Chapter 6

Chapter 6ViktorBoris was as good as his word, and I had a dossier on Olivia Martin before the day was over.She was a single mother with no family, a product of America’s dubious foster care system. She had come up in her job, and was now handling auction accounts for herself, instead of for a superior. No addictions, no serious medical issues, no debts. But she had stayed in the same small apartment for almost a decade now, probably to make sure there was enough money to take care of the boy’s needs.The boy. Michael. Michael Martin, born May thirtieth, three years ago. No father registered. No man in her life, apparently, either. I wondered if she’d even dated anyone since me. Probably not, as she had been dealing with motherhood by herself.Michael Martin. Cute little guy. Probably a bit of a hellion, if he took after me as a kid. Very likely my son, though of course there was no easy way of getting a DNA test without her cooperation. And we weren’t there yet, especially if she’d been scared off by my carrying a firearm. But if the boy was mine, I had an obligation to him—and to his mother.Even if she wanted nothing else to do with me, she was raising my son. That meant I had to do right by both of them. And besides, perhaps time had mellowed her opinion. Perhaps she wouldn’t run this time. Perhaps there was a chance now of turning our dalliance and mutual obligations to Michael into more than that.As I flicked through the printouts, I smiled a little. It had only been one night together, and it had ended badly with her slipping out like that, but I hadn’t forgotten her. Of the many women who had shared a bed with me, she was the one who stuck in my mind.It was her beauty, her fire. It was the way she had weaponized a cup of coffee to help me ensure her safety in the presence of the kind of weak man that preys on vulnerable women. It was even the way she had chosen to quietly leave the next morning, instead of freaking out or worse, calling the police on me. Something about all of this, about the way we spent our short amount of time together, had ensured that for some reason, I’d never quite forgotten her.She had courage, intelligence, and a sense of discretion. Those soft blue eyes, the cloud of red hair, those amazing curves…they were just what had grabbed my attention first. The hint of who she was as a person was what had kept it.I’d wanted to know her after our brief spell together. Even that night, I recalled thinking I’d wanted to see her again. And now that we’d crossed passed once more, that desire was reignited to a fire.Within a day or two, tops, I expected a phone call from her about my uncle’s estate sale. And I would start things by being all business, talking about that instead of anything personal. But eventually, it would come time to talk about Michael, and everything else.I wanted this woman. She was beautiful, capable, and the mother of my child. After just one night, she’d already given me something I’d never really been sure I would have—a family to call my own. A son. This hit something deep inside me, and I couldn’t even name what it was. It just felt…deep. Right.My boy. My woman.Olivia was already mine, she just didn’t know it yet.***As it turned out, it was less than eighteen hours before she called me. I had the auction house number in my phone, and when the caller ID lit up my screen, I couldn’t help but smile.I picked up at once. “This is Viktor.”“Hi, Viktor,” she said after a few seconds of hesitation, and the soft cadence of her voice, feminine and maybe a little breathy from nerves, had my cock twinge slightly at the memory of that voice calling my name in the throes of passion. How I longed to hear that again. “I heard you have an estate sale that you want me to handle.”“Yes, my uncle’s,” I replied, keeping my tone crisp and formal despite my thoughts. “He has a very large book collection, many first editions, and you’re the only one I know in the business, so I thought I would call you.” Not that I wouldn’t have been eager to call her just because of the shade of Michael’s eyes and my lovely memories of her. But I had left my message on the pretext of business, and with her flighty departure last time I’d seen her, I didn’t want to risk scaring her off yet. Not until I could at least see her in person, and it wouldn’t be so easy as a click of a button to evade me.“Well, I’m flattered that you remembered me,” she started, and stopped when I chuckled.“You’re rather difficult to forget, Olivia.”She swallowed audibly. “So…so are you.”For a moment I thought she was working up the nerve to apologize for ditching me, but then she quickly went on. “I’ll need a look at the collection to give you an estimate, and then we’ll have to plan how you want to handle the sales. I have plenty of book collectors and sellers I can invite, but not until I see what we’re dealing with.”“Fair enough. I am free every day this coming week, except for tomorrow. When would be good for you to come to my hunting lodge? Everything he had is stored there.”She hesitated again. I could practically feel her weighing the risks. But after a few more seconds, she simply said, “Sure. Wednesday. Text me the address. Is two o’clock good for you?”The little spurt of excitement I felt surprised me. I barely knew her, after all, even if the boy was mine. But what I felt went beyond that. I fought to keep my voice businesslike. “That will work fine. Thank you.”I hung up and was barely finished with texting her the address when someone knocked hard on my office door. I frowned, instinctively reaching for the .45 pistol in my desk drawer. I kept my hand on it as I spoke up. “Come in.”Boris threw open the door and rushed in, sweating and out of breath. He looked worried. “Sorry to interrupt, but we have a situation,” he said in Russian.My frown deepened slightly but I removed my hand from the gun. Whenever Boris was upset enough, he lost his English and used our mother tongue. “What is it?”He struggled to catch his breath, and after a few moments, switched back to English. “Petrovich is in the hospital. He’s alive and conscious, but he says it was the Puerto Ricans.”“What?” Ivan Petrovich was my Derzhatel Obshchaka who handled all of our financial affairs. I had just talked to him earlier about my uncle’s auction, and how much of the money should be folded back into Bratva coffers. I was ready to put all of it in—it had been willed to me, but I had enough money of my own. Greed was a weakness, and we needed cashflow now that we were dealing with unexpected competition. But all of that felt irrelevant right now, I wanted vengeance for my friend. “Give me the details. When did this happen, and who did it?”“We don’t know for sure, but there’s only one Pueblo in Boston. That means El Luchador must have called the shots.” He huffed a last time and then started breathing more normally. “He was shot at while he was driving, he hit a guardrail and the car flipped trapping him. The shot didn’t kill him, but he’s got a broken leg and a concussion, and the car’s totaled. It was one of our motor pool.”My eyes narrowed. “That sounds like a direct challenge.” And if I didn’t answer it with at least equal violence, I would definitely look soft. And Petrovich would never have any faith in me again.“Yes, it does.” He swallowed. “That whack on the head has made his memory of the men fuzzy, but he has a dashcam and a rearview cam. We’re hoping we can get images off them to determine who did this. But it’s a good bet that El Luchador and his Pueblo are involved.”I shook my head, pushing myself slowly up from my seat. I really did not like having to resort to violence. It was a drain on ammunition, supplies, money when I had to fix any men injured, and a fucking waste of lives when they died. “He never agreed to the proposed meeting, did he?”“We have yet to hear about it. It hasn’t been that long, but this…”“I understand. This has to be answered. And not with negotiations.” I licked my lips, sorting out my plans for a few seconds before saying, “Get me both recordings. What hospital is he at?”“Boston General. He’s going into surgery soon and may not even be awake when you get there.”I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “All right. Let the men know I want to meet later today. We have work to do beyond the usual.”He nodded, already backing toward the door. Boris would never turn his back to me—he was old school, and saw it as an insult. “I’ll put the word out and get you those videos.”I nodded and raised a hand briefly, dismissing him. Once he had stepped out and hurried away, I sat back down in my chair, scowling.El Luchador had gone out of his way to avoid violence between us for years. But now I was proposing that we negotiate, and suddenly the man was sending his muscle to hospitalize my finance guy?It meant he didn’t want to negotiate. He wanted war. This was a gauntlet thrown down. And what bothered me more was that he knew enough about the Bratva to target someone important in it.So either he had found a way to spy on us, or we had a mole. Someone close enough to me to know who was who, and who to attack to anger me the most. Petrovich was a close personal friend, and a good man. He hadn’t deserved this. He was as valuable and close to me as Boris, and I didn’t want to think about him dying on the operating table.But whatever happened, I was going to make sure he knew I wouldn’t let this go unpunished, and that I would see to his protection much more personally after this.***When I reached the hospital that evening, I had to bribe my way in, as it was after visiting hours. Petrovich was strung up with one leg in traction, a bandage around his forehead, and the typical scratches and bruises of a man who had been in a rollover crash. He wasn’t a big man compared to the rest of us. He was fairly tall and fit, but older, his wavy graying hair the color of iron to match his eyes. They had shaved his mustache to sew up his split lip.“Vanya! I heard what happened. How are you doing?” I came in with a stack of my uncle’s books, classics he loved, and set them on the bedside table before shaking his hand.He smiled, then winced as it pulled at the stitches. “Traffic problems,” he said mildly, and I chuckled and shook my head.“Your sense of humor is intact at least.” The man was far tougher than he looked. I pulled over a chair and sat beside his bed. “How are they treating you?”“The food is worse than prison slop, but it is edible.” He reached for his glasses on the tray beside him and put them on, peering at me. “Good, my vision is no longer as blurry. When they first brought me in, I could not focus at all.” One of his pupils was still slightly larger than the other.“Did you see the men who did this?”He nodded slightly. “I saw them, the car looked like it was going to cut me off, so I went to swerve, that’s when they fired on me. I didn’t recognize them, but it had to be the Puerto Ricans. This attack was very sudden, very unexpected. I know they have been cutting into our profits, but I did not expect them to be out for our blood after staying away for so long.”“And just when we were making friendly business overtures as well. I am sorry, Ivan.”“This was not your doing. Them attacking now makes no sense at all. They can’t possibly think they can kill us all or drive us out. So why do this?” He tried to sit up and winced slightly as the motion jarred his leg.“Perhaps they assume we are weakest when transitioning to a new pakhan,” I mused. “If so, they are very much mistaken.”“What are you going to do?”“I have video from your automobile cameras. Our computer guys are doing an image search online to try to determine their identities. Once we have them, I will bring them in for interrogation. After that—well, I was going to give you a say in it.”“Thank you, Viktor.” He sighed. “I appreciate that. How is everyone taking this?”I pursed my lips, wondering how much I should tell him. The meeting had split us down the middle. Half, including Boris, thought we should answer blood for blood. Half thought we should capture the men and ransom them back to gain an upper hand on the market.I was inclined toward the second option. I hated the waste that a war like this would bring. This wouldn’t be to claim new ground or access to profits, but for reputation and retribution. It might be necessary…but I needed some time to think.What I didn’t need, however, was for my men to think I was hesitating because I was weak or avoiding violence from fear. I didn’t want to have to deal with my own men being in constant debate over my choices.But none of them, not one, could complain if I let Ivan choose the fate of his attackers. That was a courtesy I had extended as a brigadier, and later when I was in Boris’s position. No one would be surprised when I showed Ivan the same.Ivan had gone quiet, and he looked very thoughtful.“Still deciding?” I asked, understanding his hesitation perfectly.“I don’t want a war,” he said quietly. “But they have gone too far, Viktor. The two men in that car…once you’re done with them, I’m not sure.”“You’re tired from your surgery and everything else. Take your time, give it some thought. We can wait another day.” I needed to buy time anyway, giving him time to think would give me time to consider all my options thoroughly without appearing to hesitate. “Meanwhile, once we get details on the Pueblo members who did this, we will bring those men in.”“Did anyone get my briefcase out of the car before it was towed?” he fretted.“Boris handled it. I have it in my office. I can bring it if you wish.”“I do. I want to get some work done.” He smiled again at my expression. “Finances won’t wait until I’m up and around.”I nodded. “I’ll bring it in tomorrow.”“Perhaps I’ll have an answer for you then.” His tone was apologetic, but I could understand it. Ivan was not a man of the gun. Who was I to judge another man, especially when I, too, needed time for careful consideration?On the way back home, I found my thoughts turning to Olivia. In two days, I would be welcoming her into my home, and into a couple of very awkward conversations. But perhaps she would understand where I was coming from if I explained it well enough, and led with my desire to do right by her and Michael. And I did plan to explain, at least partially, at least at first.Because my woman would never be put in danger from ignorance. She would know enough to make the right decisions to protect herself and our children.It was raining as I headed for my house near Scollay Square, one of those steamy summer rainstorms that barely relieved the heat. Now and then, I heard a rumble of thunder out across the sea. The eye of the storm was slowly getting closer—we would probably have a lightning storm later.Despite my desire, the timing of meeting Olivia again was terrible. If the Puerto Ricans really were pushing for war, there wouldn’t be much I could do to dissuade them, besides answer violence with violence. Olivia and Michael would end up in danger if they associated with me too closely or too often during this time of potential turmoil—particularly if it became known to my enemies who they were to me.That, I absolutely could not let happen. Not my son. Not his mother.That meant I had to move quickly and decisively to bring this conflict to an end—either by never letting it start, or by pushing such a force of violence and blood on the enemy that they had no choice but to concede, or be wiped out, before it could turn into a long-term war. But how was I supposed to do that when I didn’t even understand the reasons behind the Puerto Ricans’ sudden shift from fist fights and fender benders to attempted murder targeted directly and purposefully towards our profits, not to mention my personal friend? Rashly resorting to violence might well underpin everything my Uncle Mischka and I had built, if I didn’t know everything first.The whole situation had a fishy smell to it, something wasn’t quite adding up. I had to find out what was really happening. And I had to do it before there was any chance that Olivia and Michael could be connected to me by my enemies.