning.
Apparently, they hit our shipment of drugs headed north out of the city and I had to know how bad it was.
"How bad?" I asked Tyren the second I got out of the car and walked into the old defunct bottling plant.
The warehouse teemed with activity at night, but tonight there was an angry and somber mood to the place.
"They took everything, Boss," he snarled, not even trying to hide his rage.
"They hit the truck on the bridge approach.
Two trucks boxed them in and they started shooting before anyone could get a weapon clear.
" His forehead was creased with angry tension, which probably mirrored mine.
I couldn't believe what he was telling me.
How did Markin even learn when we'd move product or what route we'd take?
"Everything?" I stopped in the middle of the floor and let that word just hang there. Three hundred kilos… That was north of a billion rubles once it moved. I needed that in my distribution pipeline by morning or my infrastructure would start weakening.
Without product to move, men got angry and started hunting, and without that exchange, my pocketbook started to dry up.
"Every last kilo, Boss."
The men started to gather around me, most of them already pissed off and out for blood after yesterday’s attack on the store.
They were bloody and beaten, patched up now, but more than just their egos were wounded.
Markin wasn't just taking my stash. He was hurting my men too, and he probably got a lot of joy out of it.
Then Vlad caught my eye and nodded toward the back of the warehouse. "We brought you a gift, though, Boss…" His face was bruised up from earlier, though not having been on that truck, he was blessedly unharmed otherwise.
I walked past Nero and Juice, who each had bloodied clothing, and stalked after Vlad and Gregg, who led me toward the loading docks.
Whatever "gift" they got me had better be something good, because right now with the amount of actual trash I'd been put through, I was on the verge of snapping.
I considered myself a calm man most times, able to temper my responses.
And up until now, my response to Markin had been to not retaliate violently outside of small retributive justice like that coffee shop.
But my men were itching for blood, a deep, cloying need to avenge their fallen brothers that wouldn’t be sated until I took action.
I would only be able to hold them back for their own protection for so long.
Eventually, they'd take matters into their own hands against my orders, and when that happened, the city would devolve into chaos.
My goal was to not let that happen.
It'd bring too much attention to the Dragonov name.
I followed them to the storage room next to the docks. Yakov stayed right on my heels and when Gregg pulled the door, I saw my little gift sitting on the floor.
Young guy in his mid-twenties, maybe, with his wrists zip-tied behind his back and his ankles bound to the leg of a steel shelving unit.
His nose was broken and a cut above his eyebrow was still leaking blood down the side of his face.
One shoe was gone and his jacket was torn at the shoulder.
He looked up at me when I walked in and tried to act defiant, but the tremor in his breathing gave him away before he could sell it.
"One of Markin's," Gregg said behind me. "Snagged him out of the second vehicle before they could peel off."
I crouched in front of the guy and rested my forearms on my knees. He held my stare and I held his.
His hands were shaking and there wasn't a thing he could do to hide it.
This kid was probably a fresh convert, not used to seeing what happened when his boss hung him out to dry.
Any other day, I'd have tried to convert him to my side, show him what Markin did when leaving him behind, and convince him that I would treat him better.
But today, I was out of patience for this game.
"What's your name?"
He said nothing, but as he shook, blood dripped off his chin and that busted nose whistled with every breath.
"I asked you a question."
Still he said nothing.
He kept his eyes on mine, though, wide and frightened.
Probably had no idea what to even do. He wasn't trained for interrogation, either. I could tell in the way his eyes darted around instead of staying locked on mine. Markin really hadn't prepared him for this.
I stood and handed my jacket to Yakov, then I rolled my sleeves to my elbows and crouched back down.
I grabbed a fistful of his hair and wrenched his head back until his throat stretched and his eyes went wide.
"Where'd they take my shipment?"
"I don't know," he choked out while he shook his head. It wasn’t often that the heist team was clueless about the destination for their loot. This man was full of shit and I could see right through him.
I let go of his hair and drove my fist into his ribs. He gurgled and grunted as blood dripped from his mouth, and he doubled over as far as the ties would let him, gagging. I gave him a few seconds to catch up. Then I grabbed his face with one hand and squeezed until his lips mashed together.
"I'm gonna make this simple," I told him. "You tell me where my product went and who gave the order. And maybe I'll let you live. What's Markin doing with my drugs?"
He tried to wrestle out of my grip, but I saw the tears forming in his eyes. He was already close to giving it up and so soon, too. The question was whether he was more afraid of me or Markin.
"He'll kill me," he whispered, then pursed his lips as his forehead scrunched up.
"He's not here." I squeezed harder. "I am. And I'm gonna give you about ten seconds to tell me. Listen, you tell me, I let you live another day. That's twenty-four more hours alive till he finds you, at least."
He whimpered but held on stubbornly, refusing to answer. So I let go of his face and reached into his jacket, going through pockets until I found his phone.
The screen was cracked across the middle but it powered on when I pressed the button. I held it up to his face and the lock screen cleared.
"No, don't—" he started, but I was already scrolling. The name wasn't listed, but I recognized the number saved under a single initial. M. Real creative.
I pressed call and stood up, stepping away from him. I was done fucking around with middlemen and messages.
Markin was a thorn in my side I had to deal with once and for all. If he thought for a second I would take this shit lying down, he was wrong. Pushing into my territory, hurting my men, that was one thing. But the street value alone of that shipment could bankrupt me.
Thirty million US meant over two billion rubles.
Unacceptable.
The phone rang four or five times but finally, the line picked up and went quiet for a second before I heard heavy breathing.
"What do you want?" Markin said, not sounding at all surprised by me. Like he'd been sitting there expecting this exact call. And how easily he knew it was me, which meant the other men in that heist had told him this one got left behind.
"It's Nikolai Dragonov."
Silence reigned at the other end of the line.
"You took something of mine tonight," I said, " and I think we're past due for a conversation."
"I think we're past conversation, Nikolai." He sounded bored, like I was wasting his evening with something beneath him. "You pulled my daughter off the street and caged her in your house. That's grounds for me to remove you and your entire organization from the city. Don’t you think?"
"Your daughter's alive and unharmed. That's more courtesy than you've shown my people."
"Oh, Nikolai…" he said, sighing heavily. I pictured him shaking his head at me in a patronizing way. "There are rules of engagement in this business. I stuck to them and you are the one who escalated it."
I clenched my teeth and turned back to look down at the man surrounded by my soldiers.
Markin wasn't entirely wrong. Feuds over territory were a normal thing, pushing in, getting kickback.
But women and children were generally off-limits to other families, which was why I originally intended to send her back to him unharmed. Maybe those plans were changing, though.
"I want my territory restored," I told him. "Every corner you've pushed into for the last six months. You pull your men back and we go to the way things were. Then you get your daughter."
There was a bit of commotion on his part, chatter and shouting. And when he spoke again, I got the feeling he had zero interest in recovering Kira. It appeared he had already counted her a loss.
"Listen to me carefully because I'm only saying this once. I know you won't kill her. You're not stupid enough to bring that kind of heat down on yourself. And even if you were, even if you put a gun to her head right now and squeezed, I will not stop. Not for one second.
"Every man you have is a target," he continued. "Every business. Every dollar you think belongs to you. I will take all of it. And when I'm finished, there won't be enough of your organization left for anyone to remember it was there. So keep her. Do whatever you want with her. It changes nothing."
Then the line went dead and I stood there holding the phone, glaring at the Markin soldier in front of me.
For weeks I'd been planning this move to force Markin out of my territory thinking he was like me, that he cared enough about his progeny to make concessions in his business. And I'd been wrong.
Xavier Markin was nothing like me.
He was a monster in men's clothing, with a black heart. If he thought sacrificing his own daughter to the gods would make him rich and powerful, he'd have done it the day she was born.
It was sick and cruel and twisted, and when I thought about how much I wanted to feel the life draining out of his body under my own hands, words finally rose out of my mouth.
"Get rid of him," I growled, throwing his phone against the wall. It shattered and fell to the floor as he started whimpering and pleading, writhing around.
I turned my back as Gregg and Vlad moved in, and Yakov followed on my heels.
The shouts I heard behind me as I stalked back through the warehouse toward the front ended abruptly after a gunshot boomed, and then everything went quiet.
And when I burst out into the cool night air, angry enough to burn Markin's whole world to the ground, I knew my mistake.
I had made an assumption that Markin was a man of honor and integrity, and I'd been wrong.
Playing dirty was his game, not mine.
But getting even was something I planned on.
"Take me home," I told Yakov as I climbed into the car, already diving into the thoughts that threatened to consume me.
I had hoped to end this peacefully without police involvement, but it was obvious to me that a chance for peace was past.
Using Kira as leverage wasn't going to happen.
Her father had no interest in negotiation to get her back, so she was my problem now.
And killing her didn’t seem like the right option either, not with a body like that and such a feisty demeanor.
Letting her go home wasn't an option, even if Markin couldn’t care less. It would mean forfeiting, which I refused to do.
Besides, she might still be useful to me in more ways than one.
I just had to convince her that it was in her best interests to cooperate.