Sadly, the horrific time was difficult to shove aside on a day like today. Our father had just swept our world clean of several dozen enemies from various crime syndicates and after the massive undertaking, he’d rewarded our family with taking us on a vacation to Sardinia. I’d been far too old to join them, but our father had insisted.
Same with Dimitri.
Fuck. I shook my head as the memories took a bitter turn. I’d been bored to death, seeking an adventure on my own withmy favorite cousin Dimitri. We’d thought we were something special, our fathers’ reputations providing us a road paved in gold to do what we wanted. Our arrogance led to utter stupidity, getting drunk and disorderly, both tossed inside a cold and dark jail cell. My father had been so fucking angry he’d refused to bail us out.
So had my uncle.
My aunt had been too fearful of her husband’s response had she gone against him, but not my mother. She was fearless even while being pissed.
She’d defied them all, taking the rental car with a fistful of cash in her hand.
If only I hadn’t been such a fucking dickhead, she might still be alive.
Fuck. Since when did I allow my mind to be constrained by a single concept of guilt? Never. That wasn’t who I was as a man and I couldn’t let it happen as the leader of our family organization.
“Yes, Pakhan,” Mikhail hissed.
The kid was fighting reopened wounds. Stash eyed me carefully before taking long strides toward the door. Kirill was prepared to follow until I shook my head. While I might not have spent much time with Stash, he was very much like our father and almost a carbon copy of the man I’d become. Only his level of anger was from years spent in utter poverty, learning to steal food from local vendors to try to keep himself and his mother alive.
Families were complicated at best, our father’s infidelity nothing new, but an illegitimate offspring was a new and unwanted twist.
And Mikhail? Well, he’d never fully recovered from his grief or the effects of the horrible disease that had almost taken his life.
The last few days exhausting, I closed and rubbed my eyes, instantly thrust back into the last few minutes of our mother’s life.
Our mother was merely a distant memory, little more than a pawn in the very dangerous game my family had played for generations. Not a single holiday had meant a damn thing since then, and certainly there’d been no more family vacations.
Except for my father’s funeral.
How many people had our father blamed for her death? How many new enemies had he made from accusations made? And the person responsible for her death had never been found.
“When the dust settles,” Dimitri interjected. “Why don’t you consider moving the business to New York?”
Now I laughed in earnest. “Not a chance.” My uncle had tried to convince our father for years to leave the old guard and head to the new world. No, thank you.
He walked closer, clapping me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I need to return to New York so soon. I have certain business of my own that can’t wait.”
Dimitri knew when it was best to walk away. Our businesses were separate for a reason. “I appreciate you coming all this way.”
“I meant what I said. You’re always welcome.”
“You never know. I may take you up on it one day.”
I stood with a drink in my hand, mulling over options while Dimitri said his goodbyes and left. Death was a typical occurrence in our profession, but the older I got, the more difficult it felt to deal with.
In the last few days, I’d made the rounds in securing our warehouses, talking with our accountant and trying to reassure our employees that nothing would change. Meanwhile, other Russian Bratva were breathing down our necks. They were like vultures waiting for clean and easy pickings of roadkill.
The house was filled with people, the wake a cornerstone of being Orthodox Christian, and my stepmother was active in the church. I couldn’t care less, yet on this one subject, I heeded to her request. For me, the idea of walking into a church was blasphemous.
“What about the attorney?” Mikhail asked. “And the will?”
His words dripped of contempt. “That is the last thing on my mind.” At least my answer pleased him. For now, Marta would stay in the house. I was a cruel bastard, but I certainly wasn’t planning on kicking her out on the street. She and Stash had been through so much over the years, homelessness included.
“How do we move forward from here, Pakhan?” Grigor Kierev asked, another soldier who’d come up through the ranks.
“My father already scheduled a meeting with the Cosa Nostra Don the day after tomorrow, and he’d want us to keep it. The meeting will continue as scheduled.”
Our father hadn’t been prone to making alliances with anyone, but the radical Bratva to the north and south were like Vikings hell bent on invading our territory. By taking control of several major roads and ports, the ruthless syndicates had made gettingour product across country lines much more difficult. The Italians could provide relief.
