Chapter 2

Viktor

Once Dimitri had gone, Tolya, Alexei, and I gathered around my laptop to take a look at what he had left for us. Whoever his computer man was, he was amazingly thorough. He had been monitoring internet traffic for mentions of Leon Kozlov. It had taken him years, but he had finally gotten a hit. And what a hit it was.

Charles had been communicating with Leon prior to his murder, about what, was unclear as the message made reference to another conversation. But it was obvious that Leon had information on Graves that he was threatening to tell someone, Graves had tried to buy his silence, but my brother had refused, saying it was a matter of honor.

That gave me pause, what had my brother discovered? Whatever it was had ultimately led to his death, as just days before Leon’s murder, Graves had been communicating with local mercenaries. A significant amount of money had changed hands between them via overseas banks.

Once we’d gone through enough to know what we were dealing with, the three of us exchanged horrified glances. Alexei was especially upset. “Are you kidding me? This guy was using unencrypted, non-anonymous emails and texts to hire mercenaries? How in the hell didn’t he stumble into a government honeypot along the way and get popped?”

I stared at the evidence. Charles might have thought he was being sneaky, but now that we had caught up with him, his blatancy and stupidity stunned me.

It probably shouldn’t have. The news was full of the antics of billionaire manchildren ruining businesses, families, and entertainment venues while convincing themselves that their ignorant, impulsive decisions were actually brilliant. Charles had to have numerous employees across all his businesses, and every last one of them was probably living in fear of the next bad decision by their sixty-something brat of an owner.

The paper trail more than proved Dimitri’s suspicions. By the time we got through it all, I was seething with triumphant rage. Finally, I could put a name to the source of my loss. Finally, I could avenge Leon’s murder.

But not everyone was on board with my plan to do so.

“Graves is single, paranoid, and spends most of his time flying from helipad to helipad—from his super-secure penthouse to his businesses and back again. No social life to speak of. No way of grabbing him in transit.” I tapped my lips with a finger. “That means we have to draw him out.”

“How?” Tolya’s blunt features were tense with frustration, we were all feeling it. We were inches from having Leon’s murderer in our hands, but first, we had to get past his damn security.

“He has a niece, his late sister’s child, and grandnephew. They’re his only family.” I pushed aside my distaste for such tactics and plowed on. “We take them both, put them in a secure location, pretend it’s a kidnapping for ransom. When he comes out from behind his palisades to pay up, we grab him.”

“Woah! Wait a minute.” Alexei put his slim hands up in a pleading gesture. “You’re talking about kidnapping an innocent woman and a kid.”

“Yes, I am,” I replied impatiently, trying to ignore the growing horror on his face, or the way Tolya shifted in his seat. “Not harming, not interrogating, just taking them and holding them for a few days. Just long enough to draw our Mr. Graves out into the open.”

“Who is this woman?” Tolya asked. “How old is the kid?”

“Emma Graves Martinez. She’s a psychiatrist working for the Smithfield Children’s Center downtown. And the kid’s five.” I brought up one of their photos together, a very pretty, smiling woman with golden-brown eyes and hair, almost too curvy for her sensible skirt suit. She and her uncle sat together cozily at someone’s wedding, smiling and laughing with each other like they were as close as parent and child.

On her other side sat her son, Nick, maybe four in the photo. Small, with black hair and blue eyes like my own, engrossed with the little action figure he had brought with him. Cute as hell, just like his mom. There was something about him that looked a little familiar, but that might have been my imagination.

“Graves raised her and her sister after their parents’ death. The sister died a few years ago, so those two are the only close family he has.”

“She has a doting billionaire uncle and she’s still working full time? Weird,” Alexei was still frowning. I could tell he was going to fight me on this, and I didn’t blame him. If there had been another way, I would have gladly taken it. “I don’t like it. This isn’t us, Viktor. it’s really going way past what we normally do when civilians are involved.”

I scowled at him. “So you think I should waste the lives of our brothers throwing them against his security measures instead? I told you, the woman and child will not be harmed.”

“And if Charles doesn’t cooperate?” Tolya stared at me pointedly in a way that made my anger threaten to boil over.

“He’ll cooperate,” I snapped in a tone that permitted no disagreement. We were going through with this, even if my lieutenants had qualms about it. Even if I did.

And I did. But it didn’t seem like we had much choice.

“I want a man on Emma. I want her every move watched. Get an idea of her schedule, her habits, when she picks up her kid from preschool, everything. We need a chance to grab her with a minimum of drama or potential harm.”

Alexei shook his head mournfully. “Boss, the kid’s five. Even if it doesn’t wreck her, it will sure wreck him. Can’t we find another way?”

My anger rose and I glared at him. “Do you have a workable idea for a better way to handle this?” I said in a deceptively soft voice. “Because I’d love to have a plan that doesn’t involve traumatizing kids, but we seem to be short on ways to do that.”

He paled. “I- no. No, I don’t.”

“Me neither. But my brother must be avenged. Now stop complaining and get it done!”

After our meeting, I excused myself to go over the information again in my office, which was soundproof and secure. In there, I could focus much better than when I was out on the club floor. But no matter how still and quiet it was, well away from the crowd and music, my thoughts would not stop haunting me.

Kidnapping innocent people now.I was a hard man, but my lieutenants were right. We had limits. Principles. Honor. Not like Charles Graves. Was I really ready to compromise all of that to avenge my brother?

Texts and emails were already coming in from Alexei and his men. Emma had a bad habit of checking in her location on social media. Her professional schedule was documented for her colleagues at the practice, and their system had been easy to hack.

My thoughts walked a razor’s edge, teetering back and forth between wanting to still be the man my brother had looked up to, and wanting to bring the man who had ordered his murder to bloody justice. It agitated me enough that I couldn’t keep still, getting up to pace after just a few minutes.

This isn’t right. She gives no indication of being a spoiled, amoral piece of crap like her uncle. She works hard. She helps kids. She has a kid. And here I’m about to seriously fuck up her life. And his.

But I had to do it. Thinking about turning away from this course immediately sent me back to that night. That nightmare Christmas party, holding my brother’s cooling body while everyone around me screamed. Knowing that I had failed him.

I can’t fail him again!

But it still wasn’t right…

Finally, Tolya tapped on my door, interrupting me.

I opened it and looked out at him stonily. “This had better be good.”

“Kalashnikov is here,” he warned, staring at me with a troubled expression.

I blinked at him, outrage dissipating and leaving behind a much more mundane mix of frustration and disgust. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” my lieutenant sighed. “That’s what I said when I saw him.”

***

Igor Kalashnikov was the Pakhan of the Rurikovich Bratva, one of the few other outfits in LA that was large and strong enough to challenge us. We had been allies once, but that was before he’d started breaking deals and going back on his word. In his head, however, we were somehow the betrayers.

I wasn’t sure where his rationale came from, but in the course of four years, he had gone from one of our staunchest allies to one of our most bitter rivals. It had never gotten to the point of violence, but sometimes—like now, walking out to my table again and seeing Igor’s familiar, beaky-nosed profile—I wondered if it was only a matter of time.

I settled into my seat and switched my order to my usual Scotch on the rocks. Brandy was Dimitri’s pleasure, but for me, it was a pale second to whiskey. The rocks were a necessity, despite the summer rain outside, being in the club with everything going on had me feeling overheated.

Kalashnikov and his two bodyguards watched me sit, watched me wave Tolya over and order my drink. I wasn’t so much staring back as looking idly around the room, barely acknowledging their existence in it with the occasional glance. If I had stared, Igor would have taken it as some kind of insult. He, like the others, was supposed to be welcome here. I had to at least go through the motions of civility without stirring that old crow up.

I was three sips into my drink when he rose, flanked by his muscle, and swept across the room toward me, cane tapping. He had graying, backswept hair and a widow’s peak to go with that knife-sharp nose, and small black eyes that reminded me of a rat’s—especially now that he’d decided he hated me. I felt them boring into me as he tapped his way up to my table.

“Viktor,” he said, the word dripping with disdain. “I had hoped you would be in tonight.”

“Igor.” My tone was flatly polite, my expression disinterested. I wondered what the hell his angle was, besides showing up and getting on my nerves. The problem with Igor was that you never could tell what was going on in his head. “Well, here I am. What can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering how you’re doing. It’s been quite a while since we checked in.” His thin, colorless lips curved in a smile. “Still mourning your dear, departed brother?”

I felt my blood pressure rising and reached for control. My head was suddenly pounding. Another thing I couldn’t get used to, now that we were bitter rivals instead of allies was Igor, who still looked the part of the polished older gentleman, showing all the class of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. “I suppose mourning is an alien concept for you, as to suffer the loss, you’d have to have loved ones in the first place.”

The smirk dropped off his face for three glorious seconds before he forced the corners of his mouth back up. His eyes snapped with suppressed fury. Igor was a success in crime, but a failure in his personal life. His parents did not speak to him. His wife had left, taking their son. Everyone knew it—and most feared to talk about it.

I wasn’t afraid of Igor. I wasn’t intimidated by his bravado. And if he was going to shove his fingers into the Leon-sized hole in my heart, I was going to pay his cattiness back in kind. Let him see how it felt.

He recovered quickly, I guessed his heart was too cold for even anger to impact him much. “I see. Well. If you’re feeling particularly maudlin, you should know that there are fresh rumors floating around regarding just who ordered that trigger pulled. Why they did it. Who they hired.”

I stared at him. “I’m already well aware of who killed my brother,” I replied flatly. “But thank you for the heads up.”

Confusion washed through his little black eyes briefly and I had to fight a smile. He hadn’t expected that, when he’d come over to taunt me. But then his sneer returned. “I see. Well, that’s handy. So, are you just holding off on avenging Leon then? Letting the trail go cold?”

My fingernails were digging into the tabletop. I forced myself to relax my hands.

“You must not love him very much if you’re standing around letting the perpetrators slip through your fingers,” Igor taunted, voice dripping with gleeful disdain.

“Actions are already being taken,” I snapped, though I managed to keep my face impassive. “Though I appreciate your concern.”

“Ah,” he replied, face going unreadable. I wondered how much he knew, and where he had gotten his information. It was possible he had bought it off Dimitri. No, Dimitri would have insisted on coming to me first before sharing anything. But where, then? And why did he have any interest?

There was a hook in that bait. I knew better than to go for it. Chances were, he would just torment me with bits and pieces, string me along with empty promises and give me nothing of actual value. You don’t give a saboteur an opening, my uncle used to say.

“Was there anything else?” I asked in the most bored tone I could muster.

“No,” he replied, his smirk looking more masklike by the second. I could see he’d hoped for more of a reaction, but I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing it. “Good evening, Viktor.”

“Good evening, Igor.” I watched him tap his way back to his table, doing my best to look disinterested and detached. Inside, however, the rage was rising again. Rage, and determination.

***

I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t even go home. Instead, I stayed in my office above the club, monitoring my texts and emails, and gathering the bits of information my people sent me. Figuring. Calculating.

Maybe two hours before dawn, I learned an important detail, Dr. Emma Martinez only worked part-time at Smithfield. She also had a private practice out of a small office in Santa Monica, where she also saw adults. And she was taking on new clients.

I saw my opening. A plan started to form in my mind. I would be dealing with all of this personally, it was the only way for me to make sure everything went as it should.

Tolya stifled a yawn as I came out of my office. He had stayed up too, first handling club business and then waiting on my instructions. I nodded to him and waved him over.

“Go home and get some rest, Tolya. I’ll contact you around noon. Have your men continue monitoring and gathering information. Tomorrow I’ll make contact with our target.”

He nodded, but let out a sigh. His eyes had an exhausted worry to them. “There’s no way to talk you out of this, is there?”

“No.” Not after that little chat with Igor. Just remembering it made my teeth grind. “So have everyone ready.”

“Yes sir,” he muttered as I turned on my heel and walked toward the elevator.

It was done. I was committed now. Nowhere to go but forward.

The bright chaos of the streets had given way to a wet, mazelike darkness. I drove with my music off, too cold inside to take pleasure in it, or in the view. Sparse traffic, exhausted hookers, and knots of last-call drunks emerging from bars slid past my windows as I headed for home. I had to get ready. I had an appointment to make.