Chapter Two
Konstantin’s POV
My phone vibrated as I parked my motorcycle at the back of the brick building. Pulling it out of my pocket, I saw that it was Mikhail calling. I picked up the call, getting off the motorcycle.
“Hi, Konstantin,” he greeted.
“Mikhail, what’s going on?”
“That’s the right way to greet your brother?”
I chuckled. “Exactly, my brother. So I know better than anyone else that you don’t bother with pleasantries except when something is wrong.”
“Right,” he answered. “Are you still in Russia?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Vitya Morozov was sighted earlier today. In Moscow.”
“Of course, the bastard can’t hide for long. He’s too stupid and vain to stay away from the public eye. Does Viktor know? We should get a hold of him immediately.”
“Well, that’s where the issue lies,” Mikhail said. “The authorities got to him first. He has been arrested as we speak.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, kicking sand with my boot. “Now we’re at a risk of exposure if the bastard gets desperate enough.”
“Exactly,” he agreed, his sigh loud enough to be heard over the phone. “Roman and Viktor are meeting with some insider guys to see how much information is in public hands. We’ll see where to go from there after their meeting.”
“Okay,” I breathed.
“I just thought to let you know because the arrest hasn’t been made public yet,” he said.
“Hm. We’ll keep fingers crossed, then.”
“Yeah.”
Vitya Morozov was a Lobanov Bratva soldier—until he decided to go rogue by leaking our information.
From when he suddenly disappeared to when our investigation revealed that he was betraying us wherever he was, we had been lying in wait for the bastard.
Customarily, I could have gotten his location, swooped in on him, and beaten him bloody until I had the names of everyone he had breathed a word of our intel to.
But Viktor, the Pakhan, absolute leader of the Lobanov Bratva and my oldest brother, had asked me to hold on since Vitya hadn’t made any move yet.
As one of the soldiers who operated more in Russia than at the Manhattan headquarters, Vitya used to be under me. Well, under a capo who was under me. So, while it was a Lobanov betrayal, making Vitya pay was quite personal.
And pay, he will.
**********
“Boss, he just confessed. We were right. It was the same guy. Justin,” Sergei said as I joined him in the rectangular, dimly lit hall.
Sergei had taken on the responsibility of torturing this particular thief even though one of his men could easily do the job.
The guy was like that sometimes; it made me wonder if he preferred the torture part to the mafia boss’s right-hand man part.
Nevertheless, I had no problem with him stepping down to smaller duties once in a while since it didn’t affect his main duties of handling intel, logistics, and cleanup.
The guy strapped to a metal chair beneath the only bulb in the room had his head inclined to the side, his face covered in blood. Only his low groans proved he was alive.
“Hmm,” I replied, nodding.
Whoever this Justin guy is, he’s getting bold.
It’s time to let him know the difference between a gang and a mafia.
“Should we send him a message this time? He should feel the fire he’s playing with,” Sergei suggested.
“How many packs did he send him to take this time?”
“Fourteen packs, boss. He took two from seven different packages.”
“A nice attempt to be clever,” I commented, turning away from the confined guy. “Any info on his current location?”
“He said they met just outside St. Petersburg. He and the other guys hand him the stolen goods, and he settles them. They don’t hear from him until he has another job for them.”
“We won’t just send him a message. Sending a message means they are big enough to send a response. A small fly like him is too small for us to communicate with,” I pointed out.
“Yes, boss,” he answered, nodding earnestly, already knowing the direction I was headed.
“We’ll give him a message he can’t mistake.
A gift he can’t miss,” I told him, gesturing towards the tortured man.
“He can easily replace him; there are jobless guys everywhere. So, ask your guys to send his body in pieces to the Justin guy. With a note that he won’t live to see the result of his next attempt. ”
“Done, boss.”
“Get it to him before the end of today,” I instructed.
“Okay, boss.”
I went back into my office, or rather, the space I only used when I really needed to: when any of my brothers came around, or I had many things to document at the same time.
But as much as I didn’t enjoy paperwork, I hated loose ends even more. And that was the main reason I never left things to chance when it came to intel.
Taking off my leather jacket, I settled into the chair behind my desk.
I opened the file Sergei had compiled earlier in the day. It was a file on Vitya Morozov.
I was almost half-done going through the papers when Viktor called.
“Konstantin,” he said, his voice level.
“Brother.”
“You’ve heard about Vitya’s arrest, right?” he inquired.
“Yes,” I let out. “Mikhail told me when they laid hands on him yesterday.”
“Intel isn’t in the wrong hands, yet,” he said. “What we have to do now is tie up loose ends from the outside. Clean things up quickly.”
“Seizing his accomplice and getting information from them?”
“Precisely,” he confirmed. “The most tenable outlet, based on the information I’ve received, is his lover, Alina Sokolov. She’s in St. Petersburg. He had continued contact with her right up to his arrest.”
“I’ll find her.”
“It has to be a smooth cleanup. Get information from her or end her if she won’t talk.”
“Yes, boss,” I teased. “How’s my nephew doing?”
“Fine,” he answered, his voice calmer.
I didn’t need him to explain it to me; I knew Viktor couldn’t stand Bratva betrayals. While he wouldn’t tolerate killing a woman or a young person, he didn’t care about gender or age when it came to someone who betrayed the Lobanov Bratva.
“I’ll handle this,” I assured him.
“I trust you.”
Time to make good on my promise, as always.
**********
I hadn’t needed to step out of the car as my men carried out the extraction, but I did anyway.
I watched the whole capture through the window of the lead vehicle. As Sergei dragged her to one of the SUVs, I stepped out.
A closer look at her struck me with recognition.
I had known she was the nurse who cared for Liza last year since Sergei gave me a file on her a few hours earlier.
He had also informed me that she had been in a relationship with Vitya while she stayed in New York with Liza and Roman.
Although he also mentioned that some online sources claimed they were separated, there was no real proof of it.
As I went through pictures of her in the file, I couldn’t remember any interaction with her in my brother’s house.
But as her eyes lifted and met mine, I remembered.
I remembered that same copper brown hair brightening her face as she silently walked past me in the hallway.
I definitely remembered her holding her own against Roman as she took care of Liza.
She still looked every bit the quiet but unflinching nurse.
Recognition wasn’t the only thing that hit me as she looked back at me. There was unadulterated hatred in her eyes, and even though I wasn’t the type to care about something like that, it made me wonder why.
Is it because of Vitya?
She probably thought I implicated the love of her life by ratting him out to the Russian authorities and was here to abduct her, too. Vitya must have told her I was one of the people who could bring him down. He might have painted his betrayal differently to her; they were partners, after all.
Well, none of this is personal, as far as she’s concerned.
This was between the Bratva and a soldier-turned-betrayer.
I was simply doing my job as the cleanup—no more, no less.
It didn’t matter if she saw me as a villain or whatever.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t always like cleaning up messes like these; it was what I was built for.
To me, she was just another leak to be sealed.
It’s as simple as that.
But as we drove away from the area, I couldn’t stop seeing the look on her face in my head. It wasn’t scared and was even further from threatening, for that matter, but it haunted me nonetheless.
I dialed Sergei’s line, and he picked up on the first ring.
“Don’t harm her unless I say so,” I told him.
“Yes, boss,” he answered.
Ending the call, I decided to interrogate her myself.
Hours later, we were driving into the unpaved parking in front of the stark safehouse. Located just outside Moscow, the secluded building was one of the Lobanov locations for “processing.”
“Place her in the second guest room,” I instructed Sergei. “With guards outside.”
“Yes, boss,” Sergei replied, signaling to his men who were now unmasked.
The moonlight shone on her frowning face as Sergei’s men led her out of the car.
The second guest room had no windows; it made it easier to break people quickly. I chose it because, for some reason beyond Viktor’s instructions, I didn’t want to prolong this interrogation.
A few minutes later, I went to the guest room.
She didn’t look up to the door until I had closed it behind me.
I went to where she stood at the edge of the bed. Then she gazed up at me before I could say anything.
“Konstantin Lobanov,” she uttered, her voice sharp. “You’re the one who killed him.”
What’s she rambling about?
I was about to ask her when my phone vibrated in my pocket. Seeing it was my brother, I left the room.
I’ll be back.