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Power isn’t barking orders and raising guns. It’s not declaring wars and commanding hits in a show of masculinity.
True power simmers underneath, hushed in low tones and feared in public.
That’s what I’ve become. The one whose shadow everyone feels, even when I’m not present, whether in the brotherhood or outside of it.
They might not like me—and many don’t—but they fear me. Due to my systems, they don’t know whether I have footage of them in compromising positions. At an unauthorized meeting with a cartel boss in South America. On a yacht sailing in the Mediterranean Sea that they embezzled from their organization. At the mayor’s house, fucking him and his wife when they should’ve been merely keeping an eye on them.
It’s easy to watch everyone from the confines of my home. The system I spent a long time building works seamlessly, without me having to interject in its course anymore.
Once my enemies—and so-called brothers—know I’m powerful enough to crush them, they don’t dare cross me. Some of them still try to wipe me away now and again, but thanks to my system, the hackers, and Kolya, they fail.
They got close once. Onlyonce. And I’ll figure out the reason my system failed in that instance if it’s the last thing I do.
Due to my invisible role in the brotherhood, I don’t particularly need to attend the meetings. Something that the other members of the elite group keep reproaching me about. But the previousPakhan, Nikolai, and the current one, his brother, Sergei, have always exempted me of the chore of being present. They’re smart enough to recognize that I’m better off putting my system into use and bringing them results.
Or, at least, I thought Sergei did.
While he’s been acceptant of my way of doing things, his recent suspicions of me are troublesome. Now, I have to prove my loyalty all over again, but I can’t be obvious about it, because that will raise his alarms even more.
We’re at his mansion that’s situated on the outskirts of Brooklyn. This house has been used as the brotherhood’s compound in New York for decades. When my father brought me here as a kid, I thought it was a monster, but way less monstrous than our own house.
I sit on Sergei’s right at the meeting table, cradling a glass of cognac I haven’t been drinking from. ThePakhanis in his sixties and has been hiding his cancer from the brotherhood. I’d already figured it out soon after he did.
Yes, I even have spies on my ownPakhan. People overflow with secrets and it’s those secrets that keep me one step ahead of them. The men here use guns as their weapons. Mine is information. It’s deadlier, faster, and more efficient.
The reason I haven’t brought Sergei down using his weakness—the cancer—is because that will cause a power shift. While I don’t give a fuck about instigating chaos, I’m not in the mood to deal with it at a time like this.
Only the higher-ups in the brotherhood are allowed to attend breakfast at thePakhan’s house. Out of respect, the number of guards present is limited to our senior soldiers. Kolya stands behind me as sure and as strong as a mountain. Yan remains outside.
The other four kings occupy the rest of the seats. Igor and Mikhail are from Sergei’s time, so they’re ancient and would rather speak Russian than English. The other two, Kirill and Damien, have lived in America long enough to speak in barely accented English.
I’m in the middle. A Russian bastard of sorts.
Two other members join us. The first is Rai, Sergei’s grandniece, the previousPakhan’s granddaughter, and the only woman who has enough balls to barge into a brotherhood meeting.
She’s now a regular, even though she’s three months pregnant. Her belly is starting to show, but that doesn’t deter her from coming in here like she has every right to.
She doesn’t. And if she were any other woman, she would’ve been banished, but her relation to the previous and the currentPakhankeep most of the men here from effectively kicking her out.
It might also have to do with her husband, who’s sitting by her side. He’s a hitman—a sniper, at that—and everyone knows not to provoke him, especially when it comes to her.
The reason I want to shoot her between the eyes isn’t due to her being a woman, or because she’s been actively trying to eliminate my spies from V Corp, the brotherhood’s legitimate front in which she’s the executive director. It’s because she meddled in something she shouldn’t have.
She’s the reason I lost Lia, and I won’t stop until I know why.
As Sergei talks about our recent clash with the Irish and a possible truce with their new younger leader, I keep staring at the empty chair on his left. Vladimir’s.
He doesn’t miss meetings. I do. So his absence not only confirms Kirill’s words, but it also means that Vladimir is going above and beyond for this.
“What do you think, Adrian?” Sergei asks me.
“The Irish won’t accept an alliance this soon after our recent dispute. We killed many of their men and that doesn’t go away by a mere change of leadership. We should give them time,” I say, as if I’ve been listening to everything they’ve been talking about. I excel in the art of deception. I have since I was a kid.
My parents made sure of it.
After a nod from Sergei, the meeting goes on about some strategies that I let filter past me. I’m waiting for a chance to ask about Vladimir without being obvious about it.
While my system is efficient, Vladimir knows about it and, therefore, he’s able to evade it. Not entirely, but even that small gap is enough to distort my course of action. I can’t make any decisions before I know what he’s up to. Otherwise, they’d be ineffective stabs in the dark that could—and would—backfire against me.
