Chapter 9
Dimitri
SONG: SLEEPYHEAD BY JUTES
The warehouse in South Phoenix was supposed to be empty.
Instead, I walked into an ambush that left three of my men bleeding on concrete and our merchandise scattered across the floor like expensive confetti.
Fifty kilos of uncut cocaine. Five million dollars’ worth of product, now evidence for whichever agency got there first.
I stood in the aftermath and watched Yuri press a rag to the bullet wound in his shoulder. He'd live. Barely. The other two were being loaded into cars before the sirens arrived.
"They knew," Yuri said through gritted teeth. "They were waiting for us."
No shit.
I'd figured that out around the time bullets started flying and my men started dropping. The real question was how they'd known. This operation had been planned three days ago. Only five people knew the details. Me, Maxim, Boris, Yuri, and Alexei.
One of those five people had talked.
Or someone had been listening.
"Get him to the doctor," I told Viktor. "The one in Maryvale, who doesn't ask questions."
"What about the product?"
"Leave it. We're already ghosts." I pulled out my phone and started making calls. The kind that made evidence disappear and witnesses forget what they'd seen. Money solved most problems in this city. The ones it didn't solve, I'd deal with personally.
Maxim appeared beside me. He had blood on his knuckles but none of it was his. Good.
"Three blocks over," he said quietly. "Black SUV. Watched the whole thing through binoculars and left when the shooting started."
"Description?"
"Too dark. But the plates were registered to a shell company in California."
Of course they were. Because this night wasn't complicated enough already.
We left before the sirens got close. My driver took surface streets back to Manhattan while I sat in the back and tried to figure out how badly I'd just been fucked.
Five million in product lost. Men wounded and dead.
And somewhere out there, someone was laughing at how easy it had been to set me up. My phone rang.
Giuseppe. Perfect timing.
"We have a problem," I said by way of greeting.
"So I hear." His voice was tight. "One of my contacts in the department called. Said there was a shooting in South Phoenix. Russian involvement."
"Your contact should learn to keep his mouth shut."
"My contact is keeping you from getting raided. You're welcome." Giuseppe paused. "What happened?"
I gave him the abbreviated version. The ambush. The lost product. The mysterious SUV.
He was quiet for a long moment. "Someone talked," he said finally.
"Or someone's been listening to our conversations."
"You think you're being surveilled?"
"I think someone knew exactly where we'd be and when. That's either surveillance or a leak." I rubbed my eyes. Three hours of sleep in the last two days was catching up with me. "I need to know it's not your people."
"My people have no reason to betray this alliance."
"Your people have Marco Benedetti and a history of hating Russians. That's two reasons right there."
Giuseppe's silence was answer enough. "I'll look into it," he said finally. "But, Dimitri, if you're implying my daughter had anything to do with this—"
"I'm not." The words came out harsher than I'd intended. "Giulia has nothing to do with this."
"Good. Because she's alone in that house you bought her, crying herself to sleep every night according to the staff who call my wife."
Guilt twisted in my chest. Sharp and unwelcome.
"She's safe there."
"Safe and miserable are not the same thing."
"This isn't about Giulia."
"Everything is about Giulia. She's the alliance. She's what makes this work." His voice dropped, dangerously. "And if you're going to accuse my family of betrayal while treating my daughter like a prisoner, we're going to have problems." He hung up.
I stared at my phone and wondered when my life had become this particular brand of nightmare. A wife I couldn't stop thinking about but couldn't let myself want. An alliance held together with threads and prayers. And now a leak that could unravel everything.
The car pulled up to my building. I took the elevator to the penthouse and poured myself four fingers of vodka.
Then I poured another four and sat in the dark staring at Manhattan's lights.
Giulia would be asleep by now. Alone in that massive house.
In that massive bed where I'd touched her once and then run like a coward.
I'd told myself it was for her protection.
That distance kept her safe from the violence of my world.
That she'd be better off if I stayed away.
But Giuseppe was right. Safe and miserable weren't the same thing.
My phone buzzed with a text from Maxim.
Need to talk. Tomorrow morning.
I sent back an affirmative and drained my glass. Tomorrow we'd figure out who'd betrayed us. Tomorrow we'd start damage control. Tomorrow I'd deal with the fallout from tonight's disaster.
Tonight, I'd sit in the dark and try not to think about soft skin and dark eyes and the sound Giulia had made when I'd kissed her throat.
I was failing spectacularly at that last part.
Maxim showed up at 6:00 a.m. with coffee and a file folder thick enough to be a murder weapon.
"Tell me something good," I said.
"The good news is Yuri will survive. The bad news is everything else." He dropped the folder on my desk. "I pulled records on everyone who knew about the Red Hook operation. Financial transactions, phone records, travel history. The works."
I opened the folder and started reading. Viktor's finances were clean. Alexei had some gambling debts but nothing that screamed desperation. Yuri was Yuri—loyal to a fault and too stupid to successfully betray anyone.
Which left either me or Maxim. And I knew I hadn't talked.
"This doesn't help us."
"Keep reading."
I flipped through more pages. Bank statements. Credit card receipts. Cell tower data showing locations and movements. Then I found it.
A series of calls from a burner phone to another burner phone. The timing matched perfectly with our operational planning. Someone had been making calls right after our strategy meetings. Calls that lasted two or three minutes, just long enough to pass information.
"Whose phone?" I asked.
"That's where it gets interesting." Maxim leaned against the desk. "The calls originated from downtown, near the social club where we meet."
"So, someone at the club?"
"Or someone who has access to the club." He paused. "The Italians have been there twice in the last week. Giuseppe came to that meeting about the port operations. And his nephew—"
"Don't." I held up a hand. "Don't tell me it's one of Giuseppe's people."
"I'm telling you the calls started after the Italians were in the building."
I stood and walked to the window. The sun was rising over the city. Pink and gold light painting everything beautifully. Lying about what this place really was.
"If it's an Italian, Giuseppe will lose his mind."
"If it's an Italian, the alliance is over." Maxim's voice was flat. Factual. "You can't let betrayal slide. Even for peace."
He was right. I knew he was right. But the thought of telling Giuseppe that someone in his family had sold us out, of watching this fragile alliance shatter before it had really begun...
And Giulia. What would happen to Giulia if the alliance broke?
She'd probably be relieved. Get to go home to her books and her normal life and stop being married to the man who'd fucked her once and then locked her away.
My chest tightened at the thought.
"We need proof," I said. "Solid proof before we accuse anyone. Trace those calls. Find out who they went to. Get me names."
"Already working on it." Maxim stood. "But, Dimitri? If this is an Italian problem..."
"Then I'll handle it." I turned to face him. "Carefully. Without starting a war if I can avoid it."
"And if you can't avoid it?"
Then Giulia would be the first casualty. Caught between her family and mine. Married to one side, born to the other. No matter what happened, she'd lose.
"Let's make sure it doesn't come to that."
Maxim left. I sat at my desk and opened my laptop, pulling up the security feed from the Silverleaf house.
I'd been checking it obsessively since Giulia moved in.
Telling myself it was about security. About making sure she was safe.
Really it was because I was a masochist who couldn't stop watching her move through rooms I'd never occupy.
The cameras showed her in the library. She sat curled in one of the reading chairs with a book open in her lap, but she wasn't reading, just staring at the pages.
Her hair was down around her shoulders, and she wore leggings and an oversized sweater that kept slipping off one shoulder. She looked small. Sad. Alone.
My doing.
I'd put her there. Told myself it was for her own good.
That she'd be happier away from the violence and chaos of my world.
But happiness required more than safety.
It required connection, purpose. Something to care about beyond just existing.
I was giving her nothing. Just money and space and the hollow promise that this was somehow better than the alternative.
On screen, Giulia closed her book and pressed her hands to her face. Her shoulders shook. She was crying.
I closed the laptop before I could do something stupid like drive to Silverleaf and try to fix what I'd broken. My phone rang. Boris.
"We found the target of those calls," he said without preamble. "The burner phone that received the information it's registered to a guy named Mihai Ionescu. Romanian. Small time operator. Works with the Chechens sometimes. The Albanians. Whoever pays."
"So, someone in our organization is selling to Ionescu, who's selling to our enemies."
"That's the working theory."
"Bring Ionescu in. Quietly. I want to talk to him before anyone knows we're onto this."
"On it."
I hung up and stood, pacing the length of the suite. My father would have already been torturing suspects by nowor have burned down half of Brighton Beach looking for the traitor. But my father's methods had gotten him killed by his own daughter.
I needed to be smarter. More careful. Figure out who was betraying us before I acted. Gather evidence. Build a case. And if it turned out to be someone from Giuseppe's family...
I'd have to tell Giulia. I would have to look her in the eye and explain that her cousin or uncle or whoever had been selling us out. That the alliance she'd sacrificed herself for was rotten from the start.
She'd probably laugh. That harsh, broken sound she'd made the morning I'd sent her away. Or maybe she'd just stare at me with those dark eyes and ask if I was satisfied. If destroying her family and isolating her and treating her like an unwanted obligation had been worth it.
I didn't have a good answer to that question.
My phone buzzed. A text from the security company that monitored the Silverleaf house.
Mrs. Morozova requested access to files on Bratva structure and operations. How should we proceed?
I stared at the message.
Giulia wanted information about the Bratva. About my world. The world I'd specifically kept her away from.
Why?
I typed back: What kind of files?
Organizational charts. Key personnel. Legitimate business operations. She said she wants to understand her husband's work.
Something shifted in my chest. Not quite hope. Not quite fear. Something in between. She wasn't hiding anymore. She wasn't just sitting in that house waiting for life to happen to her, she was trying to understand. Trying to find her place in this mess I'd created.
I should tell security to deny her request. To keep her in the dark where it was safer. Where she couldn't get hurt by knowing too much.
Instead, I typed: Give her whatever she asks for. But keep the sensitive stuff hidden.
The response came quickly: Are you sure? Some of this information is sensitive.
She's my wife. She wants to know what's going on, let her find out. Within reason.
I sent the message and immediately wondered if I'd just made a terrible mistake.
But Giulia deserved to know what she'd gotten herself into. Deserved to understand the empire she'd been bartered into. If she was asking questions, the least I could do was give her answers. Even if those answers made her hate me more than she probably already did. My phone rang again. Maxim.
"We have Ionescu. He's in the warehouse. Ready when you are."
"Give me thirty minutes."
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door, then I paused and pulled out my phone.
Opening my contacts I scrolled to Giulia's name.
My thumb hovered over the call button. I should check on her.
Ask how she was settling in. Try to be something resembling a decent husband.
But I had a traitor to interrogate and a leak to plug and an alliance to save.
Giulia would have to wait. Story of our marriage, really.
I put my phone away and left the penthouse.
Time to find out who was trying to destroy everything I'd built.
And if it turned out to be someone Giuseppe loved, if it came down to the alliance or the truth.
.. I'd deal with that problem when I got to it.
Assuming I survived whatever I was about to learn.