Chapter 1

Avgust~

A s I stared out into the city's skyline, I couldn't help but wonder about the future of the bratva. Two years ago, the Sartoris had started getting married and having babies, and only a few months ago, the O'Briens began starting their own families. The other two crime syndicates in Port Townsend were already working on their next generation of leaders, and I could barely stand a woman long enough for her to put her clothes back on before leaving the hotel room.

The city's lights twinkled bright enough that I could see them from the balcony of my bedroom, and even as far away from town as my home sat, the bright neon lights of the night reached my eyes. While many people only saw autumn postcards of Maryland, there was an entire underworld that existed inside the state, and thanks to New York and New Jersey being so close, crime was very prevalent here, more so in Port Townsend.

Now, once upon a time, Port Townsend had been divided into four different territories, the Sartoris, the O'Briens, the Schulzes, and us. However, Emil Schulz had pissed off Nero Sartori, ending his entire reign and bloodline with that one act. Emil had shot and kidnapped Nero's wife, so Nero had wiped out every last German, and it'd been a win/win for the rest of us. Granted, with the Sartoris having the largest numbers out of all of us, Nero hadn't had to share his spoils of war, but he'd had, expanding all of our territories.

Nevertheless, because Nero wasn't a stupid man and outnumbered us and the O'Briens, he had retained control of the coastline and ports, the O'Briens had the northern border with access to state line airports, plus what they'd already had, and we had the rest. Now, while the Sartoris outnumbered us by eight-hundred strong, we outnumbered the Irish by a couple of hundred, and all that math was enough to keep everything civilized at the moment. There was also the fact that none of us wanted to go to war with each other when Klive Simpson was proving to be a problem in Port Townsend. Unbeknownst to Klive, the Italians, Irish, and Russians had an unspoken truce just to find the fucker.

Of course, that didn't mean that we couldn't go to war if we had to. While the Italians were larger and more organized, and the Irish were fearless and more resourceful, the bratva was deadlier and the bond between the family was stronger than anyone could possibly comprehend. Though we weren't suicidal, we were close enough to it not to back down from anything or anyone.

Now, once upon a time, my father, Mikhail Kotov, had been the bratva's Pakhan, but that had ended a few years ago when my mother had announced that she was leaving him. After years of emotional abuse and neglect, she'd had enough, so my father had handed the reins over to me and my brothers, hoping to win my mother back. However, anyone with a working pair of eyes could see that my mother was done with him, though we had no idea why she'd stayed with him. At any rate, since we were all grown men, their marriage was not our business until or unless my father did something to her.

As for my mother, Polina Kotov, she'd always been a faithful bratva wife and devoted mother to me and my two younger brothers, Bogdan and Melor. With always knowing what had awaited us in the future, she'd done her best to raise us with a strong sense of right and wrong, simply so that we'd know the difference, even if we very rarely chose to do the right thing. Still, for all that we lacked a conscience and decency, Polina Kotov had been an excellent mother and still was.

So, when my father had stepped down, as the oldest, I'd taken over, something that no one had contested. I'd began proving myself at the age of thirteen, and my father had made me start at the bottom. In fact, he'd made all his sons start at the bottom, so that it couldn't be argued that we hadn't earned our positions, and if someone disagreed…well, they were smart enough not to voice it out loud.

Now, while we weren't as rigid as the Italians, the Russian Bratva had its own structure, and every position that we held within the organization was held with a sense of honor, not pride like the Italians. Every position in the bratva was an earned one, not something that you were appointed just because you were blood. We were warriors, and only the most cunning warriors ran the bratva.

Still, for all our differences, our structure was similar to the Italian Mafia. I was the Pakhan, which would be equivalent to their Don or Godfather. Maksim was my sovietnik, which was a counselor, same as how Aurelio Provenza was Nero's consigliere. Then we had our obshchak, which was our bookmaker, and that position was held by my brother, Bogdan. My other brother, Melor, was our avtoriyet, which was a high authority figure that could make decisions in my name. The last person to round out the top-tier of the bratva was Akim Barychev, Maksim's younger brother, and he was our boyevik, which put him in charge of all our warriors.

The rest of the organization consisted of kryshas, torpedoes, and bykis. The kryshas were our muscle, or as the Italians would call them, the soldiers. The torpedoes were our killers, with Damir Ivanov being our most talented ender of life. Lastly, the bykis were our bulls, or more commonly known as bodyguards. Now, while we had more kryshas and bykis than we had torpedoes, that wasn't a problem for us. Our kryshas and bykis also knew how to kill when necessary, they just weren't as skilled or as creative as our torpedoes.

There were also our Vory , but there weren't many of them. It was a position that was bestowed on someone only when the candidate showed considerable personal ability, leadership skills, charisma, and incredible intellect. Normally, you could identify a Vor by his tattoos, because every tattoo that a bratva etched into his skin had meaning. Our tattoos were symbolic, and if you carried a mark that you hadn't earned, then we carved it from your flesh.

It also didn't matter that we were an American-born generation. Both my paternal and maternal grandparents had come over from Russia, and they had worked hard and had paid their dues to become American citizens. However, they hadn't become too Americanized to not pass down years of Russian tradition and pride, and my mother and father's native tongue was Russian, despite having been born in the US. So, my brothers and I had become something of a mix in that regard and spoke both Russian and English fluently.

Letting the sweet smell from my cigar fill the night air, I knew that I had to put thoughts about my legacy aside for the moment. Right now, the priority was finding Klive Simpson and taking care of him. Thanks to our little truce-non-truce, Nero's hacker had managed to paint us a somewhat sketchy picture of why Klive Simpson could be in Port Townsend, and that picture pointed towards us. We believed that the petty bullshit that his gang had engaged in had been just a smokescreen to hide his true motives, which we still didn't know. Though Klive's band of criminal misfits had been a melting pot of all kinds of different races and ethnicities, there was no denying that a majority of them had been Russian. Plus, it made no sense that he'd pick a city and state that was already occupied to try his hand at starting up his own criminal organization. No one lived in Port Townsend without knowing who the Kotovs, O'Briens, and Sartoris were, so it felt right that Klive was in town for a personal reason, not a professional one.

As I wracked my brain to figure out what the fuck Klive Simpson could possibly want with us, my phone chimed with an incoming text, and since only a handful of people had a direct line to me, I always answered my phone.

Damir: At the Lullaby. Maribelle is here

I let out a low chuckle. Life was easy when you had money, and we were wealthy enough that everyone in our organization had money in spades.

Me: Not interested

While I had no problem with women that liked to spread themselves around, Maribelle was more trouble than she was worth, no matter how good she was at sucking cock. The shlyukha liked to cause problems where there weren't any, and all because she thought that she deserved better than the cards that life had dealt her. Also, it wasn't an insult to call a slut a slut when those were the facts.

Damir: Suit urself

I shook my head as I slipped my phone back into my pocket. I was thirty-six, and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to put off a wife for much longer. At thirty-four, Bogdan was already married with children, and at thirty-three, Melor was also married with children, and though that was good enough for me when it came to securing our future, it wasn't good enough for the rest of the organization. It was expected that I'd take a wife and have children, and that was probably the only thing that I didn't have a say in as far as being the Pakhan was concerned.

The only problem was that I had no desire to saddle myself with a wife. I didn't need someone that would just be underfoot all the time, wanting more than what I could give her. After all, I was the type of man that only loved once, and that ship had sailed years ago.

Thankfully.