Chapter 20
The meet was being held in the Sirens VIP rooms. I dressed for business and gave Vincent one of my old college suits. It was too small for me nowadays, but it hung loose across Vincent’s narrow shoulders.
By the time we drove in, it was close to ten p.m. Two dark-tinted town cars were in the guest lot, the engines still ticking. Petro was guarding the staff entry, lounging against the doorjamb with his radio piece loose and his arms crossed over his chest. He waggled his eyebrows at me as we came up on him, shoulder to shoulder. “That your new boyfriend? I was wondering why we were a man short tonight.”
“I wasn’t aware that any other men worked here.” I walked past him without waiting for his reply.
“Ouch.” Vincent chuckled when we were clear of the door. “That sounded like it felt good.”
I led Vincent through the front of the club, up the stairs to the salon entrances. The suites were not usually manned by guards, but tonight, two unfamiliar men flanked the polished oak doors in identical Italian suits. They weren’t even bothering to conceaclass="underline" both of them packed machine guns on shoulder straps, resting their elbows on the stocks with the nonchalance of old soldiers.
Vincent and I followed Sergei’s distinctive rolling laughter down to one of the salons, which also had a guard posted. He was a square-jawed man with the round head and swarthy cast of someone from the Balkans, and he opened the door to let us inside.
Lev looked up when we stepped in, and rose abruptly with an expression of plain relief when he saw Vincent, his glass of whiskey in hand—but it was Sergei who commanded Vincent’s immediate attention. Sergei Vladimirovich Yaroshenko didn’t look a day older than fifty. By all rights he was pushing seventy, but he was still a monster of a man, towering over the room from a black leather love seat like a red-haired, blue-eyed king. He was swathed in a Cossack-style fur wrap over a red suit, apparently immune to the lingering summer heat. His gaze bore down on me, and I lost track of everyone else as Sergei half-rose from his seat in greeting, his face a mask of carefully controlled delight.
“Well, look at you!” he boomed. “Alexi, you’re not an inch taller than you were ten years ago, but I dare say you’re looking well.”
A man could choke to death on Sergei’s charisma. Here was the man who had started me on my path: who had put me through school, through college, had supported me until I found my feet. My mouth stretched in an awkward smile as I went to shake his hand. “Pakhun. It is good to see you again.”
Sergei engulfed my gloved fingers with his callused, tattooed paws, shaking with one hand clasped on my wrist. I let him pull me in to kiss cheeks, and then he waved me to the seat beside him: the one on Lev’s left. The empty chair on his right was usually reserved for Vassily. “Excellent, yes. You’ve done us good work tonight, Alexi Grigoriovich. I think you deserve a drink. Go get this man a double shot of Kors, eh?”
“Of course.” I didn’t drink, but refusing a drink from Sergei was tantamount to throwing it in his face.
From the side of the room, one of the salon waitresses moved over to the bar as the tender poured, and Sergei turned his attention to Vincent… but while they sorted out their niceties, my attention was drawn past him to the drapes which framed the private pole and stage. Sergei’s ever-present shadow was never far away from his side: Vera Akhatova, the only woman in the Organizatsiya who was neither call girl or family member. She was a lean silhouette from where I stood, half-hidden by the glare of the studio lights that framed the settee. Sergei was eccentric; Vera was eerie. Some said she and Nicolai were brother and sister, and that was how she had gotten into the business. I didn’t believe it. While there was a certain similarity between their hard, thin faces and dry wiry builds, Vera was the dark to Nic’s pale. She was sinewy and strong, with taut, freckled arms, a short bob of dry brown hair, and dead chocolate brown eyes. I’d heard a lot of gossip about her over the years. Most of the younger men wondered what she was about, if not a girlfriend, sister, or whore, but I never doubted. I had seen her shoot, only once, when one of the old-old crew from my father’s day got up at a meeting and pulled a knife at the table. Sergei had motioned by his leg, and Vera had drawn her pistols and put two bullets in the guy’s head, one in each eye.
The door opened again, and Nic stepped through, his hands deep in the pockets of his old BDUs. He grimaced lopsidedly when he saw Sergei and Vincent together and went over to shake his hand and kiss cheeks with our Pakhun, a ritual repeated with Lev, and finally, with me. I wondered if his hand was a little tighter than normal, if the gesture was more perfunctory. I stopped wondering when Nic casually dropped down into the chair I knew was reserved for Vassily, absent but accounted for. It chilled something in me, deep inside.
“So, now we only await the illustrious presence of Vanya, seeing as our youngest Lovenko is incapacitated,” Sergei said in Russian, resting his hands on his thighs. When he next spoke, it was in thickly accented, but perfectly fluent English. “And you, Vincent Manelli. Our million-dollar baby. I trust your time in enemy hands wasn’t too hard?”
“It sucked enormous fat donkey balls.” Vincent blinked rapidly as he accepted his drink and threw back half the glass. “Absolutely sucked. Your guy here got me out in one piece, though. I uh… I lost track of Yuri. Sorry.”
It was my turn next. I took the glass of Kors and sniffed. At twenty-four grand a bottle, it should have smelled like something other than vodka, but no. It was still just vodka.
“It is the reality of war that soldiers are killed in the line of duty.” Sergei fixed his gaze on him, and under it, Vincent seemed all the smaller. “His memorial is tomorrow. One of three. Two more men have died as of this evening. Our own Maximillian, and Mr. Laguetta’s Captain, John Scappeli. They both met their ends at the hands of unknown hitmen.”
I said nothing. Vincent made a spitting sound of frustration and a silent solo toast to their names.
“Of course, we have no intention of giving in to your estranged relatives. Joint monopoly on the world’s most popular recreational substance—barring alcohol—is nothing to trifle with.” Sergei grinned. It should have been friendly, but Sergei was never friendly: not really. His smile was the rictus of a predatory animal, broad and toothy as a shark’s. “And history is built on a foundation of corpses, as they say.”
“Yeah. They sure do say that.” Vincent sipped his whiskey and tried to smile back.
The door opened again, and this time, it was Vanya. He looked unwell, pale and pasty and tired. The week’s events had been hard on him, poor thing. I eased back, as much as I was able to, and as Lev lifted his glass, I joined him and had a mouthful of vodka. It was like drinking a ghost: a searing cold heat that burned down to my gut, nearly tasteless and vaguely sweet. A thousand U.S. dollars, down the hatch. If I managed the rest carefully, I could avoid having to accept another glass.
“Well, this is lovely,” Sergei said. “Back together again, just the five of us. If only we could have Grisha and Syoma, Semyon and Rodion back again, eh? And Mikhail, bless his loyal soul.”
That brought some uncomfortable glances to bear on me as the toast was made, and Vincent beamed innocently at one end of the table as he lifted his glass. He had no idea, and as far as I was concerned, no business knowing.
“It is good that you were able to make it here, Alexi,” Sergei said. “But Vassily? Now there is a problem. How is his leg?”
“To my knowledge, it is fine. Painful, but fine.” The muscles of my neck and shoulders wound taut. As one, the faces at the table had turned to look right at me.