39. Maksim
MAKSIM
As Carina’s pregnancy progressed, so did her commitment to her roles here.
The Cartel needed assistance to get back on their own feet, and she participated in it from a distance.
“In memory of my father,” she said as an explanation for why she wouldn’t step back.
I couldn’t deny her that. Through her advice and remote guidance, she provided the structure that the remaining Cartel members needed. The ones who favored Arturo were sent packing or killed. Reorganizing the loyal members wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be.
It seemed that all those years after Miguel Garcia’s death, Arturo earned more than a few critics.
Many of them respected Carina, not him. They rallied together for their independence, and with Carina’s blessing and visit when they elected Jorge as the next boss, they were on their path to being successful again.
To being a Cartel that we would sign another trade agreement with.
She’d helped them fortify their organization to prevent the spread of Yusef Antonov encroaching, but that wasn’t enough. When she wasn’t busy speaking with Jorge and assisting via calls, she was here with me and Dean. With Adrik and the others.
“Consolidating your smuggling routes will be simpler,” she advised in a meeting a month after I executed her brother. “It will allow for fewer windows of opportunity for an ambush or attack overall.”
Viktor shook his head. “How so? If we’re concentrating on fewer runs, all they need to do is target more precisely and hit us harder with more product or arms traveling at once.”
She shrugged. “Then you redirect. By reinstating steady business with Jorge and the Cartel, you’ll be closer to what our fathers imagined having—a solid alliance no one else can break.
It will prevent the Cartel from seeking other means of business as well, which is a preventive measure against Antonov. ”
“And his retaliation is inevitable,” I said with a sigh, capturing Carina as she moved to pass me and sit again. I caught her with my arm around her waist to tug her onto my lap.
“His retaliation has already begun,” she corrected me, involved in keeping her finger on the pulse of the smuggling operations in the region.
Our runners saw her as the boss now too.
Our strategist. And it didn’t hurt that she once spoke with many of the workers at the docks to be able to be direct in ordering and requesting specifications about what we needed smuggled into the country.
“Antonov’s active with the Hernandez Cartel, trying to push in a westward force of competition and drive out the Garcia Cartel again.” She shook her head. “Jorge has another crew arranged to spy and plant bombs on their convoys this week.”
With her assistance, we’d never have to blindly fear Gregori’s network.
She was too good at knowing who was who and what could be moved where.
Gregori might want Yusef Antonov to weaken us by cutting off our providers and compromising our smuggling runs, but Carina was the tool that we could depend on to stay one step ahead of them in this war.
“That’s only half of our headache,” Lev said with a heavy exhale.
He sat forward and rubbed his brow. Adrik had delegated him to assist me and Carina in following up with the aftermath of the Garcia Cartel’s adjustments after Arturo’s execution.
“Because from the intel that’s been coming in from the Rossis and others over near the Gulf, the network has expanded into more pipelines than what we could’ve anticipated at first.”
Elena cringed. “And I’m finding evidence of something new every day,” she said, present at this meeting as our financial investigator.
“Multiple pipelines that had been hidden for a while.” She cleared her throat and got that uneasy expression that preceded her sharing more details than what she wanted to know.
“Movement of weapons. More drugs. And I’ve got Igor focusing on what seems to be a pattern of bribes paid off to officials. ”
Carina furrowed her brow. “What, Gregori is paying to have pressure put on law enforcement now?”
“Seems like it,” Viktor said. “I’ve been watching some of that with the uptick in Feds in the area.”
Always something.
Like this, though, it was clear that we would always have ample power to spread out and keep up with all the developments.
“He means business,” Alexei said. “Diversifying his footprint and broadening his attack.”
Drugs, guns, Feds. Those were our three biggest concerns. They always would be since they represented the power that held the world in check.
“Obviously, he means business,” Lev snapped, glaring at his brother. “He faked his death decades ago and isn’t coming back just to be awarded entrepreneur of the year.”
“Why, though?” Elena asked, glancing around.
As the most na?ve and unfamiliar of us all, her lack of understanding was permissible.
“Two possibilities,” Carina said, schooling her directly but without attitude, like she often did as the two women became closer as sisters-in-law.
“One, Gregori wants revenge for being ousted when he planted that bomb and clearly was thwarted in taking over the throne then. Or two, he is coming to reclaim the throne now.”
“That’s not happening,” Alexei growled.
“Over my dead body,” Lev said. He raked his hand over his head and scowled.
“Of the two,” Adrik said calmly but with a flicker of annoyance, “I would debate that it’s number two. I can’t rule out the possibility that Father’s medical records were leaked. That he could’ve realized that Father might die soon and he could try to have his way now.”
Elena shook her head. “But then that means he’d have to kill you, too.” She looked near tears with an angry press of her lips as she placed her hand over her baby bump. “And our child.”
“He’d have to kill Maksim, Viktor, and Nikolai as well,” Carina added before chuckling darkly. “And I’m not going to let anyone hurt my husband.”
I kissed her cheek, turned on with how possessive she could be over me.
“I know, but?—”
Adrik took her hand. “It won’t come to that.”
“It won’t,” Lev said. “That man will never succeed in ruling this family. He tried once and failed. If he tries again, he’ll wish he were really dead all this time.”
Lev was closest to my father, and it didn’t come as any surprise that he wouldn’t refer to Gregori Volkov as his father. He was just the enemy. The villain. The one to fight.
“All that we need to keep in the forefront of our minds right now is that this is war. Yusef Antonov will get our attention first since he’s acting in Gregori’s steed while he hides, but regardless of who reveals themselves as a member of this network designed to compete and end us, they will not succeed,” Adrik said.
Between the sabotage through John Morovov and the discovery of Arturo Garcia’s lies, we had two strikes to tally so far.
So long as we stood together as a family in this time of saying goodbye to our Pakhan, we would never let such an end to our legacy happen.
War with Gregori was no longer a theoretical what-if.
It was here.
It was coming.
And with Carina in my life, I couldn’t be more confident that all would end well.