Page 141 of Vow Of Fire

It was a good thing, I told myself, even as the yearning ate me up inside. It was the way it had to be. The only way it could be. No point in dragging out the inevitable any longer.

“They’ve just arrived at Café Obsidian,” Izzy’s voice came over my computer. She wasn’t on camera, but she was connected to the call.

I frowned.

The place was an upscale Russian coffee house and private vodka lounge tucked beneath an old theater. Elegant on the surface. Illegal gambling and Bratva business downstairs.

“Closed to the public?” I asked.

“Looks like it. Security shutters are down,” she replied, her tone clipped. No hint of tiredness. Then again, she was a night owl, used to the late hours. “They’re going round the back.”

“Shit,” Marco muttered. That meant we couldn’t follow them inside.

“I’ll take up surveillance,” she said.

“You out of sight?” I asked, knowing that Izzy knew what she was doing.

“Did you really ask me that?”

If I wasn’t so cut up about Evelyn, I might have grinned.

A moment later she said, “Sergei’s just arrived in an armored vehicle. Looks like a freaking tank.”

Now that was funny. The Russian mobster was running scared. Then again, one of his top lieutenants had just been gunned down.

“Who else?” Valentina asked.

“Mikhail Orlov is with him. Dmitri Sokolov, Viktor Baranov, and Anatoly Chernov arrived in separate vehicles.”

“All the usual suspects,” Marco said dryly.

I drew in a breath. That was all of New York’s senior Bratva leadership. Chernov, my counterpart, ran enforcement. Sokolov handled Malakov’s shipping routes. Baranov controlled weapons procurement and private contractors. This wasn’t a conversation. This was war planning.

“What about Alexei?” Valentina asked.

“He came with Sergei,” Izzy replied.

Interesting.

Malakov was bringing the kid into the inner circle, even after he’d nearly gotten shot. Either to educate him… or toughen him up. I was betting on the latter.

“They’re angry,” Izzy continued. “Sergei was fuming.”

“They should be,” I muttered darkly.

“The cartel will do that to you,” Valentina said in a sing-song tone. I envied her calmness, but then she’d always been able to switch off her feelings. Or maybe she just didn’t have many to begin with. “Los Santos Rotos deserve everything they’re going to get.”

Marco grunted. “The Colombians are snorting too much of their own product if they think they can muscle into Marcelli and Bratva territory at the same time.”

“They underestimated how territorial New York is,” Valentina agreed calmly. “That arrogance will cost them.”

And we’d made sure to help things along.

I felt sick to my stomach, even though I’d barely eaten. The multiple bourbons I’d drunk didn’t help. Nothing did. Not with her gone.

Sergei and his men remained inside the club until nearly nine that morning. When they finally emerged and went their separate ways, Izzy reported that not a word passed between them. They didn’t need to speak. The tension in their faces and the grim set of their expressions said enough.

We didn’t know what was going down, but we knew it was bad.