Chapter 1 - Anton
The keys clang loudly against the glass table when I drop them on my way through the foyer of my Detroit mansion. A man follows close behind me into my home. He is patient as I gesture for him to go into the living room. I’ve only just arrived home, and he has been waiting for me for twenty minutes already.
“I’ll be a minute; I just want to grab a drink. Can I get you something?”
“Water, thanks.”
He stands rigid and stern with his hands shoved into his pockets and his shoulders pushed back.
I leave him looking out the patio doors to the garden area. Yaroslav is one of the very few people I’ve allowed into my home over the past few months.
I’ve been in some kind of hiding. Sort of. Which is unusual for me, seeing as I have hardly anyone I fear. But this shit with Josiah Belov forming an alliance with the West Coast Pakhans…it’s got me on edge. And it’s seriously pissed me off.
Not even one of them made any effort to contact me or include me in any way, which makes me think—because what else should I be assuming?—that they are slowly working towards overthrowing me from my key position in Detroit.
But if they want my kingdom and my power, I swear I will make them fight very fucking hard for it.
This is my city. I own it and everything in it. I won’t let those arrogant assholes walk all over me in my own territory.
Josiah hasn’t even made any attempts to hide his animosity towards me.
Which is all the more reason for me to strike back and show him I am actually someone he should have respected from the start.
In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of soda. Leaning my back against the kitchen counter, I take a minute to quiet my thoughts. This morning has been a rush—one of those days that speeds by in a blur of too many people, too many meetings and too much information.
I drink half the glass, then top it up and pour Yaroslav a glass of cold water.
He’s still standing at the patio doors when I come back into the living room.
“This snow is getting so thick, it’s like a blanket of white that blocks out everything else. Nothing but white,” he remarks thoughtfully. I glance briefly at my garden, which is, in fact, just white, a foot deep in snow already.
I hand him the water.
“Oh, thank you,” he says, taking it.
I sit heavily down on the sofa.
“Right, so you’ve been investigating. How is it going?” I ask.
Yaroslav is a very skilled spy and private investigator who has worked with me for many years. He’s been working on a very specific plan with me lately, gathering the information I need to put it in motion.
“Yes, you wanted to know which member of the Belov family was most vulnerable,” he says, sitting down in the chair opposite me.
“Yes, I want the perfect target,” I agree enthusiastically. "Whoever can be reached the easiest will be the one I take. His sister. His brother. His wife. I don’t care who it is; I want someone close to Josiah Belov. I want someone in his inner circle. Someone it would break him to lose.”
“That’s the problem, sir, no one is easy to get to,” Yaroslav shrugs apologetically.
“Oh, come on. Doesn’t the sister go to Pilates or yoga or some shit? Surely her guards don’t follow hereverywhere?”
“But they do. They literally do,” he argues.
“Fuck, okay, well, I can’t just accept that as a dead end. There still has to be—”
“There is the other girl,” Yaroslav interrupts.
“What girl?”
“The wife’s best friend. Her name is Izabel. She recently moved here, relocated from California, but she is originally from Milwaukee. She is at their home all the time. They treat her like family, so it’s obvious she means a lot to them. If you take her, you will break the wife, and if you break the wife, you will break the husband.”
