Chapter 1

I glared at my second. Aleksei was a bit of a jokester and more often than not he had a smile on his face no matter the situation. It balanced my perpetual frown that was etched onto my face for years. Hell, I couldn’t remember the last time I smiled. Not even Aleksei’s greatest jokes would make me crack a smirk. An eyebrow raise but nothing would get me to smile; not anymore. For once though, he wasn’t smiling. We were in the middle of an arms deal with the Colombians. The last thing I wanted was to be interrupted. There were three other brothers they could contact that wouldn’t be finishing up a deal to handle something.

“Why are you telling me this and not contacting my brothers?”

Aleksei rubbed his palms against his pants. “Juri is in Russia right now, Kazmer is in Florida handling a different deal with the new port opening up, and Lev is arms deep in baby shit since the twins came home. It’s up to you, pakhan.”

My lip curled. Aleksei knew better than to call me that. I was not our Pakhan or Vor as my brother preferred. I was the youngest male in our family. Not to mention the only significant talent I brought to the table was reliability. ‘And loyalty’ echoed in my head that my father drilled into me.

Being unremarkable in the Bratva was  nearly death wish on its own. My two sisters, one younger and one older inherited our mothers looks. They had been married off years ago. Juri was currently our Vor, head of our family, after our father passed. Kazmer was his second, a master at numbers and with a photographic memory, he was an asset all on his own. Lev was the computer genius and hacker extraordinaire. Though, he had swapped out his computer for diapers since his 4th and 5th child were born a week ago.

My brothers and sisters were supportive of me but in the pitiful kind of way. They included me because they knew if I wasn’t, no one would give me a second glance. I’d proved myself over the years. Proved that I was reliable, a good soldier, a good brother, and I would do what was required of me to get the job done. That’s how I survived over these years. Having my own platoon of men under my command, only my Vor was higher in rank than I was in our Bratva.

“Marek?” Aleksei looked at me expectantly, holding out his phone.

“Watch them. I trust them as far as I could throw the boat they shipped the guns on.”

Aleksei laughed but nodded. Swiping the phone from his hand, I turned my back on the deal and walked a few paces away. Once I made it out of the warehouse, I took out a smoke and leaned against the black Escalade.

“Chto?” [What?] I growled into the line.

“Izvini, boss, but we didn’t know quite what to do.”

I let out a drag. “I don’t need your apologies, Laslo. I need to know why the fuck you are interrupting me while I am working?”

“Yes, boss. Sorry, boss.” I had to force myself not to roll my eyes. “We ran into a situation tonight. There was someone on our territory. Specifically near the strip club on the West side. We put them in the cellars but before they passed out, they were requesting…help.”

My eyes narrowed. “They specifically asked help from our guys? Or they were asking help from anyone on the street?”

He was silent for a moment. “They knew our boys, boss. They didn’t ask anyone else. Specifically, after they asked for help…” Laslo took a moment to finish his sentence. “…they asked to be killed.”

My eyes widened and my hand dropped a bit, the cigarette forgotten between my fingers. “Asked to be killed? How the fuck did they know to come to you?”

He hummed over the line. “I don’t know. But…the reason why we even took them was because the very last word before they passed out was Morozov.”

I stood up from my lean. Morozov was my mothers maiden name. Someone definitely had to know about our family if they knew her maiden name. My father kept that close at hand and made sure that after he changed her name to Baranov that all record of her before that disappeared. The Baranov Bravta was one of the largest and most feared throughout the mafia territories. We extended our reach all over the world, the biggest territories being here in New York and Moscow.

“Well, der’mo.” [Well, shit.] I pitched the bridge of my nose for a moment. “I’m two hours outside of the city. I need to finish up here before I head over though. Don’t touch them until I get there.”

“Yes, boss.”

I didn’t wait for anything else, I hung up on him. Walking back to the warehouse after I stamped out the cigarette, I eyed Aleksei speaking with Columbia’s second, Paulo. Though, unlike his name suggested, the man was not wise. He’d tried to double cross us multiple times over the years without his bosses approval. How the zasranets continued to still work for Ortiz Cartel, let alone still breathed, was beyond me. I’d kill Aleksei the first time it happened and the man was like a brother to me, cousin by blood.

“Ah! Marek! I was wondering where you scurried off to.” His thick accent made my name sound more like a slur than anything. Sometimes I preferred it coming from his mouth like that. The more he feared me and my brothers, the better.

“Business. You know, what you should be doing instead of standing around giggling like school girls.”

Paulo clicked his tongue a couple times. “All work no play makes Marek a dull pendejo.”

My fingers itched to grab the gun at my side and put a bullet between his eyes. At this point, I’d be doing Miguel a favor. Aleksei was behind him giving me the usual ‘you kill him and you do the cleaning up’ look that I hated so much.

“Let’s finish up here. You want to throw your cash into the ocean, that’s on you. We, however, have a business to run.”

It seemed that Paulo had enough sense to leave me the fuck alone and yell at his guys to hurry up. I followed after him, Aleksei at my heels, as I looked through some of the crates that were being unloaded. Everything looked good this time. I knew Miguel had specifically said he would take responsibility himself if anything went wrong. His daughter was already slated to marry Juri’s eldest son. He was only fifteen and she thirteen but once they got a little older, the match was guaranteed. It would solidify our tentative alliance.

One of the guys came up, whispered into Paulo’s ear, and he replied in quick Spanish. He turned to us and smiled wide.

“Well, gentleman. It seems everything is unloaded. Miguel did want you to take a look at one specific crate and see if you were interested in adding a little extra. We procured these and it wasn’t really on the planned manifest.”

My eyes narrowed. The last time someone said that to me, they opened up a shipping crate full of women they had drugged and trafficked internationally. That was one thing we put our foot down on; human trafficking. We didn’t stop anyone else from doing it, that was a black mark on their souls, but we sure as hell didn’t touch that side of the business. Paulo walked over to a smaller crate that was closer to where they had been unloading the guns. Flipping the lid open, Paulo stepped aside and motioned inside.

Looking down, I eyed the two rocket launchers that were nestled in the crate among the wood shavings. “How much ammunition?”

“Twelve. Six for each or however you want to even it out.”

Nodding, I leaned down to see the side of it. “Numbers?”

“None. Never had any to begin with.”

“What does Miguel want for them?”

Paulo smirked. “Ten thousand for the two of them”

I snorted and gave him an eyebrow. “You planning on skimming off the top of the profits, pendejo?” As much as he butchered my name with his accent, my thick Russian accent butchered his language.

He was quick enough to school his face. “I don’t know…”

“I’ll give you the five thousand Miguel already spoke to me about before getting here. It’s been added to the total and already wired. Add it with the rest of the crates. Pleasure doing business with you, Paulo.”

Turning, I walked away for the asshole and Aleksei followed right behind. I was glad I spoke to Miguel earlier. I probably would have paid the ten thousand for the ammo and the fact that they were unmarked. What I was unwilling to do was give Paulo that money. Motioning one of our guys over, I jerked my head back at the Columbian crew.

“Finish up here. I want every single Columbian out of here before anyone leaves. I need to handle some business in the city. Anything goes wrong, shoot them all.”

My men nodded and started barking orders in Russian and they all started to move closer to the crates and the guys to make sure everything got done. I got in the passenger seat of the Escalade and Aleksei got in the driver’s seat.

“Where to?”

“Goddess Divine.”

His eyebrows skyrocketed into his shaggy brown hair as his smile widened. “Are we celebrating?”

I looked at him and immediately he shut his mouth. “Work. Apparently, there is a stray asking for help.” 

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Trigger Warning:

This story is rated 18+. It contains descriptions of acts such as non-consensual sex, abuse, suicide, and other heavy negative emotional activity which some readers may find triggering. Please keep that in mind when moving forward with reading this story. Thank you! <3