3. Kane
KANE
The emergency room at Coney Island Hospital is a chaotic mess of bodies.
I can smell them from the second I step foot inside. Antiseptic, blood, piss, fuck knows what else. The only consolation is the lingering scent of burned coffee. Probably what keeps the place running.
Yuri stands beside a vending machine with his arms folded, watching the hallway like he expects someone to burst in with a weapon.
"Fourth door," he says when I reach him. "They've got him stable. Broken ribs, fractured jaw, concussion. He woke up about two hours ago."
I nod and start down the corridor. Yuri falls in step beside me.
"The cops?" I ask.
"Asked questions. Josef told them he got jumped leaving a bar and doesn't remember faces. They didn't push."
"Good."
We stop outside the door. Through the window I can see Josef propped at an angle in the bed, his face swollen and mottled purple, his jaw wired shut. An IV drips into his arm.
"How'd you find him?" I ask.
"Checked every overnight assault admission in a ten-mile radius," Yuri says. "Paramedics picked him up from a garage off Cropsey at four-thirty Friday morning. Anonymous call. He'd been there maybe three hours by then."
Three hours. Three fucking hours bleeding on the floor of some godforsaken garage.
I push the door open.
Josef's eyes track to me immediately. He tries to sit up straighter and winces, hand going to his ribs.
"Don't," I say.
He settles back but doesn't relax. His good eye—the left one isn't opening—stays locked on my face.
I pull the chair from the corner and sit beside the bed. Yuri closes the door and stands against it.
"Tell me what happened," I say.
Josef works his mouth, testing the wires, then gives up and reaches for the notepad and pen on the tray table. His hand shakes. He writes slowly, pressing hard.
Three men. Van. Came from the avenue side, not the alley.
He turns the pad toward me.
I read it and nod. "You were in position?"
He nods, writes again.
Back door like you said. Heard her call 911. Ran to help. They were waiting.
"They knew you'd be there," I say.
He nods.
"Describe them."
He pauses, then writes carefully, stopping twice to breathe through obvious pain.
Two big. One skinny. Skinny one had the pipe. Big ones held me. Pipe hit ribs, face, back. They asked nothing. Just beat me and left me far away from my post.
I take the pad from him and set it down. "So you stayed at your post until they came for you?"
Josef nods, then hurries to scribble on the pad.
I'm sorry.
"You have nothing to be sorry about."
I was supposed to protect Ms. Dorsey, he writes, hands trembling. I failed.
He underlines that twice.
I lean in, elbows on my knees. "You did your job. This isn't on you, Josef. Understand?"
It's on me.
I don't say that last part. I don't need to. The last page Josef wrote may as well be in my hand.
I was supposed to protect her. I failed.
Josef's jaw works behind the wires. His eyes go wet. For a second, I envy him that display of emotion. Soldiers are allowed to feel things.
Leaders are not.
"You stay here as long as the doctors say," I continue. "Every bill gets sent to Gershon. When you're cleared to leave, you go home and you rest until you're healed. Your pay continues."
Josef writes fast, shaky letters.
I should have—
"You should have nothing," I cut in. "Three men with a pipe and a plan, Josef. You couldn't have stopped them without getting killed, and I didn't send you there to die."
He studies the notepad, breathing hard through his nose.
I stand. "Yuri will check on you tomorrow. You need anything before then, you call him."
Josef nods once.
At the door I stop and look back. "One more thing. When this is over and you're back on your feet, you'll have your choice of posts. Anywhere you want. You earned it."
I don't wait for a response. Yuri follows me into the hallway and we walk in silence back through the emergency room and out to the car.
Stepan is waiting, engine running. I climb into the back. Yuri gets in beside me.
"Home," I tell Stepan.
We pull into traffic. I watch Brooklyn scroll past the window—bodegas and laundromats and apartment buildings with rusted fire escapes. Hidden in one of these neighborhoods, Lilah is sitting in a basement, chained to a chair.
I check my phone. No new messages. Gershon sent an update at six this morning confirming all ninety-one transfer documents are prepared and awaiting my instruction.
Vetrov hasn't contacted me since the first message.
I picture Lilah's wrists raw from the cuffs. Her voice hoarse from shouting. The thought of her trapped, unable to move, unable to do—it carves something hollow in my chest.
If they hurt her, I will give every single man in Vetrov's organization a slow death.
Yuri shifts beside me. "Boss."
I realize my hands are fisted, knuckles white against my thighs.
"I'm fine," I say.
He doesn't look convinced, but he knows better than to push.
We drive the rest of the way in silence.
When we finally get to my house, Anton meets me at the door.
"They're in the dining room," he says.
"How many?"
"All of them. Dmitri, Leonid, Oleg, Pavel. Mikhail and the younger Sokolovs. Grigori."
I strip off my coat and hand it to him. "Niko?"
"Inside."
I cross the foyer and push through the double doors into the dining room.
Eight men sit around the table, all of them older than me, all of them men who swore loyalty to my father and transferred that loyalty to me when I took the chair twenty-three years ago.
Coffee cups and pastries clutter the table.
Someone brought a box from a Brighton Beach bakery, which would be funny if I had any humor left.
Niko stands near the window with his arms crossed. He catches my eye and shakes his head once. Don't.
I ignore him.
"You have something to say," I tell them. "So go ahead. I'm all ears."
Dmitri speaks first. He's the oldest, seventy-one, bald as a stone and twice as hard. "We heard about the transfer."
"Then you heard correctly."
"Ninety-one properties," he continues. "Twenty years of work. The entire waterfront assemblage, surrendered in a single night to Osip Vetrov."
"That's right."
Leonid leans forward, palms on the table. He's younger than Dmitri by a decade but no less dangerous. "You didn't consult the council. You didn't ask for a vote. You made the decision alone, Kane."
"I did."
"Over a woman," Oleg adds. He's thin and sharp-featured, with a voice like gravel. "A baker. Someone you've known for four months."
"Careful," I say.
"We're not questioning her importance to you," Dmitri cuts in, diplomat enough to see the edge I'm standing on.
"We're questioning whether your decision was rushed.
Twenty years, Kane. Twenty years of acquisitions, shell companies, legal fees, patience.
Your mother's corridor. And you gave it away. "
"I didn't give it away. I traded it."
"For a person," Grigori says. He's quieter than the others, but his words strike harder. "A single person who is of no advantage to the operation."
"Yes."
Mikhail, the youngest of the group at fifty-two, shakes his head. "Then you've made us weak. You've told every pakhan from here to Moscow that Kane Makov will surrender his assets for the right hostage. You've painted a target on all of us."
"No one here is a target unless I say so."
"That's not how they'll see it," Pavel snaps. "Vetrov took the woman and you folded. What's to stop the Georgians from trying next? Or the Italians? You've shown them the blueprint."
I walk to the head of the table and slam both palms flat on the surface.
Everyone goes silent.
"You think I don't know that?" I grind out. "You think I haven't considered every consequence of what I did? You think I made this decision lightly?"
No one answers.
"I didn't consult you because there was nothing to consult about," I continue. "Vetrov took her. He demanded the corridor. I gave it to him. That's the beginning and the end of the story."
"It's going to destroy us," Dmitri says. "That's the real end of the story. Everything we've built—gone."
"It won't destroy us."
"You can't know that."
"I can. Because I'm still here, and I'm still in this chair, and nothing has changed except the deed portfolio.
" I straighten and look each of them in the eye, one by one.
"If you want to challenge me for it, do it now.
Walk out that door, gather your people, and come back ready to take this house.
Otherwise, sit down and accept that the decision is made. "
The silence stretches. Oleg looks at Dmitri. Mikhail looks at Pavel. Leonid studies his coffee cup.
Finally, Dmitri speaks. "We're not challenging you, Kane."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Asking you to understand what this looks like from where we sit."
"I understand perfectly. You think I'm compromised.
You think I've lost perspective. You think I chose her over the family.
" I step back from the table. "You're wrong.
I chose to keep my word. I told her no one would take her building, and I meant it.
All I'm doing now is putting my money where my mouth is. "
"Our money," Oleg cuts in.
"Yes," I agree. "And you'd better not forget where it comes from."
He looks like he's about to say more, but Grigori is faster. "So you're just going to put your word above your empire?"
"Yes."
"Even if it costs you everything else?" Grigori asks.
"Even then."
Dmitri exhales slowly and exchanges a glance with Leonid. Then he nods. "All right. We've said our piece. The decision stands."
"Good."
"But we need continuity," Leonid adds. "While this plays out, the operations can't stall. Someone needs to manage the day-to-day."
I look at Niko.
He's still standing by the window, arms crossed, face unreadable. He knows what I'm about to do. He doesn't want it.
"Niko takes the chair until this is resolved," I say. "He speaks with my authority. Any issue that needs a decision goes to him. Understood?"
The others murmur their assent.
Niko doesn't move.
"Anything else?" I ask.
"One thing," Dmitri says. He stands, joints creaking, and comes around the table to face me.
"When you get her back—and I believe you will—don't let this stand.
Vetrov humiliated you. He took your work and your woman and made you beg.
If you let that go unanswered, the challenge will come. Maybe not from us, but from someone."
I meet his gaze. "I have no intention of letting it go unanswered."
"Good."
He offers his hand. I shake it. One by one, the others follow. Then they file out, Grigori last, until only Niko remains.
He crosses the room and stops in front of me. "You didn't have to do that."
"Yes, I did."
"I don't want the chair."
"You're the only one I trust with it."
"Kane—"
"Five days," I interrupt. "Maybe six. Then she comes home and this is over."
"And if Vetrov doesn't return her?"
I don't answer.
Niko studies my face, then nods. "All right. I'll hold it. But when this is done, you're taking it back, and we're going to have a different conversation."
"Agreed."
He claps me once on the shoulder and leaves.
I stand alone in the dining room, surrounded by empty chairs and cold coffee, and I check my phone again.
Still no news of Lilah.
Five more days, I think. Five more days and I burn Vetrov's entire operation to the ground.
And Lilah will be by my side, watching the flames with me.