Chapter Twenty-Two
Dmitri
I didn’t want to leave Sarah alone after what happened in the gym, not even when she was in the safety of my home, but I couldn’t hold off on dealing with my shipping problem.
I didn’t know how things were going to go with the court case this week, and if I ended up convicted, I wanted to know I’d taken care of securing a way to ship the weapons to New York before going to prison.
Not that I wanted to think about that.
I knew everything hinged on the testimony Sarah would give. I should’ve asked her about it, but instead, I dropped her off at my house after lunch, promised her I had men closely watching over her, and left with Maxim to visit Jeremy Kyle.
He was the CEO of a bigger shipping company than Moss Logistics.
Where Henry only had a small building where he worked with just Sarah, Jeremy’s business was based out of a large office building with a dozen other businesses, and he had five other people who worked with him daily.
My basic research told me he had an assistant, two accountants, a customer service specialist, and an intern.
When I walked into the space with Maxim, I glanced around at the open floor plan.
Desks were occupied by people shuffling papers and making phone calls.
A woman seated closest to the door smiled at us, but it didn’t reach her eyes, which looked wary. I understood. The two of us were big men with stoic expressions and dark clothing. Even without speaking, we tended to be intimidating, and I hoped to put that to good use today.
“I want to speak with Mr. Kyle,” I said, offering no other explanation.
“Uh…” She glanced toward a door just behind her desk, the only one in the open space. I assumed this was the CEO’s office. Good. I needed to have a private conversation with him. “Do you have an appointment?”
I gave her a cold smile. “I think you know we don’t. But I’m not going anywhere until we speak to your boss.”
She swallowed hard, looking flustered. “Okay, sir. I’ll see if he’s available. Your name?”
“Dmitri Gorsky.”
There was no reaction to hearing my name, but I didn’t expect one.
My family was powerful in this city, and that could be used to our advantage when needed.
But we also operated in the shadows, and people who weren’t a part of the criminal world were often unfamiliar with the names of the families that ran the mafias in this city.
But she was obviously nervous as she got out of her chair and scurried to the door.
She disappeared inside, and other people were glancing at us curiously as we waited for her to return.
Maxim was silent beside me, a steady presence I relied on in unfamiliar places like this.
It was unlikely that I’d encounter a threat in an office like this, but on the off chance it did happen, I knew he’d have a gun drawn before anyone could even blink.
I just hoped he could handle running things if I went to prison.
I’d appeal the ruling, of course, but if things didn’t go my way tomorrow, Maxim would be stuck filling the position of Pakhan until I was free again.
I knew he was smart and strong, but there was a burden to the job he’d never had to handle before.
No one else in the Bratva understood the weight of making decisions that impacted so many lives on a daily basis.
A part of me wondered if that was why my old man was such a callous bastard.
Was it the pressure of life-or-death decisions that made him that way?
Maybe he took so much anger out on us at home because he felt so overwhelmed and needed an outlet.
Not that it was an excuse for the bullshit he put us through.
All of that horror from our childhood made me protective of Maxim in a way he didn’t even realize and probably wouldn’t appreciate.
I knew he took pride in being a capable man, one who earned his place of power in the Bratva through his strength and skill and not just because he was my brother.
So, if he knew how much I worried about him, he’d bristle with indignation.
But it wasn’t something I could help. Looking out for Maxim had been ingrained in me since I was child, trying to keep my father’s violent attention away from my younger brother as much as possible.
I’d taken beatings meant for him any time that I could, no hesitation.
Now, we were long past all that, and he was one of my most reliable men. But old habits die hard, and a part me still felt compelled to protect him. I worried about saddling him with my leadership role if I got locked up.
But I knew I could trust him to take care of business.
And Nikolay would help. Since they were both my spies, they were the closest to me in terms of business.
Since they were my brother and my best friend, they also had to closest personal connection, which was a good thing, because if I wasn’t around after the case ended, I needed to know that Sarah and Alexis were being protected.
I was pulled from my thoughts about Maxim and the uncertainty of the near future when the woman returned from her boss’s office. She flashed that smile that didn’t reach her eyes again.
“Mr. Kyle will see you.”
I didn’t respond to her, just strode to the office and entered without knocking.
Maxim followed, closing the door behind us.
The man behind the desk was thin with wispy blonde hair and a weak chin.
His eyes were hard as he took us in, and I knew without being told that this man did know who we were.
I was glad. That made things easier.
He started to stand, but I stepped up to the desk before he could.
While dropping Sarah off at the house, I went into my home office just long enough to print copies of the documents Nikolay got from Henry Moss’s computer network.
Pulling the folded papers from my inner jacket pocket, I dropped them on the desk like a bomb.
Jeremy stared for a moment before picking them up slowly. His face drained of all color as he saw what it was.
“How did you—”
“Does it really matter?” I cut him off. “What’s important is that you understand what I have on you.”
There was a pregnant pause, and Jeremy studied me, anger and something that might have been fear in his eyes.
“What do you want? Money?” he finally asked, his hand clenching into a fist and crumpling the papers.
I smirked as I took a seat in a chair in front of him, leaning back and placing my booted feet on the edge of his desk. “What I want is a long and fruitful business arrangement for both of us.”
He frowned but didn’t interrupt as I spent the next fifteen minutes explaining what I wanted from him.
There really wasn’t much to say. That was the beautiful thing about blackmail.
A few pictures or incriminating documents tended to speak for themselves.
I didn’t have to threaten him because the papers in his hand got my point across all on their own.
Jeremy didn’t even try to argue with me when I insisted that the first batch of weapons would need to be transported next week. He just looked resigned as he guaranteed delivery with discretion.
I was pleased as we left the office, and I knew I had Sarah to thank for this development. I didn’t know what I would have done about my shipping problem if she hadn’t provided the perfect solution.
She was proving to be helpful, even though that wasn’t why I was keeping her in the safety of my home.
When we left Jeremy’s office, I headed for the safehouse where the man who tried to kidnap Alexis was being held.
Cold determination settled over me during drive, and I was so lost in my anger and thirst for revenge on the man that I didn’t notice Maxim was even quieter than usual.
We’d just turned onto the street with the safe house when he spoke up.
“Do you know what Sarah is going to say on the stand tomorrow?”
I sighed. “No. I haven’t had the chance to ask her.”
That was bullshit, and we both knew it. I was a busy man, but I could’ve found time for a brief conversation with the woman who was living in my home.
I’d been avoiding the conversation. With the sexual tension burning hot between us, I didn’t want to discuss the elephant in the room.
All the heavy shit related to this case and the murder charges had already been weighing on me for months, and I didn’t want to bring it into the fragile connection I had with Sarah.
That was stupid, of course. The whole reason she was back in my life was because of the trial, and things were coming to a head on that front tomorrow afternoon when the trial resumed. She’d be called up to the stand first thing, and I’d find out then what she was going to do.
“Shouldn’t you try to convince her to testify in a way that’ll help you instead of putting you behind bars?”
I didn’t like the emphasis he put on the word convince.
“You think I should try to intimidate her? Threaten her like those fucks in the parking lot?”
Maxim didn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes told me I wasn’t far off the mark.
“I’m not hurting her,” I said, disgusted by the idea.
I didn’t really think Maxim would ever suggest such a thing.
We’d both done some pretty immoral shit in our lives, but I thought growing up with a man who took sick pleasure in hurting family had made both of us unwilling to hurt woman or children.
“I’m not suggesting you hurt her,” Maxim said, almost sounding offended.
“Just… maybe let her think you will. Just to influence her testimony,” he paused, then added, “Or at least tell her what it’ll cost her if she lies under oath.
She cares about that kid. What’s going to happen if she ends up in jail for lying? Is the girl’s father on the scene?”