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Thecarridetowhere my father had wanted to meet us was uneventful. Patrick drove, seeing as he had the address, and Daniel rode in the back seat staring out the window. He was a totally different person now than he had been moments before around Natalia. I wondered if the teenage dopey thing had just been an act, but I couldn’t be sure. Daniel had always, unfortunately, been somewhat of a mystery to me. Once I thought I had him figured out, he went and did something else.
Something that never changed, though, was the way the three of us went running to my father whenever he called for us. Even though we weren't part of his dealings with the Mafia, we were often dragged in. Before now, I never really minded it. I liked being useful to him. But tonight was different.
Tonight, I had Natalia at home waiting for me.
Patrick drove us to the docks where there was a very large ship waiting for us. I could see a few people standing in front of it—specifically, three guys in dark clothing, one of whom was huge. He stood head and shoulders over the rest, and I had a sneaking suspicion that this was Ivar, who had visited me in my office. I looked back at Daniel who was still staring out the window.
“Hey, you did pay the Russian guy back the money, right?” I asked, and Daniel gave me an annoyed look.
“You gave me the money, didn’t you? No, I just kept it and told the mammoth I needed a little time to get things together,” he said in a sarcastic tone. “What kind of a moron do you think I am?”
“Relax. I was just making sure. With everything going on in my life, I forgot to check up on your drama.”
Patrick pulled the car into a space behind an old shed and got out. Daniel and I followed suit, circling the vehicle to retrieve the guns stored in a lockbox in the truck. He had quite a few rifles piled on top of the lockbox in case he got pulled over. Patrick was a hunter, so these were all licensed and accounted for. What weren’t registered were the weapons underneath in the faux bottom of the trunk that he had had custom made. In there, I found the Beretta M9 that I usually used when I had to accompany him on trips like these. It was a military-grade pistol my father had gotten his hands on in one of his shipments, and if I wasn’t afraid to keep unregistered guns at my place because I was in the public eye and could be searched at any moment, I would claim that one as my own.
Daniel was flashier and chose an MP5K, a lightweight, automatic weapon. I think if he could have gotten his hands on a Tommy gun or an Uzi for the historical look it would give him, he would have, but he definitely leaned towards automatic gunfire. He felt that the spray of bullets was more intimidating than a single-shot pistol—which I preferred. I would definitely be more frightened by someone with a pistol who knew how to use it than someone with an automatic weapon.
Patrick actually grabbed a hunting rifle this time, which I found a little surprising because he never used them for anything but hunting. I gave him a look as he loaded the ammo for it, and he shrugged.
“My usual piece is at home. I had a misfire the other day, and I don’t trust it until I figure out what the problem is. The only guns that are left are all automatics, and you and I share the same opinion on those, little brother. I’ll take a precision shot over a spray any day,” he said, and I nodded. Patrick and I were a lot alike in many ways. He just happened to be nicer and more understanding than I was.
We walked over towards the three men, and suddenly, out of the shadows around us appeared my father along with Joe Lyones, whom I had met a couple of times. Joe usually handled the money for the bigger deals my father and Ray, Natalia’s father, made. My father had also brought along two other men I didn’t know. They must have been partners of his because they stuck to him like glue.
We all walked up together to the three men—unfortunately without any time to really talk about what was going on. Daniel, Patrick, and I hung back as the muscle for our side. That was usually what we were unless Dad needed a fellow businessman by his side. Then he called me in to negotiate.
I watched the deck of the boat, wondering if there were people up there with guns trained on us. It seemed very strange to me that there would be no one other than these three men. Even if one of them was the size of a giant, he could still be harmed by bullets. Or at least I was fairly certain that was true.
“Hello, friends! I see you have brought more company than I had expected,” the giant said in a heavy Russian accent, and I knew right away that I was correct. It was Ivar. “Have you come to an agreement on price?”
“Not yet, not yet,” my father said, playing his suave, cool guy face. He had many faces he wore, and he could slide in and out of them like a cat. It was one of the reasons why he was so good at what he did. He was a sweet talker and could also read people’s reactions and adjust accordingly on the fly. “We felt we needed to talk to you again, good sir, to make sure you were a part of the agreement.”
“That is not our job,” the man to the right of Ivar said. He was a much smaller guy than Ivar, but he had wiry muscles in his arms that I could see from where I stood. He was bald-headed and had a goatee as dark as his eyes. He wore simple clothing, a dark red T-shirt and a pair of jeans. There was certainly nothing intimidating about him. That is, if you overlooked the fact that he had no problem standing there without a gun in his hands.
I scanned our surroundings again. I didn’t like the fact that it seemed like they had no backup. Still, I saw nothing in the darkness, but that didn’t mean there was no one there.
“No, of course not,” my father responded to the bald guy. “I’m just saying that I feel like we should all be on the same page first. This is the start of a new and long-term friendship, is it not? Russians and Italians working together, what could be more exciting?”
“We are notworkingtogether,” the guy on Ivar’s left hissed. He was an older man with a severely crooked nose and a scar that crossed over his right eye, permanently shutting it, so it seemed. He was taller than the bald guy but stood hunched over a little bit as if his back was hurting him. I doubted it actually was. He was playing the old man card in case people started shooting. They would ignore him because they felt he wasn’t a threat. I doubted that very much. Usually, people who are that cunning are equally dangerous. “We are selling to you, and you are paying. Yes? If no, we will go. Is too late to talk. Make deal or no.”
“There’s no need to rush,” Ray said, stepping forward to stand beside my father. “We are just having a hard time understanding why it is you want so much. One million six hundred thousand is a lot of money, even for what you are bringing us. Why do you need so much?”
“For first shipment,” Ivar said, folding his huge arms over his chest. “I do not give package away for free.”
“And we don’t expect you to,” my father insisted. “We just can’t agree on so little an amount of product for such a huge price. Is there any way you can either sweeten the deal with more product or come down on the price? We want to work with you, we do,” He turned and nodded at Ray who nodded back. “But we feel that this price is way too inflated.”
“It is not inflated. It is fair price,” the bald-headed guy responded, his hands flexing as he spoke. "If you do not like the price, you do not need the product.” He was getting restless. I didn’t like his movement and motioned to Patrick to watch him. Slowly, I walked forward so that I was closer to the others.
“We do need the product. We just want to work on the price. I want it to be a long-term thing, you see,” my father continued, and the old guy was starting to shift now from one foot to the other. The only one standing completely still was Ivar, but that didn’t mean anything. He could move those muscles just as fast as the smaller guys could move theirs.
“If we can work something out now, then maybe we can—” Ray started to say, but the bald-headed guy leaped at him, a knife suddenly in the attacker’s hand. Lucky for Ray, I was ready for it. I ran at the Russian and body-checked him, pushing all my weight through my shoulder and into his side. It sent the guy flying moments before his knife could connect with Ray’s throat.
But the nimble Russian was back on his feet in seconds and coming after me now, knife still in hand. He managed to punch me in the eye with his free hand, which I hadn’t been paying attention to. Stars exploded in my vision, but I stayed standing, fists up to punch. I would have drawn my gun on him, but I felt that was too strong an action. I didn’t want to kill him, and I never drew a gun unless I was willing to kill. This was just a jumpy guy with anger issues. He might have tried to kill Ray, but he was going to have a broken rib for his effort. I felt it crunch when I connected. Besides, Patrick and Daniel had their guns trained on him the second he popped back up to attack me.
The problem was that I had been right about the backup on the boat. Eight sniper rifles had suddenly appeared along the deck, all trained on someone in our group.
This was getting out of hand, fast.
The thought of Natalia went through my mind. It started as an image of her as a four-year-old crying over her mother’s grave. Then it shifted to her now, crying over my grave—Casper standing next to her, unsure of what to do. He wasn’t crying because he barely knew me. Did that make the situation better or worse?
