18. Alex
ALEX
Kostya was supposed to meet me at the house this afternoon, but he just called a little while ago, wanting to meet at his apartment instead…
and sooner rather than later. It sounds encouraging.
I think he’s finally got something on the traitor.
It’s been about a month since I buried my father and Gedeon and I feel like, of all the duties that I have now as Pakhan, finding the son of a bitch who caused this war is the priority.
The aftermath has been a disaster. Gedeon had six of his Boeviks positioned around us that night.
Every single one of them was taken out, their bodies left for the police to find.
So far, they haven’t linked any of Gedeon’s men to me, but I know that they must at least know who some, if not all, of them are.
Every one of us, even the freshest out of the Sixes, have records.
Then again, if there is a traitor, I still don’t know who he’s reporting to.
The Irkutsks claimed the death of my father, but for all I know, this son of a bitch could be talking to the police as much as they may be in league with the Irkutsks.
Whoever they are, when I find them, I’m taking their head.
I’m about five minutes away from Kostya’s apartment and I still feel the warm, fuzzy feeling all over my body from making love to Nona this morning. It’s become a daily thing between us since my father died. Sometimes, two or three times a day, actually.
In a strange kind of way, she’s become my north star. It’s easy to become consumed with revenge when something like this happens. The darkness we all play with has a chance to consume your soul completely.
But that’s not happening. Every time I lose focus, Nona brings me back with a soft word or a touch.
She’s been keeping me grounded. If anyone had told me months ago that the daughter of Slavik Sokolov would become the reason I haven’t gone completely mad from the death of my father, I’d have laughed in their face.
I pull up in front of his apartment and glance around. No surveillance that I can see… or else they’re getting better at it. As I walk into Kostya’s building and make my way to the elevator, my phone buzzes. It’s Rikki.
“Hey, Brother,” I answer as the elevator doors close. “You doing all right?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I was just wondering if you’ve talked to Kostya yet.”
“On my way now. Something up?”
“I was thinking about heading over there myself. I’ve been hearing some things about Geddy that I need him to check out.”
“Like what things?”
He pauses. “I’d rather talk to Kostya about it.”
“You’ve got the Pakhan on the line, Rikki,” I say. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“Well, they’ve been saying that Gedeon was behind the assassination.”
I almost laugh. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“I didn’t. But some of the things I’ve been hearing… It’s making me doubt myself. I just need Kostya to verify some stuff.”
I sigh as the doors open. “Well, I’m at his apartment now. You can tell me and I can talk to him.”
“No, I need to talk to him myself,” he says. “If he tells me to my face that it’s just smoke and mirrors, then I’ll know it is.”
I chuckle. “I’m a month into being Pakhan and my own brother doesn’t trust me.”
“Well, we’re not dead yet,” he says, and I can hear him smiling, “but the year’s not out. You’ve got plenty of time to fuck this up.”
“Thanks. I’ll call you a little later.” I pause as I stop at Kostya’s door. “Let’s plan a dinner or something. You, me, and Yeva.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be nice.”
We say our goodbyes and I hang up. If there’s one thing that has always annoyed me, it’s the rumor mill that seems to be so pervasive in this Bratva. I think sometimes that our bottom line might be bigger if my brothers didn’t gossip so damned much.
I knock on Kostya’s door. He only lets me wait for a few seconds before opening it. “You’re late,” he says as he lets me in. “You said you’d be here at ten. It’s a quarter after.”
“A Pakhan is never late. He’s right on time,” I say, misquoting my favorite book. Kostya knows it and he just gives me a smirk.
“Funny.” He motions for the living room. “Please, let’s sit.”
Kostya has lived in the same apartment since his status was elevated. He’d gone out and bought an apartment in a high-rise as a present to himself. He’d said something back then about always wanting to live in a place like this since we were boys.
I have a seat on one of two couches that face one another in his living room.
At my back is a wall with a hidden fireplace and at his back is another wall with his hidden gun stash.
And facing to the north is a balcony overlooking the city with nothing but sliding glass between us, the railing, and a twenty-seven-floor swan dive to earth.
“You have breakfast yet?” he asks me as he stands at the arm of the couch opposite me. “I picked up some Danishes this morning. If you’re hungry—”
“No, thanks. If you’ve got coffee, though, I’ll take a cup.”
“Coming right up.” He leaves, and I take a moment to look around his place.
Everything is right where it belongs in Kostya’s home.
I think that’s his nature. When something is out of place, even if it’s by a few inches, he needs an explanation or else he starts sweeping for bugs.
I can’t say it’s not smart, but it definitely speaks to his innate sense of paranoia.
“Thank you for talking to me here instead of at your place,” he says from the kitchen.
“What I’ve got to say is of the utmost sensitivity, and no disrespect or anything, but given our suspicions, I can’t take too many chances.
This conversation should be had with just the two of us, you know what I mean? ”
“Understood,” I say back to him. “So, this is about the traitor, then?”
“Yes.” He pauses, then, “Cream or sugar?”
“Sugar, no cream,” I respond. I hear the coffee hiss loudly, his fancy K-Cup machine making short work of the refreshments. Less than a minute later, he reappears with two cups of coffee in hand. He hands me mine and sits down across from me, sipping from his cup.
“Before we get into this,” he says, reaching for a coaster and pulling it in front of him, “you should understand that as a sovietnik, my interests are purely what’s best for you, my Pakhan, and for the Bratva.
As you know, I have and will serve you with the same loyalty as I did Fedor for all these years. ”
I drink my coffee as I regard him. “You’re preparing me for something.”
“I am.” He lets out a heavy, almost apologetic sigh.
“Okay. Just get to the point.”
He takes a moment, looking down at his cup before speaking. “I received word about something a little while ago that you’re not going to want to hear. Before I tell you, I must insist that you hear me out before you write it off entirely.”
I frown at him. “Okay,” I say.
He pauses, then sets his coffee cup down on the coaster. “It’s about Nona, Alex. I’ve received word that she met with her father a few mornings back at a local coffee shop.”
I cock my head at him. My hearing must be going bad. “You what?”
“I’ve had eyes on her since you were married,” he confesses. “Just as a precaution, and up until now, there’s never been anything to report. Everywhere she’s gone, everything she’s done, it was all above board.”
“Until now.” The warmth of the cup in my hands is the only thing I can feel right now. My entire body has gone numb.
He hesitates, watching me carefully for a reaction. Then he goes on.
“On Wednesday morning, Nona left your house and took the train to Park Avenue to a coffee shop a few blocks away from Central Park. On her way, she got a phone call, presumably from her father. After the phone call, she went to the coffee shop where he was waiting for her. Pretty sure it was him calling to tell her that he was there.”
I nod slowly. Even though the treaty has been broken, Slavik is still her father. There could be a million reasons she went to meet up with him. “Do you know what they discussed?”
“Slavik might be reckless at times, but he’s no fool,” he says. “He positioned himself in a space where he couldn’t be easily heard and where he could see if he was being observed.”
“Well,” I say, “there could have been any number of things that Nona could have been talking about with her father. He is her father.”
Kostya stares at me for a long moment, then he says, “Alex, she knows that her father’s Bratva claimed responsibility for your father’s death. Why on earth would she meet with him, knowing that you’re out for his head?”
I can’t answer that. My logic only makes sense if there’s no bad blood between our Bratvas. Nona knows, possibly better than anyone, that meeting with the enemy is a bad look.
“You think she’s the traitor?” I ask Kostya directly.
“I think that it looks bad in light of everything that’s going on,” he says. “And it’s worth further investigation.”
“Which you’re going to do.”
“As I said, my loyalty is to my Pakhan and my Bratva.” He leans into me, a very personal, very serious look in his eye.
“I know that the two of you have gotten closer since Fedor’s death and if those feelings are real, I don’t want to be the one to disrupt them, but this is our life, Brother.
Anyone who is trying to tear it apart is an enemy. ”
I know he’s right. If I were the one on the other side of this table, I’d be telling him the same thing. But Nona betraying me this way…
“Do whatever you have to do,” I say to him. “But do not act without my permission. Is that clear?”
He pauses. “Alex—”
“Is that clear?”
He nods and sits back, picking up his coffee cup. “Crystal.”
“Good.” I set the coffee down on the table, sans coaster. I’m too upset to think about protecting his precious coffee table’s finish. I stand up. “If you hear anything else, and I do mean anything, I want to be the first to know.”
“Of course.”
My mind on the drive home has been noisy with thoughts. Nona being a mole this whole time…
In a way, it makes sense. Her father agrees to this arrangement because he sees an opportunity to plant someone right in the middle of my inner circle.
Maybe she gets word to him that her plans aren’t going right, so he creates a situation that puts enough cracks in my armor so that she can slither her way in.
The ambush on us was a setup by the Irkutsks. That much has been established. My father’s instincts about the whole thing being fishy were right on target. Had he spoken to the leader of the Devils in the first place, they might’ve tipped him off that we were being set up.
But he didn’t and it’s what got him killed. And in the moment, I almost fell apart… and that was just what Nona needed to get herself under my defenses.
Dammit. I can’t believe she got to me so easily. As I turn down my block, all I can think about is how I let those big, innocent eyes get to me.
And then I see her sitting on the stoop. She does that sometimes when the weather is good. She’s leaning back in a chair she’s set up out here, book in hand, oblivious to the world.
I pull up in front of the house, and she looks up and smiles the moment she recognizes my car.
“Hey,” she says as I get out of the car. “You’re back. That was fast.”
“Let’s go inside,” I tell her.
Her smile falters. “Is something wrong—”
“Now, Nona.”
She regards me for just a moment, then utters a soft, “Okay,” and we walk into the house. The moment I close the door, I ask her, “Wednesday morning, where did you go?”
She stares at me with what looks like confusion. “I… Wednesday? That was three days ago—”
“Where did you go, Nona?”
She blinks, confusion ruling her expression. “That was the day I went out to breakfast. I told you about it—”
“Were you there alone?”
“Alex—”
“Did you meet with anybody on Wednesday?”
She doesn’t say anything for a second. Then her eyes narrow a little. “What’s this about?”
“You tell me. Who did you have breakfast with?”
“Alex—”
“Just answer the fucking question, Nona.”
She takes an involuntary half step back from me. “No one,” she says. “I just went for coffee.”
Her eyes dart around the room for a second. She’s lying to me.
“Nona, you know that I’ve been looking for a rat in this Bratva,” I explain. “You know everything that I’ve been going through over the past month to find him… and you also have to know that no one is above suspicion—”
“So, you think I’m a rat?” she says defensively.
“I don’t know. Did you have coffee alone?”
“I already told you—”
“Stop lying to me,” I say through clenched teeth.
She stiffens her back, holding herself despite the fear I can plainly see in her eyes. “I haven’t ratted on you or this Bratva,” she says. “I have been loyal.”
“Then why are you lying to me right now?” She doesn’t answer me. She just stands and stares. “I was just with Kostya. You know what his job is in this Bratva? How he makes his entire check? The thing I pay him for?”
“I know what his job is—”
“Good. Because I pay him good money for what he does. My father paid him good money. And he’s the best that I’ve ever seen. He has eyes all over this fucking city—”
“Fine, Alex,” she barks at me. “So, he’s a good spy.
Every Bratva has eyes all over this fucking city.
If you think he’s doing such a good job, why don’t you just do whatever you have to do, then?
” Her bottom lip trembles as she pauses, daring me with terror behind her eyes. “Take care of your rat problem.”
We just stare at one another, my anger stalled. She’s calling my bluff, and if I were the man I’d been when we were first married, I’d pull out my gun and call it.
But I’m not. I can‘t follow through with it. I don’t think I could bear having to watch her die and know that I’m the one who did it. Everything that’s happened between us just won’t go away. It’s all still there in the front of my mind.
Is she the rat? Is this the face of a woman who would stab me in the back and through my heart?
My phone buzzes, breaking the standoff. I pull it out of my pocket and answer it. “Hello,” I say angrily.
“Alex… Alex.”
Everything drains out of me as the raspy tone of my brother comes over the line. “Rikki?”
He takes a breath and it sounds labored. I can hear the rattle in his chest from here. “Got jumped. I’m headed your way. Just got… just got back from the Upper West Side.”
“What’s your ETA?”
“Five minutes.”
I turn around and unlock the door. “Door’ll be open. I’m calling Marius.” I hang up.
“What’s happened?” Nona asks.
“Rikki’s been hurt. He’s on his way here.”