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Then he was sitting up, tearing at the tubes and wires that monitored his vitals and delivered pain medication, throwing his legs over the side of the bed.
6
ROMAN
The men looked cautiously at him from across the dining room table in the loft, like he was an unpredictable animal who’d escaped from the zoo.
They weren’t entirely off base. Roman had been forced to sign a waiver when he’d left the hospital, one that stated he knew he was leaving against doctor’s orders, that the hospital wasn’t responsible for any further injury or illness that might arise from his early release.
Ruby had fought him. Max too. But there was no universe in which he was going to lay in the hospital watchingJeopardywhile Olivia was out there with Adam, possibly getting farther away by the minute.
But first, business.
“I know you’ve all been holding us down while I’ve been in the hospital, and I want you to know it won’t go unrecognized,” Roman said to the men. “You’ve been loyal in the worst of times. That loyalty will be rewarded.”
Not now. He barely had enough money to pay the men their normal cut, had been forced to contact his financial advisors to liquidate his personal investments to keep his operation afloat.
But eventually, when this was all over. When he’d destroyed what was left of his father’s standing, when he’d figured out what the actual fuck had happened at the Orlovs’ funeral, the men sitting around the table would be richly rewarded.
“I know you have questions,” he continued. “I do too. So let’s talk theories.”
“Russia, obviously.” Matt looked even bigger than usual next to Pavel, who still wore the scrawniness of youth.
“We need to know who’s behind it,” Roman said. “Who’s funding it. Who issued the order to bring us down at the funeral.”
The bratva’s connection to Russia was opaque. There were whispers about who was at the top, but there had never been any reason to dig deeper. As long as Igor didn’t draw attention to the organization and funneled their cut into the appropriate accounts, all was well.
The Spies were New York’s liaison with Russia. It was how all the cells worked — the governing body of the Spies standing between the pakhan and the powers-that-be in the motherland.
“I heard the Syndicate is partnering with them.” Pavel’s face shone with the fire of their cause, something Roman would need to temper. True believers were dangerous — to themselves and everyone else — and Pavel was young and eager to make his mark.
Vasily reached over to smack Pavel on the back of the head. “Gossip isn’t theory,” he said, his words thickly accented with his native Russian.
Pavel scowled and rubbed the back of his head. Roman would have chosen a different tack, but he didn’t bother reprimanding Vasily, who with Yury was one of the oldest members of their inner circle. They’d come up in a different era, and while Roman was eager to move the bratva into the twenty-first century, some things weren’t worth fighting.
Besides, Vasily was right. Pavel had potential, but he would have to learn to distinguish between gossip and chatter. The former was engaged in by bored soldiers passing time on the streets. The latter emanated from the halls of leadership and often held a kernel of truth.
“The Syndicate isn’t involved,” Roman said. The Italians were rivals of a sort, but they’d helped Lyon fight Russia for control of Chicago, and Damian had come through for Roman when he’d needed a safe place to take Ruby out while she’d been in hiding.
“My vote is for Khristo Vasnev,” Yruy said. “He always was an ambitious snake.”
“Too old,” Mat said, rubbing his jaw.
Vasily’s dark eyes flashed. “It would be a mistake to dismiss a man because of his age. Age brings wisdom.”
His scowl made it clear he’d taken Mat’s comment personally.
“And contacts,” Yury added. “Khristo wouldn’t need to put his own boots on the ground to launch a coup.”
Mat tipped his head, conceding the point. “What about Nikolai Sakharov?”
Roman stood, frustrated, and paced to the big window in the loft’s living room. From here, he had a perfect view of Manhattan, glinting in the spring sunshine like a steel and concrete Oz.
Mat could be right: Nikolai Sakharov might be behind the coup obviously underway in New York. The problem was, Yury was right too. It could just as easily be Khristo Vasnev.
In fact, it could be any number of former intelligence officers in Russia. Thanks to the country’s volatile and ever-changing government, it was awash in former leaders from the KGB, the SVR, the FSB, and any number of other agencies that had dissolved almost as quickly as they’d been formed, shape-shifting into yet another agency with another acronym, all of them renowned for their brutality.
Enemies of the government were routinely disappeared by the agencies — historically and currently. It didn’t matter if that “enemy” was a singer speaking out about civil rights or a political upstart looking to disrupt the corrupt status quo. They fell out of windows, were poisoned, imprisoned, and tortured for made-up crimes.
