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“Da,” I respond with my eyes still on the front of the warehouse. “I don’t know the name of the other son.”
“Semion,” Aksel answers. “He’s the younger brother, but from what I can tell, he’s the man running things in Chicago. The Stepanov men report to him, and I’ve heard no mention of Bruno being present at meetings.”
“Pampered prince,” I remark, twisting the trophy I have in my pocket for Bruno.
“The Stepanovs are making moves in Chicago lately,” Yuri adds. “They gained territory over the last year, running out some old crews. And… you won’t like this… but they’re courting an alliance with the Lane Family.”
“Fuck,” I grunt in frustration. “I thought the Lanes just ran on the east coast.”
Aksel nods his head apologetically. “They have ties here too, along with protection from the political machine running the city.”
“Probably why the Stepanovs are looking to ally with them in the first place,” I say.
An unmarked white bread truck turns down the street and pulls into the receiving door at the Stepanov warehouse. A worker rolls open the door, hooking it to a chain to keep it from falling.
“We’re live,” I say as I step out of the doorway and head towards the warehouse. Aksel and Yuri follow, slipping their hands in their pockets. I don’t know if anyone inside the warehouse is armed, but if they’re holding the weapons stolen from Vadim, launching an attack would be as easy as opening a crate and picking a gun.
When we’re a building away from the open door, Aksel gets on his phone to signal his soldiers. I hear the rumble of a truck engine follow us down the street as I turn inside the warehouse and look around. There’s no security guard visible, but I spot a few video cameras. I look directly at them. I want Boris Stepanov to see I’m inside. I want him to know without a doubt who is emptying the warehouse of the guns he stole from Vadim.
The warehouse floor is stacked with the familiar crates stamped with the Mikhailov seal. When I hear the door to an office on the upper floor open I flatten myself against the exterior wall, sliding myself across it to gain a line of sight against the men marching down the stairs.
An argument erupts outside and the noise drifts in through the busted windows: Yuri’s voice, followed by a silenced gunshot. I press further into the warehouse, hoping to keep the men’s attention on me, but part of me is hoping the attack on the exterior of the building went as planned. I know it does when I see the lights of the bread truck turn on as Yuri reverses it out of the driveway to clear the way. The truck Aksel arranged pulls inside.
I look around the floor and see the guards run towards the truck with guns pointed at the driver. I raise my arm into the air to signal Aksel, who is perched on a corner stairwell with a rifle. He fires a series of shots at the guards in the warehouse, hitting each man as they try to attack Yuri. When I see no more security guards coming down the stairs, I signal Aksel and Yuri again. They meet each other at the center of the warehouse floor as Aksel’s men steer the pallet truck to Vadim’s guns on the warehouse floor. Aksel’s men empty the contents of the truck they parked, rolling barrels down the ramp of the trailer to make room for Vadim’s possessions.
The heels of my shoes click up the metal staircase leading to the office. I see one person inside I proceed slowly, not sure if there are more hiding in the office. When I get to the other side of the door, I pause, take a few deep breaths and spin into the doorway with my gun drawn, ready to fire at anything I determine to be a threat.
“Don’t shoot me!” a young blonde woman inside the office pleads. Her arms are up and I see she’s not carrying. She has the look of terror on her that makes it obvious she’s not a criminal.
I turn from her and search the far reaches of the office to make sure there’s no one inside before I step in. “I won’t hurt you as long as you don’t give me a reason to,” I say as I holster my gun. “I need information,” I say as I walk to her side. “The faster you give me what I need, the faster we leave.”
The woman looks at the wall of windows overlooking the warehouse floor, watching Yuri and Aksel clear the floor of all of Vadim’s stolen weapons and roll barrels in the places where Vadim’s weapons stood, pulling the lids off. The smell of petrol drifts through the warehouse. I raise my arms as a signal to wait on tipping the barrels. This building will be a pile of rubble by the time we leave.
“I need an address,” I say to regain the woman’s attention. “Bruno Stepanov’s home address.”
The woman swallows hard and turns to me with pleading eyes.
“By tomorrow, you won’t have a boss to explain this to,” I say.
The woman brushes her hair over her shoulder and begins typing. I hang an arm over the windowsill as I watch stack after stack of Vadim’s possessions disappear off the warehouse floor, taking small comfort in getting the Bratva’s arsenal back.
When the woman passes me the information, I let her go. She leaps out of her chair and runs towards the door.
“Wait,” I yell to her.
She turns and stands rigidly. I pull her coat from a hanger by her desk and hand it to her.
“It’s cold outside,” I say.
She tears her coat from my hand and disappears through the doorway, racing down the stairs and out of the warehouse.
When I’m certain she’s gone, I raise my arm in the window and wave it downwards. Aksel’s men kick over the cans of petrol, sending it spilling across the empty floor of the Stepanov warehouse. Fire sparks from one corner of the warehouse and climbs the walls as a blanket of flames consume the rest of the floor.
It feels good, but I’m not through yet. Vadim’s weapons aren’t all I want from the Stepanovs.
* * *
Aksel and Yuriare transporting the contents of the warehouse to a storage facility until we can move it somewhere permanently. On the way, they dropped me off for a personal mission.
