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I let out an abrupt laugh. “And you? What are you trying to do, Mikhail Yevgenievich? Pretend that you can fill some fucking gap that my father didn’t?” Was he really thinking that his do-gooder bullshit was going to work on me?
“No, of course not,” he snapped, turning to face me. “You need to make certain you understand where your priorities lie, nephew. The Bratva must come first.”
I was done with this conversation. Placing my glass on the table, I buttoned my jacket and tugged on the hem to straighten it.
“Don’t you dare think for one second I haven’t put this fucking Bratva first,” I seethed. “I spent ten years in New York away from home. Ten years in service of this Bratva. While you sat in my father’s shadows, leeching off him.”
“So don’t you worry, Uncle Misha.” Stepping forward, I patted my uncle’s chest. “I understand where my priorities lie. I only ask you if you know where yours are.”
His jaw tightened, and for a moment I thought he might say something clever in response. A shadow passed over his eyes, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. Finally, he bowed his head.
“Apologies, Aleksey Fyodorovich,” he said. “I spoke out of turn. I merely wanted to inform you that our allies here in Chicago wish to send you their regards and well wishes. They hope for a fruitful marriage in celebration of the peace that you have forged. And I was merely keeping this seat warm for you.”
His jaw tightened as he walked around to the other side of the desk, bowing one more time before he stepped out of the office.
“What do you want me to do?” Boris asked as he closed the door after Uncle Misha. “Do I need to call a cleaner to process his body soon?”
“No.” I shot him a look. “We won’t do anything about him right now. I want him alive so that I might know what the hell he’s planning behind my back.”
“Anything else?”
“Keep tabs on the rest of the brigadiers. I want to know who’s loyal to me and who’s loyal to my uncle. I don’t trust him, Borya. And I have no intention of joining my father.”
***
The rest of the day was spent looking over the various documents my father had left behind. The majority of our money was tied up in underground gambling and drugs. All of it was laundered through the law offices that my father had founded over the years. But the last ten years had seen us move into the weapons trade.
It was why I had been sent to New York in the first place.
The harder the NYPD tried to crack down on the illegal gun trade, the more it only resulted in an explosion of creative entrepreneurs. One of the craftiest was none other than Ludovico Tarallo, who had the genius idea of buying very legal weapons in states like Pennsylvania—cash, of course—filing off the serial numbers and reassembling them for sale to eager buyers across the five boroughs.
But the longer I stayed in New York, fighting what seemed like a pointless war, the less sense all of it made. The Korolev Bratva made more than enough money here in Chicago. We didn’t need to expand into New York. We had no reason to.
Father had insisted that I would know the reason when the time came. But now he was dead, and the only answers I might find were in these documents. I pored over them, each one making less and less sense. By the end of the day, I concluded that there was no way for me to easily uncover my father’s intent in a single afternoon.
***
Boris followed me into the elevator and hit the button to take us back to our waiting car. “How did you enjoy your first day as Pakhan?”
“It was exhausting,” I replied honestly. “I want to say all of this makes sense, but it just doesn’t. The more documents I see, the less sense it makes. I always thought that Father had a plan for this. But I’m starting to think that he didn’t.”
In frustration, I pulled out my cell phone and made sure that Elia hadn’t tried to contact me all day. When I had given her the cell phone this morning, I had hoped that she might use it. Sure, I had installed a tracker software on it after her attempt to escape before the wedding. But what man in my position wouldn’t?
This marriage wasn’t something either of us wanted. My job was to wed her, fuck her, and impregnate her.
That was all.
I didn’t give a shit otherwise what she did, and deep down, I didn’t think that Elia was one to run around on me like my mother did to my father.
We reached the car without incident, and Boris shut the door behind me. “Where to?”
“Home,” I growled. “I have a wife to go back to now, Borya. And it would be rude of me to keep her waiting.
My wife, I scoffed. It still didn’t seem real. I had someone waiting for me at home.
***
We drove on in silence, and I continued to turn over everything in my mind. Was Father preparing for a war here in Chicago when he sent me to destroy the Tarallo Mafia? But again, it made no sense. We could’ve done everything I was doing in New York here. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like I had been sent to New York so that I could be out of the way.
