Page 4 of Black Ledger

I wasn’t weak like my father. I didn’t have emotional outbursts or make decisions with my dick. Funny, now that he didn’t have one.

It was time to figure out why.

The lights were low in the conference room, setting a somber and domineering tone. All eyes were on me, waiting for me to start the meeting. I tapped my fingers on the table, letting the silence lengthen and grow stifling. “As you can see, my father no longer enjoys his favorite appendage.”

Roman snorted, but the rest of the room remained grim.

“I will not let this stand,” I continued. My focus shifted to the Morozovs, the Bratva’s intelligence arm. “Report.”

“No ransom notes, no demands, and no one is claiming it…” Ilya paused, and his gaze zeroed in on the severed penis in the middle of the table. He coughed. “No one has taken credit for the dismemberment either.”

Dimitri Morozov leaned back in his chair and squeezed his son’s shoulder. “It’s psychological warfare with the hope of destabilizing you. This is a challenge to the Volkov authority in New York.”

Dimitri was a matter-of-fact man when it came to business. He never sugarcoated anything and tended to speak in very direct sentences.

“It has to be those dirty Irish,” Leon Orlov spat out. He’d had a grudge against the Irish ever since an Irish mafia princess refused to marry him or fuck him. I wasn’t sure of the details, but what mattered was that Leon Orlov was a petty little bitch when he felt slighted.

“The Irish have nothing to gain from targeting us. They’ve been trying to broker an alliance with us for over fifteen years.” Dimitri Morozov sighed. His demeanor was that of a parent trying to explain something obvious to a toddler. He knew it was useless yet endeavored all the same. “Which, by the way, given the circumstances, it might be a good time to reopen negotiations with them. They want access to our trade routes, and we could use their protection and networks. Possibly a marriage alliance would do the trick.”

The glare I shot Dimitri could’ve melted metal. Everyone knew I’d never go through with a marriage alliance with anyone.

“The Irish don’t move like this.” I waved off Leon’s concern. They didn’t need to. The Irish had the best hacker in the world and incredibly loyal men. Their infrastructure wasn’t as extensive as the Russians’, but they made up for it in profit. They were useful, wealthy, and connected. They did not need to dismember my father. “As far as a marriage alliance goes, keep it on the table, but let’s move our attention to this situation.”

I left the idea open because I’d never wanted anyone to know the cards I held. Plus, an engagement could be useful, as long as I managed to get rid of the girl before the aisle.

I steepled my hands under my chin. “Is the kidnapping isolated?”

“Most likely not. Over the last five years, Aleksandr grew cagey, and so have half of the boyeviki. He’s been hiding things from us and making it nearly impossible to run intelligence.” Dimitri Morozov shrugged. “Which, in turn, made it hard to protect him and the organization. However, Malenkov, Kirovsky, Nikitin, Gromov, Zorin, Sokolov, and Karsin have all lost men in the last five years. Simply disappeared.”

“And many of my men from the docks, too,” Kazimir Kaloshin said, the newly appointed brigadier of logistics and supply chain.

“Fifteen men in the last year alone have vanished,” Nika cut in, pushing her glasses up her nose and opening the file in front of her. “Yet no one said a word or raised a concern. That’s strange, so the real question becomes: Are they kidnapped or just running?”

“Running from what?” I sat forward in my seat. “And why is this the first I am hearing of this?”

“Your father knew about the men,” Dimitri said.

“And?”

“He didn’t seem to want to do anything about it.”

“Why?”

“They didn’t matter to him…” Dimitri tapped his fingers on his vodka glass. “They were collateral damage in whatever secret dealings he was up to.”

“Did you do anything about it?”

“He mostly tied my hands. He was the Pakhan and my leader and you know more than anyone, the Pakhan’s word is law⁠—“

“But you’re you…” I raised an unbelieving eyebrow.

His smile sharpened, and he gave a slight nod. Message received. “I’ve been investigating the disappearances”—and everything else. His voice lowered, and he looked me in the eye—“and I’ve found bits and pieces, but someone is obscuring the evidence. Whether it is the kidnapper or someone working with your father. What I do know is the dates the men have gone missing and the information surrounding their abductions. All the same pattern. Taken without alarms sounding and all vanishing without a trace, as if they disappeared into thin air.”

“Or like a ghost took them.” Kaz raised his glass to his lips and took a slow sip as he glowered at me. We’d been rivals and frenemies since we were kids, and it seemed like Kaz would be his equally disrespectful self even now that I was Pakhan. “Same as what happened to your father.”

I shook my head. What the fuck were you hiding, father? He allowed men to vanish without a trace, without reports… it could only mean top-secret, shady dealings. And that was dangerous.

Because while the mafia was dangerous, there were far worse organizations in the world. Ones without codes and without any morals at all.