Chapter 4
ALEXEI
“He’s still there? Good. Keep him there.”
Pavel hangs up the phone, his face twisted in anger.
He’s been in a mood all day today. Actually, he’s been kind of off since Damon Pecora’s funeral.
Our conversations have been normal, but there’s been an edge to him that I can’t put my finger on.
It’s like he’s got a permanent chip on his shoulder all of a sudden. Thank goodness I’m driving this time.
“He’s not going anywhere,” I say in an effort to calm him. “Not so long as he’s in front of bubckis. If they send all the girls home, then maybe we’ll miss him. He practically lives at the strip club.”
I glance over at him, hoping to see a smile. There’s none. He’s watching the world spin by through the passenger’s side window, rubbing his upper lip with one finger in a rough, back and forth motion. “If he knows we’re coming,” he grumbles, “some stripper’s tits aren’t going to hold him there.”
I shrug. “As far as we know, that’s not the case.” He doesn’t respond. He just sits there with a set jaw, staring at the road. “You know, he might actually have our money. This might not go so bad.”
That finally cracks him. He smiles and says in Russian, “You’re a dreamer, Alexei.
” He glances at the purplish bruises on my hands as they grip the steering wheel.
It’s been a few days since the funeral. My knuckles are scratched up, but they’re healed for the most part. Pavel asks, “How are your fists?”
“They’re fine,” I tell him. “Hopefully, I won’t need to use them.”
Pavel shrugs. “Yeah, whatever.”
A few minutes later, we’re pulling into the parking lot of the club. As we get out, I notice Pavel adjusting the gun in his waistband. “Hey, leave that here,” I tell him.
He scowls at me. “You’re kidding.”
“Father said he doesn’t want Kozlov killed,” I respond in Russian.
He rolls his eyes and takes the gun out of his waistband and puts it in the glove compartment. “He’d better not give us a hard time,” he says in English.
This club is one of at least three around Fortune and probably one of my father’s more successful ones. It’s almost always filled with people around this time of night, especially in the VIP room. It makes thousands of dollars a night, a portion of which goes directly to my father in tribute.
Years ago, he gave me the option to have my own club, but I declined.
That was mostly because of Kira. She never felt right about it and I guess that transferred over to me.
Since her death, I’ve become a kind of silent partner in this part of our overall businesses.
My brothers under me run the places with the tributes trickling up to me and my father.
It’s a system that works well and makes it so neither I nor my father has to physically be in the building too often.
The moment the bouncer lets us in, the music blasts us as we walk through the door.
The beat thumps so loudly that it rattles my chest as we move through the crowd.
On stage, there are three topless strippers on the poles, performing for the drooling masses around the stage as they wave the dollars.
We weave through a mix of women in lingerie and customers who can’t take their eyes off their asses as they willingly give up their hard earned cash with tits in their faces.
A couple of the waitresses say hello to Pavel and give me a polite, but cautious, look.
That’s pretty normal. My brother is the handsome, approachable one, the one the girls always talked to.
I, on the other hand, carry my father’s legacy.
In the years that Maxim Mechnikov spent as a krysha when my grandfather was Pakhan, he earned the nickname of Medved or ‘Bear’.
He spent years fighting in underground circuits, earning his so-called nickname to the point where most people who knew him feared him before he ever spoke a word.
That is his legacy. And so, as his firstborn, I’m nicknamed Medvezhonok or ‘Little Bear’, but mostly just by those in our inner circle.
Uncles and Aunts and the like. I guess it’s a term of endearment.
I never really cared for the name. Either way, the girls who work under us usually give me a wide berth when they see me coming.
“Hey, Alexei! Pavel!”
We both look in the direction of the VIP section and see one of my boyeviks, Mikky.
He stands about six-four and is rumored to be nearly three hundred pounds of muscle.
He’s the one man in my outfit who’s directly from Russia, and it’s said that he used to be a wrestler.
When I assigned him to this club, the joke went around that I wouldn’t need any bouncers with him around.
We walk over to him and greet him with a one-armed shake and hug. “What brings you here? Checking up on me?” he asks in Russian, and thank goodness. His English really is terrible.
“We’re here on business,” I say. “Looking for one of our associates. Maybe you’ve seen him?”
Mikky nods slowly. “Who is it?”
“Nikolai Kozlov,” says Pavel. “He’s late on a few payments and we need to collect.”
“Nikolai?” Mikky looks a little surprised at first, then he shakes his head. “You know, I’ve always had a bad feeling about him. He comes in here all the time. Haggles with the girls about their money. He’s a real worm, that guy.”
“Yeah. You seen him?”
Mikky nods to the neon VIP sign right behind him. “I’ve seen him, alright. He’s in there. Probably getting his dick sucked.”
“Thanks,” Pavel says. “We’ll be quick.”
We make our way toward the direction of the VIP area in the back of the room. The glass door under the sign is blocked by another bouncer, but the second he sees us, he steps aside without a word. I hear him say, “Evening, Mr. Mechnikov” under the thump of the music around us.
The door closes behind us and we’re standing in a hallway, the loud music muffled.
Glass doors line both sides and we catch the reflection of low, pink and blue lighting from within the rooms. We pass the first couple of rooms and spot a party in one of them, three or four men with a stripper on each lap. Pavel shakes his head.
“You should have let me bring my gun,” he says. “What if he’s not alone?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I reply. “Besides, if you shoot him, do you want to be the one to explain to Father?”
Our father. The man who used to beat men’s faces to hamburger in underground rings for fun. I don’t say that, but I can tell Pavel is having the same thought. His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t give me any response.
“Just keep your cool and things will work out fine,” I say to him. “Remember, we’re only here for the money he owes.”
We reach the room at the very end and to the right.
I see Kozlov sitting on the couch, smiling up at a stripper who’s straddling him.
She’s not wearing anything except a G-string and she’s got a tiger tattoo on her left shoulder blade.
Kozlov looks drunk as shit. His greasy dark hair has fallen into his leathery face and he’s got his big sausage hands on her ass as he stares open-mouthed and blearily at her tits hovering over his face.
I get my brother’s attention with a nudge in the shoulder and the moment he sees him, he steps forward, opening the door.
As soon as the door opens, the stripper turns and sees us. Her eyes widen a little and she freezes like a deer in headlights.
“Hey, this is a private session,” Kozlov says. “Didn’t you see the VIP on the door?”
I can see Pavel is this close to grabbing the girl and throwing her off just to get to him, so I make eye contact with her and say, “Get out of here.”
It’s like the sound of my voice triggers her flight response because she immediately gets off Kozlov’s lap, grabs her clothes, and rushes out of the room.
As soon as she leaves, Kozlov sits up and the recognition hits as Pavel steps into the pink and blue track lighting. “Pavel,” he says with a nervous laugh. “I–I was just about to call you.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.” The alcohol is slurring his words and marring his already nearly unintelligible accent. “I figured you must have heard about my recent windfall. I’m just here to celebrate, you know?”
Pavel crossed his arms, his blue eyes alight with the anticipation of violence. “Windfall, huh? I haven’t heard about that. Maybe you should tell me about it.”
“Well, I hit it big on the Garrett/Kingston fight yesterday.”
“Did you? For how much?”
He shrugs slightly. “Just a few grand. Nothing too crazy. But I was gonna call you because I wanted to work out a payment arrangement. I figured since your father was kind enough to help me out when I needed it, the least I could do was to start paying you back.”
Pavel snickers and I edge toward the door to block his way out. “‘The least you can do’? That’s funny. You make it sound like you’re doing me a favor.”
“N–no, that’s not what I meant. I just mean—”
“The least you could do is pay what you promised to pay, with interest now since you’re a day late.”
“But Pavel, ten grand is a lot of money for a guy like me—”
Pavel strikes him across the face with the back of his hand, slapping him hard enough to send him face-first into the couch.
“You tell me you don’t have the money while you’re sitting in a strip club waiting to get your dick sucked?
” He grabs him by the collar, dragging him up to his feet and throwing him against the wall.
“Do you think my father is an idiot? You disrespectful—”
Kozlov headbutts him. His forehead connects with a sickening smack and Pavel stumbles backward, releasing him. I step in and grab him, pinning him to the wall with an arm across his throat. He struggles under my weight, gagging and clawing at my arm.
“Alexei,” Pavel says, getting to his feet. “Stop it. I’ve got him.”
I glance back long enough to see him touching his brow, checking for blood. There isn’t any, but he’s going to have a hell of a goose egg in the morning. “You sure about that?”
“Yes,” Pavel says.