35. Chapter 28
Lorenzo
The sky is stark and flat when I get out of my car at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, the only death row in the state of California.
I can think of several places I would rather be right now.
Ideally, I would like to be back at my apartment with Dash while he fills out his BDSM checklist. I want to read it as soon as he finishes, and then I want to do everything on his list. I don’t care what it is.
If he wants it, I can guarantee that I want it, too.
But we’ll get to that later.
Now, I’m on a mission.
San Quentin doesn’t look like your stereotypical maximum-security prison. It doesn’t seem like the place that would house the person I’ve come here to see. There are no towering black gates, no Gothic menace. Just a bunch of low concrete buildings the color of rotting teeth, bounded by razor wire.
I’ve never had reason to visit before, and I’m not sure how my visit will be received today.
Yuri Volkov isn’t officially allowed visitors, but I have some connections at the prison, and I was able to quietly pull the necessary strings to get some face-time with the disgraced pakhan of the Volkov bratva.
I met Yuri a few times when I was younger. Things between our families weren’t always so testy. We were never what you would call allies, but Yuri and my father shared a mutual respect.
A little over a year ago, the Feds were finally able to pin some charges on Yuri, and now he’s serving life at San Quentin.
I’m ushered through a processing building that smells like bleach and mildewing paper, where a guard checks my ID and takes my information.
I’d hoped that this visit could be kept completely off-the-books, because I don’t want to leave any paper trail for Giovanni to find.
I’ll just have to hope that he doesn’t think to look here.
After the check-in process is done, the guards walk me through two sets of doors and finally to a rather grim room, all gray with a single picnic-style metal table, bolted to the floor. The guards station themselves by the door.
“No physical contact,” one of them warns me.
That shouldn’t be a problem, I think.
I sit on one side of the cold metal table and wait. They didn’t let me bring anything in here, not even my phone or wallet or watch, so I have nothing to look at while the guards fetch Yuri Volkov from his cell.
About five minutes later, the door to the room opens and Volkov shuffles in, flanked by guards.
His wrists are cuffed in front of him. He’s in his late fifties, though prison ages a man.
Deep lines carve his once-handsome face.
His gray hair is cropped close and grizzled, and his eyes are pale, nearly colorless.
He stops short when he sees me.
“Lorenzo Diamante.” He says my name like he’s just opened a package and isn’t sure if it’s a gift or a threat. His voice is flavored with a Russian accent. “I did not expect this.”
The guards sit him across from me, hooking his cuffs to the table and then leaving us in privacy.
“Mr. Volkov,” I say with a nod.
“Call me Yuri.” He nods deeply. “I heard about your father. He was good man.”
“He was indeed.”
Those sharp, pale eyes study me. “Why are you here, Lorenzo?”
“I have a question that you might not like.”
Yuri smiles, a shark’s smile. “You want to know if my organization was involved in Massimo’s death.”
His deduction barely surprises me. Men like Yuri—or like my father—rarely miss things. “Yes. I do.”
He shrugs as much as his cuffs will allow. “I am not involved in what my organization does. My son has taken over.”
“Nikolai.”
“Yes, Kolya. I assume you think he was involved?”
“The thought has crossed my mind. But now…now I’m beginning to wonder if I was wrong.”
“I think you were. Yes, my son is brutal man. He would murder easily. But your father died in fire, no?”
“That’s right.”
“Hm. That is not Kolya’s style. He likes guns. He likes to see them bleed.”
I’ve heard and seen terrible things in my life, but the cold frankness with which Yuri discusses Kolya’s brutality is unnerving.
“He does not have patience needed for arson,” Yuri continues. “If he kill your father, he do it himself with gun. Or knife.”
“You’re certain about this?”
“I know my son’s…limitations.” He shakes his head. “What happened to Massimo was not us.”
Though I came here prepared to think of Yuri as a liar, I find that I believe him.
The Volkovs are not responsible for Father’s murder. I don’t like that fact. It complicates everything, and only points more toward my own brother.
“I am sorry I could not help you,” Yuri says. “It is terrible thing, to lose your father like that.”
“It really was.”
A contemplative frown settles on Yuri’s face. “Massimo changed in last two years I knew him. He asked me question, not long before I came here.”
I sit up a bit straighter, leaning into the table. A question? I knew there was some contact between Father and Yuri, but I didn’t know they corresponded or consulted each other. “What about?”
“He asked if I considered what would be left when I am gone. What would be left for men and women whose lives depended on my empire. He said he had begun to wonder if he spent his life building something that cost more than it was worth.”
For the first time since entering the room, Yuri’s hard face softens. “I laugh when he says that. This is old man’s question, I tell him. But your father…this question mattered to him.”
I sit with that for a moment, turning the information over in my head. It doesn’t really sound like my father, or maybe it’s just a version of him that he never let me meet.
“So, you think he was reevaluating something?”
“Maybe.” He eyes me shrewdly. “My son was not your only theory. You are smart young man, Lorenzo.”
I scoff. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“Don’t make yourself old before your time. You are young. Take this old man’s advice. You want to find who killed your father, look at what he was doing in the last months before his death.”
Look at who would benefit the most, Reiner told me. Now, look at what Father was doing before he died. Decent advice, especially if Father was apparently reevaluating everything he’s done. Did Mother know? Did Giovanni?
More pieces begin to click together in my head.
If Father was reevaluating what he wanted his legacy to be, if he was considering a major shift in our operations, that would change what Giovanni would’ve inherited. My brother has always had a strong appetite for our work, stronger than mine.
Maybe I shouldn’t just be looking for who had the most to gain if Father died, but who had the most to lose if he’d still lived.
“Do you know what, exactly, my father was considering? Selling off holding companies? Legitimizing our business? Anything?”
“No specifics. We respected each other, Massimo and I, but we did not always trust each other. He would not give me that information and I would not have asked. This is all I can give you, Lorenzo.”
I nod slowly. This is more, honestly, than I’d hoped for when I came here.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” His pale eyes hold mine, filled with a warning. “Be careful, Lorenzo. Let me be example of what happens when you let your guard down in this business.”
“This, or what happened to my father,” I murmur.
Yuri’s expression is grim. “Do not let this end in your death. I did not agree with your father on everything. But he was right about one thing: there has been too much blood in our legacies. Be careful not to add yours.”