13. Nikolai
NIKOLAI
I sat at my desk with my shirt unbuttoned while Dr. Keller hovered over my left side, prodding at me painfully.
His fingers were cold as he peeled back the bandage and examined the stitches with a penlight. His frown deepened the longer he studied me, which didn't seem like a good thing.
"You've been doing too much," he said, pressing gently around the edges of the wound.
I snarled and winced and then glared at Vlad who looked like he was ready to laugh.
"The skin is inflamed and the tissue beneath is warm.
If this gets infected, you're looking at a hospital stay, and I don't think either of us wants to explain a gunshot wound to an admissions nurse. "
"I've been sitting at this desk for five days." It wasn't entirely true. I'd done my normal workouts and a lot of pacing, but I hadn't been on any more hunts with the guys.
Yakov threatened to handcuff me to my desk if I did.
They took Keller's orders last week way too seriously.
"You've been doing more than sitting. I can see where the stitches have pulled." He pressed harder and I clenched my teeth against the spike of pain that shot through my side. "I mean it. No lifting, no exertion, no running around playing soldier. You rest or this goes bad very quickly."
"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled. "Noted, Doc."
"Noted isn't the same as agreeing with me." Keller taped a fresh bandage over the wound and stepped back, pulling off his gloves. "I'll come back in three days. If I see any signs of infection, I'm putting you on IV antibiotics whether you like it or not."
I buttoned my shirt and nodded toward the door. "Thank you, Doctor."
Keller would have my head if I mixed alcohol with the antibiotics I was already taking, but the guys kept their traps shut wisely.
He packed up and made sure to offer another hard glare before slipping out, and I buttoned up my shirt, ready to get down to business.
Yakov and Vlad stood and positioned themselves opposite my desk with smirks on their faces.
I knew they were glad I was alive, and after losing Tyren, they'd taken a stronger lead in this pushback against Markin.
But parenting me wouldn't fly. I didn't need a father babysitting me.
What I needed were men willing to fight while I was temporarily laid up.
"Go ahead," I said. "I can see you've got something on your mind."
Yakov chuckled before wiping a hand across his face like he was erasing his smirk. "You're gonna get there, Boss."
"Shut up already and just get with the details." I let the corner of my mouth twitch in a smirk and then schooled my expression as I rose to tuck my shirt in.
Yakov dived right into the details. "With the store on Fourteenth gone, we've lost three full blocks on the east side.
Everything between the bridge and the old rail yard is essentially Markin's now.
Our guys in that area are either pulling back or getting picked off, and the ones still holding position don't have enough support to last much longer. "
We didn’t fully lose it—just until the police got done with their full investigation and we got repairs made.
But in the meantime, Yakov was right. We had nowhere to unload our product for now because without that store, we were down.
If it took two months to get it back up and running, it would cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lot of reputation.
"So we push back." My side burned, but I managed to cinch my belt and sit back down. I didn't care what Keller said. I had to keep my workouts up. That bullet sliced through my abs. I needed to keep myself strong.
"With what?" Vlad asked, not disrespectfully, but with the honesty I'd always valued in him. "We're stretched thin already. Tyren's gone, two of our guys from the Fourteenth Street crew are still recovering, and the men we do have are rattled. Markin hit us hard, Boss, and everyone knows it."
I leaned back in my chair and breathed through the searing pain.
"I'm not suggesting we charge in blind. I'm saying we can't let this stand.
Every day we don't respond is another day Markin's people believe we're finished.
Perception is half the war." Unfortunately, in our attempt to keep this quiet and not involve the authorities, we'd done damage that couldn’t be undone. Now we were digging out of a hole.
"Then what's the plan?" Yakov asked.
"We act carefully. Markin's aggressive and he's strong, and if we do this wrong we don't just lose territory, okay?
We lose everything. I won't make a move until I'm confident we can follow through.
For now we post men at Fourteenth Street and make sure those repairs are done.
If Markin horns in, we chase him out violently. "
Vlad didn't seem happy to hear my watch and wait strategy, but he didn't protest it either, so I switched gears.
"Has the wedding announcement been sent to the paper?
" The whole crux of my surprise push hinged on every family in the city knowing about my marriage to Kira.
Fake or not, I had the priest's signature on that marriage license, which he downright refused to give me without offering the proper ceremony and blessings.
Otherwise, I'd have done it myself and forged everyone's signatures.
But it depended on my men doing their jobs.
Yakov reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
He unfolded it and placed it on the desk in front of me.
It was a mock-up of the announcement as it appeared in print.
At the top it read "Dragonov-Markin" in elegant script, and below was a paragraph announcing the marriage of Nikolai Dragonov and Kira Markin in a private ceremony attended by close friends and family.
Beneath the text was a photograph.
I picked it up and studied it. The image had been digitally altered with enough skill, I couldn't spot the lines.
It showed me and Kira side by side, both smiling, and her hand was wrapped around my bicep.
The artist had photoshopped it beautifully.
She looked happy, and I looked proud. It was a perfect fabrication.
Anyone who saw it would believe it without a second thought.
"Where did you get the photo of her?" I asked.
"Her social media," Yakov said. "Before her accounts went dark after we took her. We pulled one from a friend's birthday party last year and composited it with a photo of you from the charity event in October. The guy who did the work is good. He's done stuff for us before."
I set the paper down and my chest twisted uncomfortably.
She looked really at peace and comfortable in that image, not at all the way she'd truly looked the day I forged those marriage papers.
The image was perfect, but after hearing her the other night, telling me how she didn't deserve what I was doing to her, I hadn’t slept right.
Kira was a pure soul. She'd proven that to me when she helped me that night, and I knew full well she was furious with me.
I tried to steal that kiss selfishly because I thought getting off might help me relax a little and sleep better.
Even then, she was curt but not unkind in her rejection of my advances.
She was right. She didn't deserve any of what I was doing to her. And I didn't deserve her, either.
"When Markin sees this," I told them, forcing myself not to think about her anymore, "his enemies are gonna start circling. Every family he's ever crossed will look at this announcement and he'll be humiliated. His organization will start to fracture from the inside."
"You really think this will work?" Vlad asked.
"The announcement costs us nothing, but it puts Markin on defense for the first time since this started. Even if his allies stay loyal, they'll have doubts. Doubts slow people down, and slow people make mistakes."
Yakov nodded and tucked the mock-up back into his jacket. "It's scheduled to run today, Boss."
Guilt needled at my conscience, which I had always been very good at pushing away. But now it felt unshakeable. Every step I took would affect Kira in ways she may not be able to recover from for years.
"Good." I shifted my attention to Vlad. "I need you to gather the men for a meeting tonight at midnight, here at the house."
Vlad raised an eyebrow but didn't question it. "All of them?"
"Everyone we have left. We need to discuss how we handle Markin going forward because what we've been doing isn't working. He's taken too much and if we don't respond with something decisive, he'll take the rest."
Vlad grunted his acknowledgement and headed out the door while Yakov stepped forward, ready to receive his own orders. "You want me there tonight?" he asked.
"I want you next to me every time I leave this desk until this is over." I couldn't risk Markin pulling a fast one on me. I needed the extra protection to ensure he didn't attack when I least expected it.
"And get me a drink," I grumbled, annoyed at how much this damn wound still hurt. "I can't think straight."
Yakov walked to my liquor cabinet while I rested my head on the headrest of my chair. We would force Markin back one way or another. As pathetic and weak as that man was, I was shocked we hadn't managed to do it already. But he was sneaky and conniving too, and evil.
Still, the man had not come for his own blood. That said a lot about him—and me.
Because Kira was mine now, and I'd made that clear to pretty much everyone. Today's paper promised to be gasoline on the fires burning between the two families, and if Markin were smart, he'd try to douse the flames, not fan them.