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It doesn’t take long before the car pulls up. Niccolo pulls open the door for me, and I slide right in. Before he can move to the back, I lean out. “Meet us at the house,” I tell him sharply. And then I close the door in his face.
“Coffee shop,” I snap. “Round the corner.” There’s no way I’ll be able to listen to anything Dante says this morning without a bit of caffeine to chase the hangover away.
The driver nods, taking the first turn. By the time we finally reach the cafe, my head feels like it’s about to explode. I stumble out of the car, telling my driver to wait here before heading inside. The cafe is new, one of the many chains Sienna had funded to help bring in more passive income and wash the funds we made from transporting illegal goods. I had to admit, for a cover, their coffee is actually pretty good. So good, I come here every morning when I have the time.
I don’t bother with the line, heading straight to the front and ignoring the protests behind me. “Black coffee. One sugar. Large.” I hand him my card before I even finish ordering, leaning against the counter.
My eyes scan the cafe automatically as I wait for the barista to swipe the piece of plastic. The usual people are here; businessmen in a hurry to get to work, college girls pretending to study while they take aesthetic photos of their laptops for social media, and mothers who just finished their silly fitness classes. I’m about to turn back to the counter when I notice two men who stand out from all the rest.
They’re in the back, seated at one of the booths away from the window. Both men are huge motherfuckers with ugly faces and an air of danger wrapped around them like cigar smoke. I recognize one of them, my hand curls into a fist, the other reaching for the gun beneath my jacket. The man catches my eye, shaking his head subtly as he catches my movement.
I glance around again, really looking this time.Fuck. How had I missed them? This fucking hangover…I’m not surprised one of the most well-known brigadiers of the Russian Bratva had managed to track me down. I’d been stupid coming here like clockwork nearly every day.
The brigadier motions for me to join them, patting the table as if we’re long-time friends. Taking my hot coffee, I forgo the lid just in case. They’re seated on one side, so I take the other, cautiously slipping into the seat.
“So glad you could join us today.” His accent is so damn thick that it sounds like he’s fresh off the boat.
“What do you want?” I growl. One hand stays on the coffee cup, letting the heat burn my fingers as the other stays within range of the gun beneath my jacket.
The brigadier leans his elbows against the tabletop, watching me over folded hands. It’s a casual stance to show me he’s not worried about what I might do to him. “You know who I am?”
Of course, I know who he is. Dante had me run names until I knew all the known links to every crime family in New York City for the past year. Grigoriy Lenkov is a piece of work. He’s twice my size with a face only his mother could love. He’s a big cheeky bastard with beady eyes and a large, hooked nose. He also had a rap sheet so long, I’m surprised he hasn’t been shipped back to the mother country yet. I guess he has the Pakhan to thank for that.
Grigoriy cracks his knuckles, smirking. “We have message for you.”
I check the imaginary watch on my wrist. “Can you hurry it up? I have places to be.”
Gigoriy’s face darkens. “You make jokes. But you von’t be soon.”
“What’s the message, bulldog?” I glower at him across the table, my fingers just itching to yank out my gun and put a bullet through his head. But there are too many innocents around and too many of his own men stationed at just the right places. It would be a blood bath. One I probably wouldn’t make it out of alive.
“End your pathetic alliance with Irish or lose everything.” His eyes never leave mine, his threat clear as fucking day.
I snort in derision. “Is that it? Because I really should be—”
Grigoriy’s man slaps his gun on the tabletop, covering it with a napkin. I freeze, anger coiling in my gut. I have the mind to toss the scalding hot coffee in his face to see what happens.
Grigoriy glances at the gun before his eyes lock on me again. “In case you didn’t get message good enough.”
“If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working,” I snarl. “We’ve faced worse than your ugly mug.”
“Sure.” He shrugs. “Snake was nasty business. But, it is not just you who will suffer. Your fiancée, very beautiful.”
As soon as he mentions Cara, my hackles go up. “Cara has nothing to do with this. She’s just a pawn.”
“Pawn, maybe. But Pakhan likes pawns.”
“She’s not a part of this,” I say again, gritting my teeth. I ignore the mental image of Cara with the Russians, something deadly spiking through me at the thought.
“She knows more than you think,” Grigoriy says, lip curling. He gives the table a smack before rising. His goon rises with him, tucking his gun back beneath his jacket. “Maybe you are pawn.”
He leaves, motioning for his men to follow him out. They draw a few stares, but this is New York. No one looks for very long. The bell above the door dings after them, echoing throughout the small cafe. I should have had Niccolo with me and maybe even one more man. I’d been careless. And it could have cost me big time.
I sit there as his words run through my head, coffee forgotten. The Russians clearly didn’t want this alliance with the Irish to work out. The ease of setting up the alliance itself had been a surprise to us, really. We hadn’t expected them to want to work out a deal while we were still rebuilding. Now that I really thought about it, it seemed suspicious that the Irish would want to cut a deal so quickly, considering we’d been enemies for so long. All the bad blood between us couldn’t just be fixed with a quick ‘I do.’
Just the thought of Cara playing me for a fool makes my blood boil. If the brigadier was right, there is more to this alliance than just a wedding and banding together against the Russians. The Irish had to be hiding something. There was no other explanation.
But would Cara know the truth? I knew she ran the books for a lot of her father’s breweries, but just how involved was she? Had she really been playing me this whole time?
