Chapter 10
ALEXEI
“Before we begin,” father says right after everyone is seated, “let’s welcome my nephew back into the fold. Once a brother, always a brother.”
Everyone reacts with applause, whistles, and hands slamming on the table as Dmitri nods and smiles. He sits next to me as is his rightful place. He’s my most trusted of the boeviks under my command. I’m over the moon about his return to our fold.
Pavel is sitting across from me and to the left of our father. He applauds with the others, but there’s no real happiness in it. It will forever bug me that they don’t get along. They could be dynamic together if Pavel would just learn to accept him.
“All right, all right,” father says as he holds up his hands to quiet everyone.
“Let’s get down to business. As you are all aware, we are now allied with the Pecoras, thanks to my son’s marriage to Tony Pecora’s youngest daughter.
My hope is that we can use this venture to strengthen our organization and spread out our territory even further than just Fortune.
” He looks over at me carefully. “I would like to see our plans reach farther than just New York state. Together, I believe we will be poised to take over the entire Eastern Seaboard.”
“Agreed,” I say. “The Pecora empire extends through the southern territory and into at least three boroughs in New York, as well as several New Jersey suburbs. Their empire is extensive. Connection with them will expose us to connections that we were previously locked out of. This merger is an opportunity to become the strongest organization on the East Coast.”
“Will this mean a change in our operations?” One of father’s other brigadiers asks. “We have several upcoming deals with the Sloviks in Connecticut coming up and we know they have no love for the Pecoras.”
“I personally don’t see an issue,” Dmitri says. “As long as Tony’s men stay in their lane, there shouldn’t be any interference.”
“We can expect some resistance,” Father says. “But it’s nothing that we can’t handle. Particularly once they realize the Pecora family is on our side now.”
“Besides, the Sloviks are smaller than either of our families,” I add. “They are not a concern.”
I hear Pavel suck his teeth softly and I see Father glance at him. I decide to address it. “Did you have any thoughts about this whole thing, Pavel?”
He sighs and says, “All this talk about unity… What’s wrong with considering something more aggressive? The Pecora empire might be a large one, but it’s inefficient. And their resources have been greatly reduced of late.”
My father adjusts himself, turning completely to Pavel. “So, what are you suggesting, Pavel?”
He pauses. The spotlight’s now on him and he’s uncomfortable.
“What I’m saying is that we’ve been enemies with this family for two or three generations.
And now after all this time, we’re allies when we could finally have wiped them out entirely.
Tony Pecora himself admitted that he is not prepared for a war.
Why don’t we take advantage now that his guard is down? ”
Father looks over at me. “What do you think, Alexei? Do you agree with your brother?”
“Considering I am the one who has married into their family, no,” I say. “Outside of that detail… If I’m being frank, I fail to see the point in turning on them now. We’ve extended the olive branch. We should follow through.”
Father smiles and says, “My son has found love again after all these years,” he says, more for the benefit of everyone else, “but he is still shrewd. It’s refreshing. I know more than a few of you who have let a little pussy go to your heads when it comes to business.”
There’s a ripple of laughter among everyone. Pavel isn’t smiling. He looks pretty pissed.
“He is correct, though. The bottom line is that we’ve started something.
I do not see the point in backing out when the benefit of uniting with the Pecora family is of greater benefit.
Tony Pecora might be, as you say, ‘inefficient’, but he is intelligent.
A man does not build an empire such as his without having some skill in this game, wouldn’t you agree? ”
Pavel nods. “I suppose that is so.”
“You suppose?” He smirks. “If only you could be as sure as your brother.”
I know that stung. Pavel doesn’t show it, but it had to hurt.
“To that end,” he says to me, “I imagine you have plans laid out to deepen our connection with the Pecora family.”
“I do,” I tell him. “They deal mostly in arms and gambling but generally stay away from prostitution and drugs. We could convince Tony Pecora to broaden his horizons, as they say. Several of his territories border areas where we would flourish in expanding things in the sex and drug industries, in particular.”
“I do know that the well is very dry in Brooklyn these days,” another of Father’s brigadiers says. “Of heroin and coke, at least. The market is practically starving for it.”
“I don’t think Pecora will be receptive to those ventures,” says Father, “but he may be convinced if he considers the money that his family could gain.”
I start laying out several other ideas I have to strengthen this connection and each one, my father approves of, giving orders to the other men about what details should be given to their lower ranks.
Somewhere in there, I start to think that maybe Father was right all along.
This marriage could be a good thing for the brotherhood.
Our path to being the biggest and most powerful is fairly clear to me.
It’s not to Pavel, though. He pouts silently as we discuss the particulars.
I think that if he had been in on the decision to marry me off, he would have objected and tried to convince our father that striking against the Pecora family is the only logical solution.
I doubt he would have gotten very far, though.
My father does nothing that he doesn’t want to do and very rarely will he make a decision that he knows will bring us more harm than success.
We discuss a few more things, ongoing business that has been continuing for quite some time. Before long, the meeting is done and everyone files out, leaving me with only my father and brother.
Once the last person has left, my father looks over at Pavel, still pouting in his chair. “You don’t seem very happy with this arrangement,” he says.
“I’m not,” he admits and he looks at me with an icy stare. “And I don’t understand why he is suddenly on board with it. This is how you treat Kira’s memory, Alexei?”
A flash of anger shoots up through me like a volcano and I sit up in my chair. “Watch that shit,” I snarl at him.
He smirks at me and uncrosses his arms. “So you do still care for her. What a shame you were forced to marry someone else—”
“That is enough.” My father’s voice is low, but stern. “I won’t have you two fighting right now. Not while things are still so fragile with this merger.”
“So, we still do not trust them? Not after all that’s happened?”
“Of course not, but that’s for your brother to address. Not you.” He looks at me carefully. “As long as his bride remains happy, Pecora will bend to our will. It’s as simple as that.”
Pavel says nothing to that. He gets up and says, “I hope that your marriage remains well, then. For all our sakes.”
He leaves and Father sighs heavily. “Excuse your brother,” he says. “His heart is in the right place, but… I wonder about him sometimes. He doesn’t seem to know when diplomacy is the better route.”
I nod slowly. “He just wants to impress you. That’s what it’s always about with him.”
He looks at me with a sudden smirk. “And not with you? My eldest son? I would think that you would be the main one to vie for my approval.”
“Do I not have it?”
He chuckles. “Good point.” He gets up and walks over to the farthest corner of the room where he keeps a cabinet with scotch and vodka and who knows what other liquor stored. “So, tell me about your wedding night,” he says as he makes himself a drink. “Everything went well, I suppose?”
“It went as expected,” I tell him. “The same as any wedding night for any couple in all of the world.”
“Ha,” he says. “A very generic answer for a man who has the prowess of a Mechnikov. I hope you showed her that no other man she’s ever been with will ever be as worthy as you.”
He turns to me, drink in his hand as he comes back to the table. I am uncomfortable with this conversation. I don’t think he would be nearly this invasive if Kira and I had gotten the chance to marry.
“We were intimate,” I say, “if that’s what you’re implying. I don’t know what more you are expecting, given the circumstances.”
He’s staring at me, reading me the way he normally does when he’s trying to detect a lie. “I suppose you’re right,” he says, taking a sip from his glass. “I can’t expect sunshine and roses for a woman you barely know. I can only hope that you, at least, enjoyed yourself with her.”
I did. God help me, I did. What my father doesn’t know is that I’ve been thinking about last night off and on all day.
Every quiet moment that I have is filled with visions of my hands on her perfect ass, or the shift of pain and then ecstasy in her eyes during those first thrusts.
I’ve been doing my best not to imagine what it might be like if I decided that I wanted to show her more ways to explore her own body.
Or maybe show her the ways she could learn to please me.
“It was sex,” I say aloud. “What’s not to enjoy?”
“Fair enough,” he says. “But you know, you must work to keep her happy. Even in these circumstances. She is not a toy you can use and put away when you’re done playing with her. You will need to keep her interest if you want her to comply with this arrangement.”
I’m thinking of Anya now. I told her to go to my place and make sure to keep Isabella occupied while I’m gone. I don’t know for certain if she’ll attempt to disappear as her sister had, but she did try to leave before our wedding. I suppose anything is possible.
I want to tell my father all this. I want him to understand that this is not a normal situation. She’s not likely to comply because she’s trapped in this, just as I am. The difference is that only one of us pledged their life to the brotherhood.
“But don’t be too nice,” Father goes on. “Your mother and I were happily married for ten years before she left, and we stayed that way because she knew that if she ever displeased me, I would leave her in the dirt just as quickly as I found her. You can’t allow them to be spoiled, you see.”
Mother. Now, there’s a subject we rarely even talk about anymore. Seems like as the years go on, any mentions of her become less and less frequent. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was purposeful. Some way to keep me from asking questions about her disappearance.
“Just keep her on a short leash,” he says to me.
“Keep her happy, but never let her believe that she would be happier without you.” He pats me on the shoulder.
“Now, in light of Pavel’s resistance to this merger, I think it might be a good idea to involve him in this process a little more.
I’ve had my eye on one of Tony Pecora’s restaurants downtown.
Perhaps if Pavel can speak with him about signing the ownership over to us, he might learn a little diplomacy. ”
He’s talking business again, and thank God. Pavel is the one thing that I can handle with no problem. “I will speak with him today about setting something up.”
“Good,” he says with a smile. “Now. I have other business to attend to, so…”
I take my cue and leave. Once I’m outside in the hallway of my father’s home, my mind is suddenly clouded with thoughts that Isabella might give Anya the slip as her sister had done to her.
I hope she didn’t. There’s a reason I don’t know what happened to my mother and an even bigger reason it’s never felt like the correct action to find out why she’s gone in the first place.
I would hate for Isabella to disappear the way she did.
It would be torture to never know what happened to her.