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When my father turned back to his men, I smirked at him and Erik let out a long breath, holding up his hands to mime silent applause.
That’s right. I’m a fucking badass Bratva brat.
* * *
Mauro
“I’m going to tear apart whoever did this with my bare fucking hands,” I snarled into the phone. “So, fucking find them already.”
With that, I ended the call and slammed down the phone. For a second, I was tempted to overturn my desk, but instead, I ripped open a drawer and rifled through until I found a half-empty box of Treasure Luxury Black cigarettes. I needed the smell of expensive smoke to try and calm the hell down. I couldn’t waste any more time not thinking of how to retaliate.
Lighting a cigarette, I inhaled and exhaled deeply, wondering how the fuck someone had managed to pull a major grab like that. In mere hours, too—right after we had spent months meticulously figuring out a way to hit the Fedulov bank accounts hard.
This is bad,hissed a nasty voice in the back of my head.You’re not up to running the Family.
I let out a snarl of frustration and slammed my fist into my desk. I was more than up to running the damn family, and I hadn’t given the old, crusty assholes of my father’s generation an inch in real life, so they had no place in my head.
But if a Fedulov soldier or captain or whoever had done this once to us… He could hit us again. And a hell of a lot harder.
Where the hell had old Viktor found such a capable hacker? I thought I had dossiers on everyone in his organization from his smirking, preening dog Erik Dernov to his loyal muscle, Yegor Morchak.
I need to get rid of them as soon as possible. Or no…I rubbed my forehead. I needed to find them and get my fucking money back, then teach them a lesson, and send them back to the Fedulov Bratva in a body bag.
A knock came at my door. I was about to snarl at the person to leave me alone when Raffaele burst in, firing off rapid Italian at Claudio, who guarded the door. Raising an eyebrow, I nodded at Claudio, who shrugged and sighed, then shut the door.
“More bad news?” I drawled.
“I figured it out,” Raffaele said. His eyes were wild, his jaw scruffy and his clothes rumpled.
“Really? I just talked to Matteo, and he said you guys were no closer to figuring it out the last time I checked in.” I moved over to the table where I kept an espresso machine, although I thought the last thing Raf needed was caffeine. “Have you slept? Or eaten?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Raffaele said and gestured with his hand. “It took me—I mean…” He trailed off and stared at the wall. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense. There’s no one else.”
“Raf, you’re rambling.”
“Sorry,” Raffaele said and shook himself, snapping back into the moment. His intense focus found me, and I stopped making him an espresso as his face twisted into a strange smile. “It’s the little Fedulova.” I didn’t react so he pressed on. “Elena. Viktor’sdaughter.”
“Che cosa…?” I startled and stared at my cousin. “Christ, you’ve lost it.”
Raffaele held up his hands. “I assure you, I’m sober and sane.” He raised his eyebrows, and I gave a curt nod, leaning against the table with my arms folded. He started pacing, speaking as rapidly as his expensive leather shoes movedon the marble floor. “At first, I thought it was a ghost. Or that Fedulov must’ve had Moscow hackers in his back pocket. But, thanks to your dossiers, I knew that Viktor has been on uneasy ground with the Motherland for years because of his wife…”
“Raffaele, please,” I said and pinched the bridge of my nose. He loved a sweeping saga,mio cugino.
“Ah, patience, you’ll see why this is all relevant in a moment. The last trace that we could find was from Moscow. Cleverly done, too. There was no indication that this could’ve come from America. Yet, it was too polished.”
“So, let me get this straight,” I said slowly. “You can’t actually find anyone.” My cousin nodded. “But that’s not Moscow’s style…” I trailed off as the pieces fell into place. “Holy shit.”
“Now you see. This was deft, clever, and fuck it,genius.” Raffaele smirked. “The kind of genius that doesn’t rot in Russian. She graduated from the Ivy League, say, Stanford?”
My heart beat down to my fingertips as I thought back to what I’d seen of what our little thief had done. How absolutely cunning and ruthless they’d been, but as Raffaele said,polished. It couldn’t have been some Bratva hacker lurking in a basement in Chicago or even across the Pacific.
It was a clever daughter, coming out of nowhere to help her father’s business. If I wasn’t so pissed off, I’d be impressed at Viktor keeping an ace in his pocket like that. Not in a million years would I have seen that coming.
“What do we know about Elena Fedulova?”
Raffaele lifted a shoulder. “Not much. They do a good job protecting her…” He tilted his head as my eyebrows raised. “See, there’s a dozen competing stories about Elena. Some say that she’s in Russia with her mother. Others say that she’s like all the other Mafia daughters, dripping in pearls and diamonds on an oligarch’s yacht off Mallorca. And then there’s plenty who swear that she doesn’t even exist.”
I frowned.Shit, I don’t have time go chasing this little Russian princess down.“Is she overseas? Or what—in California?”
