Chapter 47: Chapter 47

The Pakhan made his appearance and left, having been charmed by the lovely Charleigh, their conflict of the week before if not forgotten, then swept under the rug for the evening. He was jovial and even allowed our girl to fawn over him a bit, not that any man could resist her. But she’s learning, and she knows he’s important in our world, even if they don’t always see eye to eye.

It's one a.m., and while some of our guests have hit the road, the real night owls are still arriving, like a shift change or something. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last, to be honest, because I was up very early with work involving the attack on Dimitri’s properties. Now that they are demolished, we are in a delicate phase for a few days where, until we get him, we’re vulnerable to all sorts of attacks. But that’s okay. Our security is beefed up nicely and I’m confident all will be fine.

Until it’s not.

Just a few minutes past two a.m., there is a rat-a-tat-tat out in front of our building. While the noise is not loud, almost like a small firecracker, my instincts fire on all cylinders and I run to check our security camera footage.

Fuck all.

I race downstairs with my brothers in time to see a car full of bullet holes roll to a complete stop and come to rest against a stop sign. A quick inventory of the situation shows that in front of the club, we have some members down, and that our ace security team has riddled the attacker’s car with bullets, taking out all its occupants.

Mother fuckers.

Charleigh dashes outside and screams when she sees the bodies and puddles of blood on our front steps.

“You,” I holler at one of the security guys, “take Miss Gates to the compound now. Make sure she gets to her room. Charleigh, call me when you’re there and check on your sister.”

Charleigh hesitates for a moment, then runs as best she can in her heels to catch up with the bodyguard, who loads her into the back seat of one of our SUVs and screeches out of the lot.

I look at my brothers.

“The fucker,” Kir says. “It’s almost like he was ready for us.”

We look at each other in silence for a moment, and then Vadik speaks.

“Maybe he was ready for us. And if that’s the case, who helped him get ready?

**************

Niko

The dead guys in the sniper car had no ID or fingerprints, probably cheap hires whose expendable lives no one gives a shit about. The three of them are now loaded with lead, doubled over in the late-model BMW they were driving, which turns out to be stolen.

I call the Pakhan. “I’m sorry to wake you, sir. It’s Niko Alekseev. There was a hit on the club tonight. I thought you should know, especially since you were here earlier.”

This gets his attention.

Was someone trying to take him out? Or is this just a random message from a rival wanting to show he can fuck us up just as much as we can him?

Either way, no one gets away with this.

“Any casualties?” the Pakhan asks.

“Yes, sir. Three club members were hit on their way in. Our security guards got the shooters’ car. All of them are deceased.”

He’s silent, then takes a deep breath. “Okay. Get rid of all the bodies. I will ask around, and you do the same. Let me know what you find out.”

“Will do, sir.”

I return to my brothers who are overseeing the cleanup. “Anyone in the club know this is going on?”

Vadik shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Which means we need to get this cleaned up and get back in there and act like everything is fine. What did the Pakhan say?” he asks.

I shrug. “Not much. You know he’s not a man of many words. But I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more from him. This hit a little too close for comfort, given that he was actually here tonight.”

“Any ID on the car?” Kir asks.

I run my fingers through my hair. The truth is, I really just want to go home and get to bed. But duty calls. “Not a thing. Dimitri was smart enough to remove every last bit of identifying information, even from the men. There’s not a complete fingertip among the three of them.”

I don’t know what Dimitri is thinking. I really don’t. Each one of these hits puts him closer and closer to his grave. He can’t possibly think we won’t know it’s him. And yet he keeps striking, even when we’ve destroyed both his supply chain and his inventory and warehouses. The man is essentially out of business now.

That could be why he’s fighting like he has nothing to lose. There’s really not much left for the man. Which means he will only get more and more reckless. More and more dangerous.

It’s never been more imperative that we find him once and for all. Get this shit over and done so we can move on with our lives.

* * *

Next day, I get a frantic call from Evie. She’s never called me before.

“What going on, honey? Everything all right?” I ask.

She’s hyperventilating. “I… I was up front at the guard’s shack just talking, and I saw something. I saw something awful, Niko.”

Leave it to the kid to make friends with the security team. I make a mental note to talk to them about not falling for her teenage charms. She may be cute, but she’s not someone they ought to get close to.

“Evie, are you back in the house now?” I ask.

First things first.

“Yeah. The guards brought me back. I think they are out front checking it out. But I wanted to call you.”

“Okay. Okay, good. Where is your sister, Evie?”

“Um, she’s in the shower. I haven’t told her yet.”

“Okay. Now tell me what you saw,” I say.

Her breath is still coming hard. I hope like hell she says she saw a dead squirrel or something.

“Well, I… think it was a hand. It was kind of hard to tell. It was so messed up and bloody.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

I have a feeling I know what she saw.

“Okay, look Evie. I’ll call the security guards. But do me a favor and stay in the house until we get home, okay?” I ask.

“Y… yeah. Okay, Niko.”

“All right, sweetie. Bye.”

I find my brothers. “Guys. We have a situation. Another goddamn situation.”

I fill my brothers in.

“Do you think it’s our guy? The one we sent after Arseny, in the hospital?”

I nod. “I’m pretty sure. What we know is that the operation was bungled. Not only did they not get through to Arseny, but they gave chase and I guess the guy whose body parts are in front of our house is the one who didn’t manage to get away.”

Vadik drops his face into his hands. “Good God. We go to take out the asshole Charleigh shot in the hold up and we couldn’t even get close to the punk? Guys, are our people falling down on the job or what?”

I hate to admit it, I mean really, really hate to goddamn admit it, but Dimitri may be turning out to be a bigger foe than we ever gave him credit for. I’m surprised. But I’ve also always loved a challenge.

“Does Charleigh know yet?” Kir asks.

“Evie told me she’s in the shower. But I’m sure she’ll tell her when she gets out.”

Shit. We didn’t want Charleigh to know about this latest strike. Not that she has any say, but she’s not going to like our going after Arseny. She doesn’t understand our world, and certainly doesn’t understand why we’d go after someone she’s already shot when Dimitri is the person we want.

I look at my phone, which I know will ring momentarily. She’s going to have questions. I’ll be honest with her. I always am. She’s not going to like what she hears.

As long as she’s part of our world, she’s going to witness—both see and hear—a lot of things she doesn’t like.