AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Something clicks in my brain. But Deimos beats me to it.
“That’s Serj’s parking garage.”
Dimitra grins. “It is… At the moment, yes.”
I frown. “Why is a parking garage of interest to us as it pertains to this deal? I mean, it’s New York, I get that parking is easy passive income. But—”
“It’s of interest,” Dimitra smiles, “because in nine months the city is going to approve rezoning that whole block for mixed-use housing and retail.”
The room goes silent.
Holyshit, that’s huge. Serj’s parking garage—a dismal, brutalist thing from the eighties—takes up almost two thirds of the block.
Ares grins. “Tell them the best part, Ya-ya.”
She shrugs, a smug grin on her face. “The rezoning discussion is under a strict gag order. All closed-door meetings, all participants buttoned up with NDAs. Not a soul knows it’s happening. Not even Serj Mirzoyan.”
The eyebrows of everyone around the table begin to raise as the implications of all this settle in.
“Actually, thebestpart,” Ares growls hungrily, “is that given comparable properties in the area, we’re looking at a potential two-billion-dollar profit from this.”
“Fuck. Me,” Callie breathes.
My own lips curl into a smile. “And Serj really doesn’t know?”
Ya-ya shakes her head. “No. None of the property owners will find out about it for another six months, to avoid a price war or any issues with landlords trying to push out existing tenants on the adjacent properties.”
Ares’ brow furrows. “There’s something else, though. Up until two weeks ago, Serj was extremely keen on our deal happening. Since then, he seems to have cooled a little. My guess was that he was courting another offer, and it seems I was right.”
He pulls an envelope from of his jacket and slips out a number of black and white photos, which he tosses across the table for all of us to see.
Shit.
“That, obviously, is Serj Mirzoyan meeting with Gavan Tsarenko.”
I scowl at the pictures of the older, graying, greasy-haired Serj shaking hands outside of the Russian Tea Room with the young, tall, dark-haired, heavily tattooed, and very handsome head of the Reznikov Bratva’s New York City operations.
He’s quite possibly one of the most powerful men in the entire city, despite only being something like twenty-four years old.
“Guess we know who Serj’s other interested buyer is,” Deimos mutters.
Ares nods. “Yeah. And knowing Gavan, there’s almost nowayhe doesn’t know about that rezoning, or he’d have even less interest in dealing with Serj than we do. The Russians and the Albanians had a turf dispute less than a year ago, and Serj’s men capped one of Gavan’s topavtoritets, whom I gather was also a close friend of his.”
“And now he and Serj are doing business…?” I scowl. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be happening unless Tsarenko knew for a fact he was screwing Serj over bigtime.”
“Exactly,” Ares sighs. “So we need to be smart. If we come on too strong, Serj will probably realize we know something he doesn’t, which’ll spook him. And even if that doesn’t happen, we can’t win a bidding war against the Russians. They’ve gotwaydeeper pockets than we do.”
He frowns as his eyes meet mine.
“You still go to that…” He clears his throat, shooting a quick glance Ya-ya’s way before turning back to me. “Thatclubof yours, yeah?”
I lift a non-committal shoulder. “At times?”
“Good. Clear your schedule for the night. I want to run something by you later.” I nod, and he presses a button on the table in front of him. “Jenna, can you send Ms. Guin and Mr. Black back in, please?”
* * *
Twenty minutes later,we’re wrapping up the last bits of legitimate business that Ares needs the lawyers for. Then, everyone’s standing and filing out solo or in pairs. It’s not until I nod goodbye to Callie that I realize that the only two people left in the room besides me are Elsa and Alistair.
