THE ENFORCER
Kiselyov Bratva Book Two
CHAPTER ONE
DMITRI
The gym has always been a place for me to quiet the voices that like to rage inside my head.
I had a membership to a nice gym in the neighborhood until I decided that I didn’t really like strangers watching me work out.
Women kept coming up to me and trying to flirt, but I kept shutting them down.
Some of them take longer than others to get the message that I’m not looking for a girlfriend right now. Maybe even ever.
I recently finished having a personal gym installed in the basement of my home in Back Bay.
I can work out in private and in peace. After the security issues the family had in recent months, having a home gym is ideal.
There’s less exposure. Tonight it’s just me, the treadmill, some weights, and maybe a few minutes taking out some aggression on the heavy bag.
My brother took over the Kiselyov Bratva last year after our father retired and returned to Russia.
Our father still talks to Ivan on occasion about the organization, but he’s pretty much hands off.
It’s a good thing, our father being back in Russia.
Ivan always talked about what he would do when it was his turn to lead, and his methods could help change the bratva for the better.
My family depends on me in a multitude of ways, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them, especially my sister, Lidiya.
When Ivan took over the organization, he made me his number two person.
The Italians, and maybe even the Irish, would probably call me Ivan’s underboss.
I’m also in charge of security, which is a headache within itself.
As the head of security, I’m in a position to work both sides of our brotherhood.
We have hands in both legitimate enterprises and businesses of questionable legality.
I’d rather work the legitimate side of things.
I haven’t told Ivan this yet, but one day I want to operate my own security company outside of the bratva umbrella.
I hope that he’ll be supportive when that day comes.
Tonight, I had to lean into the darker side of what I do.
In the last few months, some of our associates have been taking advantage of the leadership transition and skimming money from our operations.
My brother, Maksim, our technology expert, discovered the discrepancy, and traced it back to men under Alexei Rostov.
Rostov previously served under my father and recently pledged loyalty to my brother.
We keep an eye on him because while he may have pledged loyalty to Ivan, Rostov used to work for our father.
Only he and one other man chose to stay with the organization under Ivan.
The other two of father’s former close associates were eliminated, along with their soldiers.
I took Rostov with me when I went to deal with the problem.
I needed to make a show of force, and Rostov needed to understand his new place.
I accomplished both in the same trip and with minimal bloodshed.
Rostov knows he’s on thin ice with Ivan, and that he needs to earn Ivan’s trust and respect.
I don’t trust the man as far as I can throw him.
I never did. I know of things that he did for our father.
I’ve done some of the same things, but without making a big show of it.
I find it more intimidating for people to know I did something without being a showoff.
I reported back to my brother and then went home, finding myself in my home gym within ten minutes of being here.
When I finish my work out and have taken a shower, I walk to the kitchen and check the fridge.
I have a housekeeper who comes once a week and always leaves me pre-cooked meals in the fridge.
I’m capable of cooking my own food, I just choose not to.
I wonder if Ivan knows that his housekeeper is also my housekeeper.
To be fair, Mrs. Ivanova overheard me talking to Ivan about needing a housekeeper, and she pulled me aside saying that she would do it.
She may have also said that if I hired anyone else to clean my home, that she would be very disappointed in me. She started the next day.
Ivan and Emma have me over every week for Sunday dinner along with Maksim and Grigory.
It’s honestly my favorite meal of the whole week.
Emma always makes extra food and sends us home with leftovers.
She’s like a mother that way, and I know she’ll make a great mother someday to her and Ivan’s kids.
Occasionally, I’ll have everyone over to my home in Back Bay and my brothers and I have our weekly lunch together. We like food. We like it a lot.
That’s another reason why I have my home gym.
It keeps me in shape in addition to providing peace when I need it.
I feel like something, or someone, is coming for the bratva.
I can’t put my finger on it yet what it may be, but I’m taking extra security precautions to avoid another situation like the one we faced a few months ago with our father’s former associates.
I’ve got a meeting tomorrow with my brothers to go over new security protocols we’re going to implement.
We can’t let any of our father’s former associates slip through the cracks with blind faith and trust, just because they worked for our father.
We let it happen once, and we were almost taken out by the Irish mafia.
I vowed that it would never happen again, and I meant it.