Chapter 5

Shutting the door quietly behind me, it was about four in the morning when I got back to the estate. I had barely left the pit and missed the messages from my brothers. Juri already landed and apparently, they had already talked about the Italians. I didn’t know if Rosaria had provided the information to them. Or if they even bothered to ask. I’m sure they were more concerned with covering the border of our territory.

Quietly making my way up to my office, I poured myself a straight whiskey and barely sat down when my door slammed open. Kamilia was livid as she slammed the door shut behind her as well.

“What the fuck do you think you were doing? Just left, no information about where you had been or when you would be back. We’ve got the Italians up our ass and you decide to just fuck off.”

I took a sip of my drink as she seethed. “I’m sure Lev tracked my phone.”

“The fighting pits? Really Marek? You’re thirty-nine years old. Next year you’re going to be 40 and you think it’s okay just to go fight with the young bucks who do actually have something to prove?”

Snorting, I shook my head. “They sure didn’t have anything to prove last night. They were weak. I accidentally killed two but Julian and Rider made so much money off me I don’t think they minded.”

Shifting my weight, I pulled a roll of hundreds out of my pocket and tossed it on my desk. Kamilia didn’t even glance at it. She came around the desk and grabbed my hands. They were bleeding, bruised and I was pretty sure a couple knuckles were broken but it felt good to get everything out. Disappearing for a moment, she came out of the bathroom with the small first aid kit I kept in there. Her focus was on cleaning my knuckles as she stared down at my hands.

“Juri doesn’t know what to do with her. We kill her, we start a war. We send her out and get caught, we start a war. If she happens to get out without them knowing we were involved, she dies.”

I shrugged. “It’s what she wants. She wants to die. She just doesn’t want it to be at the hands of the Italians. I don’t really think she will have a choice in the matter if we want to avoid a war.”

Kamilia was quiet for a while as she worked. A couple of bandaids later, she switched hands. “You know she’s had three abortions.”

Swallowing hard, I looked at my sisters stern face.

“That family is fucked up. The girl is completely broken, her body is so battered I’m surprised she lived this long. Not just with this incident but any of them. Some of her scars…” She trailed off as she placed a bandaid on the back of my hand.

“Killing her seems almost like a mercy.”

My sister’s eyes met mine and I knew she agreed. She never would voice it. Her whole MO was saving people. Saving as many as possible and trying to keep the collateral damage down. Innocents shouldn’t be hurt and we needed to watch ourselves. What had been done to Rosaria was more than my sister could write off.

“There has to be something we can do.” She mumbled as she placed my hands back onto the desk. Looking up at me, her eyes were filled with water. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. Maybe when our father died fifteen years ago.

“Is there really nothing we can do?” She asked me this time.

“Let me speak with my brothers and we will see.”

She nodded quietly. Her voice would have been lost on Juri, Lev and Kazmer. Juri was the not just the spitting image of our father but cut from the same cloth. Stern but fair. Demanding of respect and the strength to back it up. Kazmer was steeped in facts. If there wasn’t a confirmation or benefit to what you were saying, it was dismissed.

I’d honestly been surprised when he brought home a woman, but she turned out to be a neuroscientist and they were of the same mind. Luckily, their kids didn’t seem to be so strait-laced but you could tell the influence of their parents in the way they spoke. Lev was the hacker. He didn’t care much for the world outside of the computer. Lev also ran the security side of our more legitimate businesses. Like me, he only really dipped into the bratva side of things when Juri asked him. Otherwise, he was focused on the businesses that were above water.

I, however, ended up being more compassionate than all three of my brothers combined. I’d been shafted a few times and it hardened me over the years but I still had a heart. Not something my brothers could say easily. There was still a good part of my father in me. Unblinking in the face of death or torture, but I had more of my mother than my brothers.

My younger sister and I seemed to take after her more. Bronya, though, was back in Moscow. She married one of our rival Russian Bratva and brought them under the fold of the Baranov Bratva. It turned out that she loved Vladimir. Our father couldn’t have let her marry the man if she didn’t, even if it was for our benefit. He had a soft spot for Bronya and her compassionate heart. Within me,  the compassion needed to be beaten out of me.

“Marek…”

I brushed my sisters cheek with my hand. “We will see. Juri won’t put the family at risk, you know that.”

She nodded and backed away from my desk. “Get some sleep. Doctors orders.”

Giving her a quick salute, I watched as she left my office. Getting up, I laid down on the couch that was against the wall of my office. Closing my eyes for a moment, I figured I’d get an hour of sleep before the whole house woke up at five.

-

“Marek!”

I jolted up from the couch, Juri yelling at me from my door. Blinking away the haze from sleep, I glanced at my watch. It was after six. Cursing, I swung my legs to the floor and rubbed my face a couple times.

“When the hell did you get in?”

I groaned. “Four.” It had been a while since I felt this old. My body ached, my muscles felt strained, and my hands hurt.

“What are you, twenty-one? What the hell? Lev said you were at the pits!”

Shrugging, I stood up and stretched. I sounded like a damn chip bag. All my joints and bones seemed to crack at the same time. Juri even was sneering at me but he managed to hold back telling me I was an old man.

“I needed to let off some steam. It was either that or start shooting people.” I cracked my neck twice. “And there were enough people grouped up to make it feel satisfying. Though…if I knew where Paulo was…” The thought thrilled me to wipe that asshat off the planet.

Juri clicked his tongue. “Jesus, Marek, what’s gotten into you?”

Shrugging, I walked back to my desk and looked at my phone. Seventeen emails, four text messages, eight phone calls, and a ton of notifications from the news channel I followed. Skimming it, I didn’t see anything major and I turned my attention back to Juri.

“What is the plan, Vor?”

He rolled his eyes, hating when I used his title. “We need to talk about the Italian zajchik.”

Bunny would not be the word I would describe Rosaria, but I didn’t correct my brother. He probably hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t looked her in the eye as she told him her worth was nothing. I had my own scars, but they weren’t nearly as bad. Yes, they were from my father, but I’d taken them because I believed in what I felt was right. He didn’t and I paid the price. A price I was always willing to pay. That was many many years ago now.

“Did you want to bring Lev and Kazmer in here or shall we meet in your office?”

“Mine. I want this official.”

Nodding, I slipped into the restroom quickly, spraying on both cologne and deodorant before washing my face and trying to look like I didn’t belong six feet under. Walking out, Juri already left and most likely was in his office. Closing my office door, I headed up the stair to the large office that was for the Vor. Lev was already in there, his head buried deep in a laptop and I’m sure it felt good since he had been elbows deep in baby shit for two weeks. His l’ubímaja, Sheena, had a c-section and was recovering from the surgery. Meaning he was on baby duty. Apparently, she was feeling better now and he could sneak away every now and again. She was the reason we had such good ties with the Irish.

I plopped down on the large lounge chair in the far corner. Leaning back, I rested my head on the back of the seat and closed my eyes.