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Did you kill my father, Sergei? Did you order a hit on your own brother?
If he’s out of the way and I’m the new boss, I can dictate how the family proceeds with healing the rift between the two powerful families. In other words, there’d be no need to marry Natasha.
I try not to focus on it, try not to want it so badly that it skews my perspective when I view the cold, hard evidence.
The proof must be iron clad to take out a boss for dishonorable conduct.
I go into the Deli and head to the back offices. One of them is constantly reserved for our use. While I wait for Stieg, I make a quick sweep of the place for wiretaps and listening devices. I find none but still switch on the noisy fan to provide enough background interference. His club would’ve have been a far more secure spot, but I’d promised Madison.
I stop to think about all the ways Madison is changing me and the ways I’ll change her. I refused to meet at Stieg’s club because I promised Mads, I’d never step foot in there again. I’ll adapt my ways to please her to the extent that I can. But there will be things I can’t change and she’ll have to learn to live with it.
I don’t think it will be as hard as she may think in the beginning. Mads has passed some of the hardest tests with flying colors. The fact that she’s still sleeping in my bed after learning about Natasha – that coupled with all the other things she has done for me, tells me everything that I need to know.
It’ll be a fight, but I’ll prevail because I’m fighting for our survival, for our future. In the end, that’s what she wants too even if she won’t admit it to herself.
One of the establishment’s owners sticks his head through the door, a balding man, wiry but with a pot belly. “Mr. Petrosky, can I get you anything? We have a great honey roasted turkey sandwich on wheat.”
“No, thanks, Sal, I’m good,” I reply.
He waves his hands in front of him. “Very good, sir. Oh, and I hear congratulations are in order as you’re getting married soon.”
I glare at him.
His eyes go round with fear. “I-I I’m sorry, Mr. Petrosky. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Just go, Sal.”
“Yes, sir.” He slips out the door.
I begin pacing and I’m just about to call Stieg when he walks through the door.
“Jesus, what took you so long?”
“The traffic on West Blvd was a freaking nightmare,” Stieg answers.
I gesture toward the chair across from the desk of the small office. “Alright, Stieg this had better be good.”
He pulls out a retro tape cassette player. He holds up a tiny cassette. “The feds have the original but we had them make a copy. They’d bugged one of the clubs owned by the Albanians.” He allows me to examine it before he sticks it into the player.
We hear thumping music in the background and then came the voices, two men discussing a job. One of them is unmistakably Sergei. The other voice sounds Albanian. They’re having a heated discussion concerning time, place,, and price.
I sit there and listen as Sergei described their daily route, him and my father’s, that is. They need to make it look like a robbery gone bad. You’ll need to shoot me too, in the thigh, so it won’t appear that you spared me.”
My jaw is clenched so tight I fear my teeth will snap under the pressure. “And the fucking D. A. held onto these tapes all this time? Why wasn’t this evidence used to arrest him for conspiracy to commit murder?”
“Some bullshit about the chain of custody making the evidence inadmissible in a court of law, not to mention the legality of the wiretap.”
“How the hell did you get these tapes?”
He shrugs modestly. “We did a little horse-trading with the Irish who have a guy on the inside. He’s the son of boss Tommy Dalton.”
I scowl. “How the fuck did he pass the feds background check?”
“It’s a bastard son even Tommy didn’t know about. About thirty years ago Anthony knocked up some waitress broad while travelling on business. The mother reached out to Tommy about eight years ago when she needed help putting her kid through law school. This is the first Anthony hears of the kid but sees the opportunity. So, he pays the kid’s tuition, and at the kid’s law school graduation, he surprises him by telling the kid he’s his father and that he’ll be working for him on the side unless he wants to kiss his fancy new law degree goodbye.”
I snort. “And he still went to work for the FBI with that hanging over his head?”
He laughs. “The kid must have brass balls on him, I’ll give ‘em that. The point is the prosecution screwed up and now we have the tapes.”
