“When we met, he was a complete nerd,” I said.
The sentence had barely left my mouth before a voice came from behind us.
“A nerd?”
Alessia and I turned.
Roman stood in the back doorway of the kitchen wearing muddy boots, a bunch of freshly pulled carrots in one hand and a shovel in the other. Soil clung to his forearms as if he had been arguing with the earth itself and won.
“Roman?” I laughed, looking him over. “Alessia said you weren’t here? Were you farming?”
Chapter Forty-one
Dmitri Konstantinov
Rodion didn’t call meetings todiscuss numbers. I knew that before I even sat down. The financial reports were strong, with every branch performing exactly as it should. And the discussion about art acquisition as a laundering vehicle, using high-value pieces to move Bratva money, was something Rodion could have handled without dragging us here. He didn’t travel for things that could be emailed. Rodion moved when the subject required him to look directly at your face as he delivered it.
I took the single sofa facing the outside, where I’d spent the last several minutes watching Inna and Alessia move through Roman’s farm outside. The entire situation still looked ridiculous to me. Roman came wearing mud on his boots and forearms, as if he didn’t belong at the head of organized crime operations.
Thirty minutes passed, and Rodion was still talking. I pulled my phone from my pocket and split my attention between the screen and whatever point Rodion kept circling towardwithout landing on. That was the thing about him. He never spoke without moving toward something beneath the words themselves.
I was in the middle of scrolling through photos of Inna sleeping on the plane, photos she didn’t know I took, when Rodion mentioned Russia. One of us needed to move there.
I looked up. “Russia,” I said. “When exactly did Russia become a problem?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he declared. “That country is our foundation. Smaller organizations are expanding within our territory, and if we don’t cement Konstantinov’s presence there ourselves, they’ll absorb everything this family built and erase our name.” His eyes moved between us. “We do not sit back and watch that happen.”
I leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. The irritating part was that he wasn’t wrong. Russia spent years running under carefully placed eyes and remote control, managed from a distance because distance made things convenient. But distance also created gaps, and gaps turned into opportunities for ambitious men who wanted more than permission allowed. Inna once said that a building could never remain stable if its foundation weren’t solid.
“You called this meeting already knowing who you want to send,” I said. “So say it.”
“I don’t care which of you goes. I’m here to discuss how the operation will run there, who needs to be removed, and what the priorities are.”
“You don’t arrive with a decision already made and expect us to rearrange our lives around it. I run an organization too. You know that,” I argued.
“We run Bratva the way I decide it runs.” Rodion’s voice carried that finality that shut doors before anyone reached them. “One of you will move to Russia. That part is not a discussion.”
I let a smirk settle across my face. “Well. You’re the boss. You could always go yourself.”
“We do not leave headquarters without leadership,” he declared.
“Exactly. DK Holdings in Florida is my headquarters, and I don’t leave it unattended.” I held his gaze. “And Grandma is in Florida. She can’t relocate at her age, and she won’t live under anyone else’s roof. You know that as well as I do.”
The room fell silent after that.
Grandma was the one thing nobody in this family used carelessly. The three of us knew she would rather burn an entire property to the ground than move somewhere she didn’t choose herself. And she stayed with me because that arrangement suited her and always had.
Rodion turned toward Roman.
Roman remained exactly where he was, looking like a man attending a meeting conducted in a language he didn’t care enough to learn. He met Rodion’s stare with that same detached patience of his. Roman only responded when he personally decided the conversation deserved it.
“You’ll move to Russia,” Rodion said as he tapped his phone. “I have forwarded a list of people to handle, structures to dismantle, and priorities to establish.”
Roman didn’t move onto the sofa immediately. He looked at Rodion for a long moment, exhaled, then stood up. “No.” He started toward the door. “Send someone else. I have things to do.”
Rodion moved fast, pulled his gun, and fired. The shot cracked through the office and hit the doorknob less than a second before Roman’s hand reached it. Metal burst apart across the floor while Rodion remained seated with the gun still raised, aimed directly at Roman’s back.
Well, this was becoming interesting.
