25. Maksim
MAKSIM
Carina didn’t stir when I got up the next morning.
It was early, perhaps too early for her after all that happened yesterday. She was usually an early riser, eager to get her protein-rich breakfast before heading to my private gym.
With all the danger and consequent adrenaline rushes from that smuggling run being ambushed, it seemed like her body—and maybe her mind—needed more of a rest than she’d typically allow.
I sat there in bed for a moment, watching her and marveling at how lucky I was to have ever encountered her.
Among all the possible women in the world, she was the one I’d ended up with.
Not by seeking her out. Not with me putting active energy into hunting down a woman.
But because her brother had wanted her out of his way in the Cartel leadership.
Thinking of Arturo Garcia worsened my mood immediately. I narrowed my eyes, losing the peace of sleep and the happiness of merely watching Carina sleep.
If he actively tried to stop that run…
If he seriously wanted to take us out with a direct attack like that…
I bit back a growl, letting my fury wake me up even more.
He would never get away with it. He would face swift retaliation and certain death, no matter how conflicted Carina might feel about it.
Only one way to start getting answers about what that asshole could be trying to do.
I wouldn’t accomplish anything waiting in bed and sleeping in.
Not even with the wounds I earned in protecting my wife.
Fresh agony radiated from the gashes on my arm and side where the bullets had grazed my skin.
Carina had done a fine job of disinfecting them and wrapping them up, but I wouldn’t be overdoing anything today.
I carefully slid out of bed and smiled at her sleeping form.
Except you.
I’ll always do you.
Taking her against the wall of the shower last night probably hadn’t been my wisest idea. But as I rotated my shoulders and moved to get the kinks out, I realized that the slight discomfort was worth it.
You will always be worth it.
Before stepping away to get dressed, I leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, gently so as not to wake her.
It would be easier to go to Lev’s and question the captured man without her there.
I didn’t like the idea of hiding anything from her, but this was something I bet I’d be able to address better without her next to me.
Just in case the news of Arturo officially being labeled as an enemy to the Bratva was something she couldn’t handle yet.
I went straight to Lev’s and I wasn’t surprised to find both of my cousins there. I hadn’t told them when I’d be coming, but it seemed like they were eager to question the man themselves.
Alexei looked up as I entered the house. Lev preferred a ranch-style residence, but it was so sprawling and twisted with rooms and corridors that it probably had more square footage than my place.
“Just in time,” my older cousin greeted wryly. He resumed looking down at his hands as he wiped blood from his knuckles.
Lev came into the living room right then, holding a water bottle, which he handed to his brother. He acknowledged me with a nod.
“Just in time for what?” I asked.
“Just in time to start asking that fucker some questions,” Alexei said, rising to stand.
“You visited him already?” I asked.
Stupid question.
He clearly had. The blood on his hands was from the man we’d captured on the side of the road.
An indifferent shrug was his reply. “I stopped in to see how he’s appreciating the accommodations.”
Accommodations. That was a fancy way of putting it.
Lev had brought the man into one of the cells in the basement of his safehouse.
Blood and body matter stained the solid concrete surfaces there.
Urine and fecal matter likely remained in spots, too, concealed from society with no way out.
The “guests” who went down there never came back up alive.
“And is he?” I asked sarcastically, playing along with this indirect approach to the conversation. Alexei hadn’t visited the man with any interest about how we’d rank in hospitality. He’d come to see if this asshole would be in the mood to talk.
“No,” he replied bluntly, tilting his head to the side to gesture for me to go with him.
Lev and I joined him, heading straight to the multiple locked doors toward the dungeon of cells.
Before we reached the metal panel that trapped the man in, loud curses and threats came from the slit in the window on the door.
“He’s under the illusion that we’ll release him,” Alexei said.
I rolled my eyes. This man wasn’t going anywhere. He tried to hurt my wife. He dared to interfere with our shipment.
The only thing he could do was tell me everything I wanted to know about where he’d come from and why. If Arturo was the enemy I suspected he was, then he’d be killed. That was the only way forward in this scenario.
“Have you asked him anything else?” I looked at Alexei as he reached for the handle.
“No.” He shook his head and gave me a curious look. “I assumed that you would insist on being the only one to do that.”
Good.
I trusted my cousins. My brothers. All the men who’d sworn to serve the Bratva.
But this was personal. Just like that drive-by incident that happened at the other pickup that Carina had accompanied me on, I took her safety to the highest level of care.
Personally following up with this man who tried to capture or attack her was how I could ensure that all was done properly.
We entered the small room and I dismissed the gore and guts. Whoever had been in here before this man hadn’t gone neatly. Old stains of blood streaks slashed over the walls with a hint that one of our deadlier enforcers had been in here.
I glanced to the right corner of the room. Markus, one of the soldiers who specialized in this kind of treatment, stood there with his arms crossed, his burly body braced for more action despite the seemingly easy stance he exhibited.
He acknowledged me with a curt nod, not bothering with speaking to me.
He’d reply when addressed, and I wasn’t offended that he wasn’t chatty.
This stone-cold, gargoyle appearance he had was part of why he was so frightening and intimidating.
The scars on his face added to the fear factor. The missing eye, too.
I guess I don’t need to get dirty, after all.
The man who tried to attack us yesterday on the side of the highway was bound up and tied to a chair.
It was the only piece of furniture in the square cell, lit only by one lone light swaying from a chain over his head.
Sharp shadows added more contrast to the angles of his wounds.
Markus had already been busy roughing him up.
The whip in his hand was likely the source of the long gashes on the man’s face.
His shirt was ripped and barely hiding the open cuts on his torso.
Clusters of swollen, puffy skin littered his face, evidence that he’d been beaten already.
Yet he stared me down the best he could, defiant.
“Who ordered that ambush?” I said, starting out with the bluntest questions just to see how stubborn and antagonistic he’d be.
He screwed up his face before launching a wad of blood and spit near my shoes.
I heaved out a long exhale and lifted one hand to beckon Markus forward.
Alexei and Lev stood behind me. If I turned, I bet they’d look just like me. Annoyed, impatient, and frustrated that we had to deal with this kind of confrontation from a captive who seriously had no power or leverage to play hard ball.
Markus stepped forward and whipped the man on his chest. He hissed, arching back and squeezing his eyes shut.
“Who ordered that am?—”
He looked like he was ready to spit at me again, but Markus whipped him once more, beating him to the punch.
“I’m in no rush,” I told the pathetic man wheezing for air after the second strike. “I can do this all day. It can take hours to bleed out.”
He lifted his head slowly, glowering at me as he tried to catch his breath.
“There are two guarantees. You will not exit this room. And I will have the answers I’m seeking about what happened yesterday.” I shoved my hands into my pockets and shrugged. “You give me the answers I need and we can end this now. Your call.”
“Fuck you,” he snarled.
When Markus stepped forward to hit him or whip him again, I held my hand up to make him pause. The man wasn’t done. That wasn’t only a spew of hatred that he wanted to share. He sucked in another deep breath to charge himself to say something more.
“And fuck those idiots who arranged that hit.”
“It was a hit?” I asked, taking whatever opening I could.
Distinguishing between a hit placed on me or Carina and an attempt to stop that shipment was an important step.
“No. Not like that.” He coughed and then cleared his throat. “That fucker found us and offered a job to stop your shipment on the way back north.”
I shook my head slowly.
“Don’t believe me?” he snarled.
I stopped moving. I wasn’t arguing with him. I was stunned. “That shipment was arranged less than twelve hours before it took place. How the fuck could anyone have gotten word about it that quickly?”
“Maybe you got a leak,” he said.
No leaks. Not from our end. It had to be the Colombians who let the word out that we wanted arms from them and had the intention to transport them along the edge of Arturo Garcia’s territory.
“Who contacted you for this job?” Alexei asked.
“Some fucker who’s been contacting all the Cartels,” he replied, hanging his head. Like a plant wilting without sunlight or water, he was fading fast. He wasn’t bleeding out to die this instant, but his energy to fight was waning fast.
“Not someone within the Cartels?”
He shook his head and coughed again. “No. I left the fuckers near the Gulf years ago. Been on my own and helping some others like me.”
Independent, then. Defectors from the Cartels were common, but they never lived for long.
“Not with the Garcia Cartel?” I asked.
“No. But this asshole who gave me and the others this job is in with them.”
“The Garcias?” I glanced at my cousins, making sure they were hearing this as clearly as they could with how the man was slurring and hunching over.
“Yeah. Arturo Garcia.” He huffed a weak laugh and shook his head. “This ugly motherfucker’s been targeting any Cartel faction he can. To get as much territory reached as he can.”
“Who is he?” I asked, on edge and expecting to hear one.
Gregori Volkov.
He’d been listed as Gregori Fyodor V. on paper, but that was him, with his middle name used almost as an alias for his surname.
“Yusef.”
I narrowed my eyes, barely hearing him with how quietly he spoke. “What?”
“Yusef,” he repeated.
I looked at my cousins again, seeing the recognition on their faces. The same recognition I couldn’t deny feeling with that name.
“Yousef Antonov?” I asked.
As a rule of thumb, it was idiocy to offer a name in the process of an interrogation. It was better to get answers than imply the idea of the ones I wanted to hear. But I had a hunch it wouldn’t backfire on me now.
“That’s him.” The man lifted his head to squint at me, as if he were dizzy and dehydrated with how he swayed and licked his bloodied lips.
No sympathy came to me for him. “Yusef Antonov. Some ugly motherfucker who’s been sniffing around the Cartels for over a year now.
Trying to meddle. Sneaking around and two-timing bosses, not that I give a shit about them anymore. ”
That settled it.
Gregori was definitely encroaching too close to home.
Elena had provided us with this name when she went digging into the shell company trails that led to the discovery of Gregori’s network. Yusef was reputed to be his second-in-command, his lieutenant.
If Yusef was interfering with shipments near us, with shipments coming to us, that was an action and threat from my uncle himself.
“Garcia seems to think he’s found himself a new friend in him,” the man said, chuckling darkly.
“How so?” My heart beat faster with the excitement of finally having a confirmation of a connection.
“He’s too fucking gullible. Listens to whatever Yusef Antonov tells him. That moron believes any promise he hears.”
“Is he a participant in Antonov’s plans?” I asked. I needed a yes or no. Definitively. Carina said the truck that was used in the ambush was one from the Cartel’s fleet. That alone indicated they were working together.
“Yusef Antonov isn’t trying to work with any of the Cartels. He’s trying to mess with them all and dictate territorial rights over the whole fucking region.” He groaned as he listed to the side. “That’s all I fucking know. Go on. Kill me.”
“Is Arturo Garcia a supporter of this regime change? To ally with Yusef Antonov?” It seemed so silly to assume Arturo could just be so stupid and gullible as to wind up in a bad situation. He’d told Carina he had been looking into a new partner. And this tracked.
The man nodded. “He isn’t trying to stop him,” he reasoned.
I looked back at my cousins.
That settled it.
I’d heard enough.
If Arturo wasn’t going to stand up to a third-party influence who was targeting all Cartels in the region, then he wasn’t an ally of ours.
I turned, done with this man.
Pausing at the door, I leaned in close to whisper into Markus’s ear.
“Get whatever else you can from him. About the truck they used, how they were approached and where, and the payments for this job.”
He gave me one stiff nod.
I looked at my cousins with a silent expectation that they would leave with me.
As we filed out of the room, it seemed like every step I took was one more through quicksand.
Because that was what the burden of needing to kill my brother-in-law felt like—wading through the dread of how she’d interpret my actions. All due to the conflict of her wanting to hold on to her past and not fully embrace the future with me.