Chapter 5 #3
He chose violence too often. Threats. Fear.
Brutality hiding beneath a false sense of charisma.
He built a reign of mistrust around us and left me, five years ago, to clean the mess he had made.
The Vodianovs had killed one of us. They had crushed Aria’s life and turned the origin of my family name into something born from shame.
I may not be able to replay the past, but they never truly paid.
Losing assets and buildings is not enough for what she endured.
Time has changed. Vengeance has too. For years, I created a plan, gathering my father’s teachings and sharpening them with my own experience, yet it was still not enough.
I wanted them to flee the way they had forced her to flee.
I wanted them to live as misfits, lepers, exiles disappearing from our world until their name became a long-gone memory.
I will crush them one by one, starting with Cole. I will watch them run from Westhaven with nothing but fear attached to their backs, and finally, finally, I will have done my part for my family.
“I venture to guess your memory fails you, brother.”
“My memory is intact,” Nate grunts. “But it’s a different world now, and I have Maddie. There’s battles I have to choose to fight, and not all of them are worth what we could lose.”
“She is safe. You know that.”
“I can read your mind from a mile away, and I know you’ll try to find what Cole loves most in this world and…”
“And?”
“And get rid of it.”
“I know Father fed you this story more than he fed it to me,” Nate says. “I know you feel like it is your responsibility, but…”
“Nate.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “What if it were Maddie? What if it had happened to her? Would you still be so comfortable with them getting away with it then?” His fist clenches. “I’d kill anyone who hurt her.”
“I know. But that was not the case back then. They killed our blood and got away with it. For three generations, we have tried to crush them, and they are still standing. I vowed to Father…” I pause, turning my hand into a fist. “I made a promise to kill them to the root and avenge his mother. I am never going back on my word, Nate. They have been at our throat for years. It has to end.” Nate looks away, then nods, finally accepting the truth.
No matter how shitty our father was, this is bigger than him, bigger than us.
We were not made to become greedy businessmen.
We were born to finish what had not been done. That is our purpose. Our part.
“Then tell me again exactly how you plan on doing it.” I circle the armchair and sit, forearms resting on my thighs.
The Vodianovs have legitimate businesses, darker ones.
Ones only those in the know are aware of.
Until now, I have never fought them on this playground.
We kept it to legitimate business and strategic maneuvers.
But it is not enough. We need to kill the snakes from every angle.
Thanks to Brenton and a few men we have planted on the ground, we know enough to strike them where they feel safest. On their own territory.
“They are planning to receive a shipment from Nevada. Cocaine. A lot of it. Brenton told me it is the biggest one they have ever handled, and they plan to move it to their warehouse and sell it to the highest bidder. We are going to intercept it before it arrives. We won’t sell it, just…store it.”
“That could go badly.”
“Our men know what they signed up for.” Former SEALs. Army veterans. Men with skill, discipline, and a thirst for violence sharpened into obedience. That is precisely why we hired them.
“What if there is collateral damage?” Nate asks.
“You know there are things money cannot buy, right? What would you say to a wife who lost her husband over a fucking shipment of drugs?” He is right.
Hiring assistants and hiring soldiers are not the same thing.
When Cole began expanding his underground operations, I had to think ahead.
Find men willing to work for me if I ever needed more than what my executives and lawyers could do.
Security, I called it then. A civilized word for an uncivilized necessity.
A preventive measure. One I still struggled to justify with the ghost of my father resting a palm on my shoulder.
Becoming a violent man, becoming like him, made something in me want to choke.
I had spent years on the receiving end of his wrath, and all it taught me was that most of the time, violence was the excuse of an untidy mind. I could control myself, strategize, keep blood beneath skin and people alive.
I was not like my father.
“There’s two kinds of men in this world. Cowards and fighters. I would like to believe our men are made of the second kind, like us. Fighters fight. That is what they do. Death is a possibility. It is part of the equation.”
“Then perhaps you should go do it. Perhaps we should both be there too.”
“I will,” I say, “but I will not always be, and you will have to live with that. We give orders, and if we are not the ones carrying them out, our men will do it for us. You have Maddie. You cannot be as involved as I am.”
“And then?”
“And then they will try to fight back, and that is when it will get delicate. But you will stay behind, doing the legitimate work here, coming home to Maddie. It will be as if nothing changed for you.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
“Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”
He sighs, looking at the ceiling. “Never.”
“Then do not start now. I’m only informing you for the sake of, well, transparency. All you have to do is keep our ship on course when I am away. That’s all.” Silence settles between us, and I see him regroup, absorbing my words, searching for logic in this situation, accepting it.
“In that case,” he says eventually, “there is something I need to show you.” We spend the next hour studying contracts and cases brought against one of the Vodianovs’ companies, including employee suits for harassment, planted evidence, and the best way to force them into the light so their names can be tarnished publicly.
We make a good team. Nate breaks them in the light while I do the devil’s work in the darkness.
By the time we are done, it is around two thirty, and my back aches from sitting in front of contracts and fine print.
Nate walks out with documents tucked under his arm, and I ring my assistant, needing fuel to carry on with my day.
Stopping midair, I look down at the park. Fresh air will clear my head. I’ll grab coffee before returning for my four o’clock meeting with the associates. I take the few remaining contracts we obtained from the Vodianovs and organize them in a folder inside my vault, right where her bag used to be.
Ella.
Do I need fresh air because I have spent the day strategizing a real-life chess game, or because I cannot get her out of my head?
Her brown hair floats through my mind. Her words sharp on paper.
Insolence, right–there was insolence in her note, and I didn’t hate it, far from it.
What I would give to see her now. Not even to talk or sign. Just to look at her.
It would be the sweetest distraction.
The best of them.