Chapter 4
Four
Rowan
Club Genesis keeps its worst secrets three floors underground.
Stale air and industrial soap sit heavy in the sub-basement, layered with the flat, metallic tang of a man whose hope died the second we slapped the cell door on him.
Men like the one in front of me don't see courtrooms. They see rooms like this one.
Genesis operates as the underworld's holding facility, neutral ground with concrete walls, fluorescent lights, and a fee structure that keeps Harlon's operation running without allegiance to any one crew. Whoever pays the tab makes the rules. We don’t need lawyers, parole boards, or bleeding hearts begging for mercy.
Justice down here is simple. You stay until someone decides you've served your purpose or outlived it.
And that is what I am here to determine.
I take the metal chair across from Enzo Marchetti. I catalog the two exits at my back, clock the cross-draw holster on the Genesis guard posted by the door, and fold my hands on the table.
Enzo looks exactly the way a man should look after four months in a windowless cell with no future.
The aging man’s cheekbones jut beneath skin gone the color of old newspaper under fluorescent tubes that hum at a frequency designed to burrow into the base of the skull.
The muscle tone he carried as a trafficking boss has eaten itself, leaving tendons and hollow spaces where bulk used to be.
His wrists rest on the metal table between us, the bones pressing through thinning skin, and his eyes track my face with the measured stillness of a man calculating whether this visit ends differently than the last.
It won't. I'm not here to hurt him. Luca's order put him in this cell.
Kon delivered him. His daughter Ilona's mercy kept him breathing when every man in our circle would have put a round in his skull and called it overdue maintenance.
The mercy is more than he deserves, considering what he traded in.
The wannabe mafia boss trafficked human beings and he thought he could move around like cargo.
Women and children with price tags attached to their lives.
You know what I mean. I didn’t need to fully spell that shit out. It makes my stomach churn and I will not tolerate another person being abused. Period.
But there are some who deserve a bullet between their eyes. Or worse. To live with the consequences of their actions. Enzo here is proof dying isn’t the worst that can happen to a person.
The cell he is in is generous. If it were up to me…well. Let me say it this way. A box in the ground would be too much of a luxury for him.
I push all that aside and focus on why I'm here. The fucker knows things and I need some of his intel.
"The Eastern European routes." I keep my voice low and let the Saint Petersburg docks settle into the consonants of my words.
The accent is useful down here. It reminds men like Enzo that I didn't learn violence in a boardroom and I don’t mete out justice with a pen like Massimo.
"Someone is pressuring Syndicate-connected shipping operations.
Our routes are being disrupted. Contacts going dark.
Pressure applied at points that require inside knowledge of the system. "
I pause. Let the silence fill the space between us.
I've never been a man who wastes good quiet with unnecessary talking. Silence in rooms like this is a tool, sharpened by the concrete walls and the fluorescent buzz, and most men break against it before they break against a fist. Men who chose the underworld know darkness and it doesn’t scare them.
Death doesn’t make them flinch. But the fear of rotting away while your empire is stripped, absorbed and taken over leaves a man like Enzo shaking and willing to do anything for the hope of getting a portion of his power and wealth back.
Enzo's tongue runs across cracked lips. "You want me to give you a name."
"I want you to give me what you have. A name is a good start."
He holds my gaze for three beats, then drops it to the table. His fingers drum once, twice, and go still. "I don't have a name, just rumblings. I’ve been down here too long to know much." His voice carries the rasp of a man who doesn't talk enough to keep his vocal cords limber.
“Nyet.” I wave a hand between us and lean a fraction of my weight forward so he can look me in my eyes.
“What’s going on now took time to organize.
More than the time you've been here. You spent a lot of time trying to take me and the Red Letter Syndicate off the table. What wheels did you leave turning, starik.”
I’m not asking and he knows it. He has no choice but to give me what I want. Calling him old man deepens the grooves across his forehead and along the edges of his eyes.
Good.
Enzo's nostrils flare and his tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek, the slow, deliberate movement of a man swallowing a response he can't afford to give. His cuffed hands shift on the table, knuckles whitening around the bones.
Missing cargo, shipment details leaked to authorities, random raids on operations that ran clean for years.
None of it started out of thin air. Enzo left wheels turning before we locked him in this cell, men positioned against us, operatives flipped, pressure points mapped and handed off to whoever picked up the reins.
We're not watching something new. We're feeling the delayed impact of a plan he set in motion long before the cell door closed.
I need to know who is behind it.
When he finally speaks, the words drag like gravel pulled through a rusted pipe. Pride makes every syllable brittle and coarse, each one cracking under the weight of giving me anything at all.
"Someone with real money and real access has been reaching into Bratva networks and pulling strings. I only helped them because I wanted you all out of my way.” Enzo lifts a shoulder. “Work smarter not harder. I simply used your enemies against you."
I don’t give a shit about his pride or feelings. He knows more than he’s telling me. "Who? How deep did you sink your tentacles into our operations, Marchetti?" I demand.
That pulls a smile across the fucker’s face.
He watches the guard to my right for a few seconds before moving his lips.
"Deep enough to reroute cargo at the port level without triggering your standard monitoring. How do you think I moved my merchandise?" He drags his eyes back to mine. "I dug deep enough to turn mid-level operatives against you who have been reliable for months now. Years. But what you’re experiencing now is someone who’s taken over where I left off. It won’t be long before you and your brothers are ruined. "
I know bullshit when I hear it. He’s spewing a lot of words, but holding back the real meat of the truth. “And you know who it is.”
Marchetti’s grin widens, telling me he’s done talking.
I pull back and drop my hands into my lap, turning the ring on my finger. Why does everyone always want to choose death and pain?
"Anything else, Volkov? I have a party to get back to." Marchetti gestures to the cell, his bed and a single book lying in the middle of the shitty mattress.
Dark humor from a man rotting in a cell he earned. I can respect that, even if I can't respect the man.
“Your daughter sends a message.” I push to my feet and signal the guard to open the cell door. I hate to use emotional blackmail and a father’s connection with his daughter, but it’s not beneath me either.
“Oh?”
Light flickers across his eyes and for a second I see hope come alive in the old man’s expression. Shit. I feel like a rat bastard for using family members like this, but lives are at stake.
My chair scrapes against the floor, the sharp sound bouncing off the concrete walls. "She wishes you well and…" My words fall away.
“And what, Volkov? What else did she say?”
I'm at the door when his voice drops lower behind me.
"Volkov."
I stop, but don’t give him the satisfaction of looking him in the eye.
"The person behind this is not trying to steal from you, Volkov.
They're trying to replace you. There's a difference.
" He pauses and moves to the bars, wrapping his spindly fingers around the cold metal bars of his prison. "And when they do, I’ll be alive to see them take everything from you. Just like you did me. I’ll spit in your face on the way down and piss on your corpse when they toss it in here with me. Mark my words."
“I’ll remember those words while your daughter signs everything over to the Red Letter men.
All the Marchetti territory, its people, every last dollar and business.
Everything you stole and bled for has our name on it.
We own your daughter too. Your whole lineage is forever erased and marred with the blood of your enemy.
Carry that knowledge to hell, Marchetti. ”
As I walk away, I wink at him and laugh at his curses, wishing for my death. I leave Enzo Marchetti to his self-built purgatory.
Harlon Constantine leans against the corridor wall outside the cell block with his arms crossed and an expression that sits halfway between patience and calculation.
The man runs Club Genesis the way a surgeon runs an operating theater.
Precise, clean, and with a complete understanding that everything happening in this building exists because he allows it to.
"I see that talks ended pleasantly. Was he at least somewhat useful this time around?" Harlon pushes off the wall and falls into step beside me.
"Useful enough to keep breathing. He has names and knows who is behind the crimes against me and my brothers. Someone is playing games with our shipments. I’ll eventually break him."
"Stubborn fool." Harlon matches my stride without effort. "I'll extend the hold. Same terms."