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41
Timur
“The proof is comprehensive,” Oleg says. As stand-in komissiya leader, he has the floor, and he’s been perusing the information for the last half-hour. “Thank you for your dedication, Timur.” Oleg turns to Sissi. “This man is a credit to you, Don Barone. We are indebted to you both.”
Sissi’s face is a picture. The sad bastard has no idea what’s going on, but he’s smart enough to realize that he can’t contradict my version of events without telling the assembly all about his shitty plot to frame the Morettis and gain favor with the Kislevs. I’ll catch up with him later, but I expect he’ll high-tail it back to Cook County with his engine open and his mouth shut. Suits me.
“Thank you, komandir,” I say.
“I’m still unclear on the car.” Oleg furrows his brow as he flicks through the doctored photos.
“Arman said his Rolls Royce had been vandalized by a Moretti soldier, but it was parked at his apartment all along,” I say. “He used it to follow Lilyana but took the plates off, thinking she wouldn’t be able to recognize it. To the same end, he loaned the vehicle to his accomplice Marco, knowing he would foil the bogus abduction attempt. Arman murdered Marco and had the car crushed, conveniently removing the evidence of his involvement.”
“And he drove that Bugatti the rest of the time to hide his tracks. Incredible.” Oleg sounds almost impressed. “What a piece of work.”
I disguise my smirk as a cough. A bit of basic photo editing is enough to fool these men.
The vehicle was a burner I bought from Craigslist, and I lent it to Marco for the abduction, but there’s no way of proving that now. On the other hand, one big-ass black sedan is much like another, and it was easy enough to manipulate some grainy CCTV stills to make it look more like Arman’s car. I swung by Raul’s shop an hour ago, and the idiot will now tell anyone who’ll listen that he never saw Arman’s scratched-up Rolls Royce in his life. A substantial cash reward and a serious threat to his young daughter’s life saw to that.
“It’s a shame.” I affect a sad expression. “I considered Arman a friend. I’m disappointed to discover who he is inside.”
Giovanni Moretti sits beside his brother Aldo, his face twisted with fury. “The fucker killed Jake Northwood, a trusted associate of mine. He almost started a war over nothing!” He glares at Oleg. “I want to see the ultimate sanction applied here. My commission agrees with me.”
The Italian mafia elders nod in unison, and I try to suppress my glee. This is it. It fucking worked.
“Arman Nechayev threw us all out of his wedding,” Oleg says. “He insulted everyone in one fell swoop. Even without all this damning evidence, I don’t care to stand up for the bastard now. Is this assembly confident that Arman framed the Morettis and shot Vlad Kislev in order to secure his ascendency to the Kislev bratva leadership? If there are dissenting views, I will hear them.”
I throw Sissi a glance, but he’s not about to speak up. Murmurs and nods through the room seal the deal, and Oleg stands.
“Timur, you’ve done a tremendous job here. We’ll pay you well before you return to Chicago. You and Don Barone will always be considered trusted friends of our bratva families here in New York.”
“I’d like to stay a while and look after Lilyana,” I say. “Vlad let her have her freedom, and look what happened. I can continue to support the Kislevs by keeping her under tight control, just as she used to be.”
“Agreed. Anything else?”
“One more thing.” I smile. “My reward; you can keep it. Just let me kill Arman.”
I wait on the steps of Oleg’s home, the komissiya’s usual meeting place. It’s incredible to me that I flipped these noble institutions of the mafia and bratva so easily, but this is the problem with the criminal fraternity; it isn’t a fraternity at all.
How hard can it be to believe one of their own would launch a coup against the family that took him in? Shit like that happens all the time, and many people were already suspicious of Arman and Lilyana’s so-called ‘relationship,’ so it wasn’t a leap to convince them that the whole thing was a sham.
Arman is on his way. He thinks he’s coming here to tell the commission meeting about the Morettis and their scheming when, in fact, the meeting is over, and judgment has been passed. The evidence was irrefutable, the logic sound, the motive all too clear.
As far as anyone else is concerned, Arman Nechayev turned on the Kislevs, seduced and lied to Lili, and presided over a campaign of terror designed to consolidate his position. The murder of Vlad Kislev was meant to be the final step, but he failed. Of course, good ol’ Timur got the drop on his erstwhile friend, bringing the grisly business to light.
I start laughing again. Fucking Hell. I’m so noble; I move myself sometimes.
Headlamps appear at the end of the street, and I wipe the idiot grin off my face, composing myself just as Arman pulls up.
“Thanks for doing this,” he says as he ascends the steps. “You pissed me off earlier with your strung-out bullshit, but you’ve had my back where it counts.”
I smile. “Of course. How’s Vlad?”
“Fucked up. We all are.” Arman seems exhausted, and I realize how easy this is gonna be. “I’ll have to take over for now, but even if Vlad survives, he’ll be convalescing for a while. Dark times. I only hope we can come to some agreement in there and get both the mafia and the bratva working on finding the cunt who dared to try and take him out.”
“And what about your wife?” I ask. “Where is she?”
“At the hospital. She said she’d stay with Sasha, but I can’t help but keep checking her necklace tracker. Reassures me she’s safe, I guess.”
