Chapter 44
“Rurick Morozova,” Antonio says, taking a step forward, meeting the old man’s stare.
Ah.
While I’ve never met Rurick, I’ve heard of him plenty of times. He’s Liliya’s grandfather. Head of the Bratva out of Moscow. He ran things in Russia while his son, Yaroslav, controlled the Bratva in the States. He’s also the one who approved for Aleksy to step in after Yaroslav’s and Dima’s deaths.
The SUV’s back doors open again, and two other men step out.
Both in sharp black suits and wearing thick gold chains around their necks.
One is nearly seven feet tall, and the other hardly hits five-five.
Rurick gestures toward the SUV. “Can we speak privately?” His English is somewhat broken.
Antonio scoffs, not showing Rurick the respect he’s used to, and shakes his head. “You just chased us down in your vehicle. I’m not getting in there with you.”
Like me, Antonio trusts no one.
Rurick lifts a brow. “Then where? There aren’t many places men like us can speak freely.”
“There’s a diner around the corner,” Antonio replies. “We can talk there.”
Rurick glances back at Lev and the other men.
“Just us,” Antonio adds. “You and Lev. Me and Emilio.”
“All right,” Rurick says. “To the diner we go.”
We get plenty of stares when we walk into the diner.
I’ve been here a few times.
Antonio’s daughter, Amara, loves their pancakes.
They make them into smiley faces.
The hostess shows us to a red booth.
Antonio and I sit across from Rurick and Lev.
Lev looks nervous, and I’m surprised that, with his age and closeness to Aleksy, Rurick is even allowing him to be around.
It also makes me question Lev.
I had no idea he was scheming behind Aleksy’s back with us and Rurick.
I glance at Rurick as the hostess hands us menus.
We all order coffee. That’s it.
Rurick has to be in his late seventies. His face is wrinkled from a hard and violent life. It’s a look I’m familiar with—seeing it on so many aged faces in the Mafia. He’ll be unfit to lead soon and have to pass his corrupted empire down to someone else.
God help him if it’s Aleksy.
God help every man in the Bratva.
He clasps his veiny hands together and rests them on the table.
No one starts the conversation until the server delivers our coffees and scurries off.
Rurick picks a creamer from the basket, cracks it open, and stirs it into his coffee before bluntly saying, “I want Aleksy gone.”
I maintain my composure, holding in the surprise.
“That’s your grandson,” Antonio states as if Rurick somehow forgot.
I’d want the guy gone, too, but I’m not Bratva.
This isn’t my business.
“I’m aware,” Rurick says.
Lev repeats every motion Rurick makes.
From the creamer he selected to how he’s stirring his coffee.
“Aleksy is ruining our organization. I won’t allow him to ruin the decades of blood, sweat, and death my family sacrificed for our success.”
Lev nods in agreement.
I lean in, cutting to the only thing I give a fuck about. “Who shot at me and Liliya?”
That’s my priority for the day.
“Aleksy made the call,” Lev says matter-of-factly.
I grind my teeth, rage barreling through me.
It takes all my self-restraint not to pick up the butter knife beside me and slam it into his jugular. Sweeten his coffee with his own fucking blood.
The idiot has my number.
He could’ve given me a heads-up.
I move closer, ready to get in his face, but Antonio blocks the move and asks, “Why would Aleksy put his sister in harm’s way?”
Rurick scoffs. “We all know my grandson isn’t the sharpest blade in the drawer.”
My stare stays glued to Lev. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
He turns to Rurick, a silent plea for him to answer the question for him.
Rurick doesn’t back him up.
Just waits for him to speak for himself.
Lev pales some. “I didn’t know about it until it was over.”
I drum my fingers along the table’s edge, still struggling to hold in my anger. “What do you want, Rurick? Why’d you chase us down?” I lock my gaze on him. “Are you here to apologize for ordering Aleksy to tell Liliya to kill me?”
Rurick shakes his head violently. “I told Aleksy to let that go, and I wasn’t the one who called the hit.
I told him we needed to start this on a clean slate.
” He picks up the mug, holding it tight in his chubby hand.
“I’ve mourned my son’s death. As for Dima, I’m happy the little fucker died.
He had killed my son, so I don’t mourn his death. Grandson or not.”
Rurick gives no fuck about grandchildren. Noted.
“My goal with the marriage contract, for giving you my Liliya, was to build peace and a strong business partnership,” Rurick says. “I didn’t want any more violence.”
Antonio leans forward, eyeing Rurick coldly. “Yet you’re asking us to kill your own grandson.”
“One death could save many lives,” Rurick replies with no hesitation or shame. “So, yes.”
Antonio scoffs. “Kill him your-damn-self then.”
“We don’t kill our own,” Rurick counters.
I chuckle under my breath. “Sorry to break it to you, but we don’t do the Bratva’s fucking bidding.” Spit leaves my mouth with the word Bratva.
Rurick raises a bushy brow. “Even after he tried to murder you and your wife?”
“Half the people I’ve met want to kill me,” I counter.
I sure as hell plan to hurt Aleksy for ordering Liliya to kill me, but I need to figure out a plan. Everything I do is calculated.
Killing Aleksy is a slippery slope.
I need to see where Liliya stands before I pull the trigger.
Rurick ignores my comment, shifting his gaze back to Antonio. “Let’s make a deal.”
Antonio crosses his arms. “What kind of deal?”
“I’ll give you a larger cut of our business profits—”
I interrupt him. “Do you mean the one currently burning to the ground?”
Rurick frowns. “What?”
I smirk, raising my mug. “Your bowling alley’s burning as we speak.” I make a boom gesture with my hand.
Rurick looks at Lev for confirmation.
Lev only lazily shrugs.
Rurick pinches his thin lips together. “Trust me when I say this: I don’t like being in the States. I like the money from here—that’s it. I’ll give you a bigger cut, and Lev will stay here to manage things. He’s low-ranking, no threat.”
Lev immediately frowns at being referred to as low-ranking.
No underboss is low-ranking.
Rurick’s attitude toward Lev shows he has no respect for him.
He’s using him like a fucking puppet.
“Lev is good. Loyal,” Rurick adds.
Lev perks up some.
“He also has no intention of ever becoming boss.”
And Lev goes back to being depressed.
I grab a toothpick and point at Lev with it. “That true, Lev?”
Lev slowly nods, not even half convincing.
Antonio stands, collects a crisp hundred from his wallet, and drops it on the table. “We have Lev’s number. We’ll be in touch.”
“It’s a good deal, Antonio,” Rurick comments, rubbing his stomach.
“We’ll be in touch,” Antonio repeats.
“It’s a damn good offer,” Rurick says. “A deal not to pass up.”
“Didn’t say it wasn’t,” Antonio said. “I said, we’ll be in touch.”
Rurick’s jaw clenches as he watches us leave.
A lifestyle filled with violence will always put you in an early grave.
But the hotheaded ones with impulse issues? They die even younger.
That was another one of my father’s lessons when I was growing up.
He spent years outsmarting death and then made one simple mistake.
He chose to side with a traitor, let his guard down, and became distracted by topless dancers. My father made the mistake of being too cocky and forgetting how brutal this world was.
“What’s your take?” I ask Antonio once we’re back in the car.
“We decide who stays breathing and who doesn’t.” He stares out his window, watching Rurick and Lev leave the diner and slip into the SUV.
“I don’t trust either of the fucks.” I glare as the SUV drives past us.
“Then it’s just how we get rid of their bodies.” He glances at me in concern. “This also puts you in a fucked-up spot.”
I nod, starting the car.
If Aleksy wasn’t Liliya’s brother, he’d already be dead.
Letting him live despite his putting a hit on me paints me as weak.
I need to figure out how to put Aleksy in the ground without my wife hating me.
The Russian-owned businesses aren’t exactly in prime real estate.
Most of them sit in the dying corners of the city.
Liquor stores, payday loan joints, and empty buildings surround them.
And now it’s nothing but ashes.
The Bratva are sure having a rough year.
The bowling alley was their only semi-legit source of income.
All the other money Yaroslav brought in was dirty money from trafficking drugs.
We arrive just as the last fire truck leaves. Aleksy’s in the parking lot, pacing, with his phone pressed to his ear.
When he spots us stepping out of the car, he mutters something, ends the call, and shoves the phone into his pocket.
“My dedushka is here,” he says, his breath ragged and stressed, as if we care. “Lev just told me. That fat bastard hasn’t left Russia in years. Something’s fishy.”
“I’d say he’s here because you’re fucking everything up,” Antonio casually comments, as if that isn’t the worst insult a boss could give to another.
Aleksy scowls at him, nostrils flaring. “I was handed a pile of shit. I’m doing the best I can to fucking fix it!” His voice rises, but still stays somewhat level. “Why are you two here? You couldn’t give me one fucking day to handle this problem?”
“We haven’t seen a dime from the profits we were promised,” Antonio says.
Aleksy kicks at soot in the parking lot. “How am I supposed to figure out how much to pay you if the books are burned to ashes? On top of that, I now have to deal with fucking Fredricko!”
“You should’ve had our money weeks ago. Had you done that, you’d have known what the books said,” Antonio replies.
“I’ll give you a number. Twenty grand. Tomorrow morning.
Emilio will get it from you.” His lips twist into a cruel smirk.
“If you don’t have the money, he’ll set your house on fire with you in it. ”
Not giving two fucks about the bowling alley or Rurick, I step toe-to-toe with Aleksy. “Who shot at my fucking car the other night?”
“I told you, I had nothing to do with that,” Aleksy fires back.
I hold his stare, allowing an uncomfortable silence to take over for a moment. Then, as I slowly pull back, I spit and then punch him in the face.
“What the fuck?” he yells, immediately reaching for his gun, and my fist comes into contact with his face again.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, turning and walking away.
Once we’re back in the car, Antonio says, “If he doesn’t pay, kill him. Rurick won’t care. Hell, he wants us to.” He calmly slips on his sunglasses. “Time to figure out a way to kill your brother-in-law.”
It’s been a long damn day.
It’s after midnight when I pick Liliya up from Julian and Genesis’s. She went home with them after they finished volunteering at the shelter.
She falls asleep on the drive home. I scoop her into my arms, and she curls into my chest as I walk us up the stairs.
“My husband,” she mutters, her lips brushing my shoulder. “I’m so lucky I was forced to marry you.”
I pause in the bedroom doorway, shutting my eyes for a moment.
She has no idea that I’m murdering her brother tomorrow.
No idea that she may hate me for it too.