Chapter 6 - Viktor
There’s a reason they say that necessity is the mother of invention.
It’s been five days since I drove away from the bewitching blonde, who’s since been anything but out of sight, out of mind. Five days since I watched her shove her phone back into her pocket instead of actually making the phone call she probably should’ve.
And it’s been about four days since I’ve accepted that I still need to use my fucking brain, no matter how persistently Nadya fucking Yuri lurks in the back of it.
No less tangibly than I lurk in the back room of Sullivan’s Steakhouse—one of the Zakharov family’s more legitimate fronts; an extremely American restaurant in the North End that launders more money than it serves fillets of meat—playing the role of the dutiful second-in-command, while Anton presides over a tribunal.
As much as it pains me to bear witness to Anton sitting at the head of the table with that expression carved from ice, it’s the price I’ve got to pay. It’s what it’ll take to bury our scrap the other day.
I’ve thought long and hard about this.
The fact is, I can’t currently afford to raise suspicion.
Fuck knows how closely the Yuris are still watching.
Riveted as I remain, and potentially insane, I don’t trust Nadya.
Which means there’s no time like the present to build up some goodwill here.
Not to mention, it’s a grand opportunity to fuck with the watchers of my every move by slipping right back into action like nothing’s amiss.
It’s always harder to hit a moving target.
And hey, at least Anastasia, our cousin, stands on Anton’s other side. She’s usually a decent referee for whenever Anton and I inevitably butt heads. Though she doesn’t look to be in the mood to play peacekeeper today.
The arms crossed against her chest, and the look of steely concentration on her face, almost makes me feel bad about how little of a shit I give about these small potatoes.
Meanwhile, she scowls at the man in the chair in front of us.
Condemning. The shit Boris Kuznetsov has pulled is a bigger deal to her.
It’s obvious. To me, he’s just another mid-level enforcer with his hands bound behind his back and sweat beading on his forehead.
His sticky fingers and gambling problems are about as interesting to me as his three children.
As far as I’m concerned, he’s dug this grave. I’d rather just bury him in it than play out this bullshit trial.
But no, no—not on the Zakharov Pakhan’s watch.
Anton requires I present the fucking evidence.
He wants to play judge, as if he isn’t already aware that I’ve spent weeks investigating this fucker.
Just as surely as he knows that one of Anastasia’s soldiers noticed discrepancies in the protection money from the South Boston routes.
How anyone thinks I’m the theatrical one, I don’t fucking understand.
Whatever.
Today, I get to put my competence on display. And I can do it. I can be the kind of ruthless that Anton’s too much of a fucking pussy to be.
Except my focus isn’t what it needs to be.
How can it be, when my thoughts orbit in circles that always return to her? To the way she had said, “Your blood will be on my hands, and I don’t need it.”
That was an admission of—of something.
Her hesitation was, too. Her performance after the fact couldn’t erase that.
“Viktor?” Anastasia prompts, jerking me back to the present.
The frown on her face suggests it isn’t the first time she’s said my name.
Well, shit.
I don’t like pissing her off, if only because I happen to like her. Despite her undeniable prettiness, she looks every bit as lethal as she is. The air of cold assessment about her is what makes her one of the most effective Brigadiers in our organization.
“The bank statements,” Anton says coolly.
“Yep.” I clear my throat and flip through the ledger in my hands. “Kuznetsov’s been skimming for about six months now. Records show he started small and got bolder over time. He never went higher than a grand, yet, which was what he pocketed last month.”
I drop the hefty ledger on the table in front of Anton with a dooming thwack! I don’t need to say much more. The paper trail speaks for itself. It’s cut and dry.
Kuznetsov makes a wet, choking sound.
Jesus, no. I know what’s coming.
“I was going to pay it back! I swear! My daughter—my Anya, she needed surgery, the insurance wouldn’t cover—”
Here he fucking goes.
“Your daughter is fine, Boris,” Antastasia contradicts icily. “I already checked. This is about your poker debt to the Italians.”
I bite my tongue, swallowing an I fucking told you so.
There isn’t a soul in this room that doesn’t know this motherfucker wouldn’t have the audacity to lie if I was taking a fucking blowtorch to his scrotum. My methods are too barbaric for Anton, though. He dwells too much on his fucking legacy. That’s why I’m the “low-level thug”.
Kuznetsov squirms in his seat.
Anton’s expression is unchanging. He’s one hell of a poker player, at least. Woodenly, he commands, “Anastasia. Your assessment?”
“Theft from the family is betrayal. There’s no grey area here.”
Why the fuck are we pretending this needs to be mulled over?
“Yes.” Anton sighs.
The word settles over the room like a death knell. It’s quickly shrouded by the eruption of Kuznetsov’s discordant sobs. His snot runs down into his own mouth. It’s fucking disgusting.
I tilt my head to watch Anton. He just sits there, his fingers steepled, considering Kuznetsov. There is nothing to be considered.
“The penalty for betrayal is death,” he finally announces the obvious.
I can’t help grimacing at the awful sound of Kuznetsov’s wailing. “Please—please, I have children—”
Anton stands with a heavy exhale. I wait for the instruction, ready to play executioner and get the fuck out of here. It’s typical for the investigator to handle the sentence. At least with this, the chain of command is effortlessly clear.
Instead, he pulls his gun out of the holster at his hip.
Right. So, he’s actually going to do it himself. I can practically see the strategy stitch itself together in his head. This is how he can keep his hands clean by dirtying them in front of witnesses.
Cheap political fucking theater he can disguise as leadership.
My teeth grind.
I’d make an example out of the traitor. Let every soldier beneath the Zakharov banner bear witness to what happens when you betray the family.
One day, Anton is going to fucking die trying to make them love him.
He doesn’t accept that fear is a better motivator.
If I couldn’t draw and quarter him, I’d string him up—
A family that would love to see you hung from your fucking toes. I nearly flinch at Nadya’s voice in my head, barreling in out of left field. It’s a close thing. Too fucking close.
“Take him out back,” Anton orders henchmen.
The two men haul the traitor to his feet and begin dragging him. He’s still begging and crying, as useless as his attempts at covering his tracks.
I force her out of my head and follow Anton out to the alley, fogging my treacherous thoughts with the reek of garbage and piss.
The gun has a silencer on it. I know this, I can see it.
Yet the shot, when it goes off, is deafening.
***
There’s no point in lingering afterward. A swift goodbye is more acknowledgment than anyone desires from me before I depart. Besides, I don’t need to stand with my hands in my pockets and watch the henchmen clean up the mess.
That’s the easy part. I know, because I’ve done it.
I’ve done shooting, and I’ve done clean-up—but I haven’t been in the chair.
I’ve never been more aware of how easily I could be.
Would Anton waste time on a trial with me, too?
Would I be grateful for it, or fucking insulted by the theatrics still?
Would I see a point with my ass in the hot seat?
Maybe not. I’ve been on trial since I was born.
Or, at least, since Sergei Zakharov brought his bastard back to his home, where his first, eldest, and only legitimate son and wife already resided.
Three blocks from Sullivan’s, the cold biting at my cheeks begins to sharpen, whittling reality down to an icicle’s tip. I trudge without a destination in mind. Every brain cell dedicates itself to accounting for the choices I’ve already made.
When it comes down to it, what Kuznetsov did wasn’t complicated.
He simply took what wasn’t his and did a shitty fucking job covering his tracks.
He was stupid enough to assume that the architecture of the family could shield him from the consequences of his appetites. He made a bad call. Anyone could’ve.
I flag a cab two streets over and slump in the seat.
I toss out the address of a random café, thinking of the chair Kuznetsov had been squirming so pathetically in.
And then, I’m just thinking about the chair itself.
Empty, inanimate, yet representative of life-or-death penalties.
How easy it is, that a man can spend ages building something in the covert cover of the dark—and still wind up in the chair. All it takes is one slip.
Is Nadya Yuri my slip?
The cab stalls at a red light.
She didn’t call her brothers.
She had the phone right there, in her hand.
The chunky rings on her lithe fingers showed off beneath the glare of the floodlights.
Her hand had slipped the device back into her pocket, and her perfect lips told me to disappear.
She hadn’t given away much, but it had been enough.
I know she knows I’ve been leading her brothers on a wild goose chase.
She knows I’m driving them crazy. And she hasn’t said a word.
She’s torn, even if she can’t admit it to herself.
I look out the window just in time to see the light turn green.
Here is what I know to be ubiquitously true: Nadya isn’t prone to sentimentality.
I believe it grosses her out. Her softness is as limited as her sensuality isn’t.
She doesn’t waffle between choices; when she knows what she wants, she demands it.
If necessary, she takes it. These are facts I learned the night we met, though they’ve reiterated themselves throughout my surveillance.
This is precisely what appeals to me about her.
These are facts.
Just like it’s a fact that I’ve poured the last two years into building something that could put me in that fucking chair. Something that Anton knows nothing about—and can’t know about, until the time is right.
Just like it’s a fact that it is a bad idea to pursue her.
As it is a fact that I know, I’m going to do it anyway.
The cab pulls up to the curb, and I pay the driver without paying the amount any heed. Who gives a shit, anyway?
The thing about risk is that it doesn’t compound the way most people assume it does.
You’d think another variable stacked on top of an already precarious structure would make the whole thing more likely to topple.
And, sure, maybe it would. For someone else.
But I’ve been living inside this particular precarity for two goddamn years now.
Just because it’s staring me down today doesn’t mean it’s the first time I’ve contemplated the risks.
The what-if and or else of it all. Caution doesn’t really move it further away.
Is she a slip?
No. She’s not.
Kuznetsov had a slip. His slip was six months of small, greedy, frightened choices that compounded until there was no escaping the box he’d erected one wall at a time. He didn’t think of the long game, not every step of it. I have.
What she is… is mine. I can feel it. I felt it the instant her fingers curled into my collar and dragged my lips to hers that night.
I saw it all over her fucking face under the floodlights, her pupils blown and her lips parted for me.
I already know what desire looks like on her face.
I know what it is to be the object of it, too.
There’s no lump in my throat. There is no quiver of trepidation.
My hands are as fucking sure as they were when they were on her body.
I claimed her, then. And I want her again.
When she’s mine, that’s the opposite of a loose end.
In a certain light, it’s stupider to leave her alone than it is to reel her in.
I already know my next move. I think I’ve known it since I drove away from that racing lot with the husky drag of her voice scouring the bone-dome of my skull. The only question was how long I’d loiter around the decision before putting it into action.
Turns out? Not that fucking long.