twilight outside. He turned to me. “Just to be clear, I
mean you going alone and this entire fucking peace
plan. Both of them.”
Usually, Rico will argue with me but know when to shut
up and follow orders. The fact he was fighting me so
hard on this spoke volumes.
“We’ve got to stop this thing,” I told him. “Or it’s going
to get worse and worse. People are going to die. A lot
of people.”
“We’re not beat!” snapped Rico. “Mikhail’s got all the
money from Vasiliy, sure, but we’ve got plenty of people
loyal to us.”
“It’s not about being beat,” I told him tiredly. “It’s about
being smart.”
Rico glared at me, arms crossed. I noticed he’d stopped
calling me boss. It wasn’t that he’d lost any of his
loyalty: his loyalty was the problem. He was trying to
protect me from myself. He was smart enough not to
say it, but we both knew he was thinking it: this is all
because of Irina.
And he was right. It was. But how did I explain to him
that she’d changed me for the better? How could I say
that she’d made me realize I’d become twisted, over the
years, and that being around her made me want to be
more like her. Not good, because I’d never be that. But
maybe I could go back to being honorable instead of
being driven by hate. I couldn’t figure out how to put
any of that into words. When Irina had called on the
way over, I’d let it go to voicemaiclass="underline" I knew if Rico heard
me talking to her, we’d get into a full-on shouting
match.
“At least let me come with you,” Rico said. “You don’t
seriously think Vasiliy and Mikhail will have come
alone?” he nodded through the windshield. “Those
buildings will be full of Russians. Full.”
The place we’d chosen for the meet was a construction
site, one of mafia boss Erico Fiorentini’s projects. When
he’d gone to jail, the whole thing had gotten bound up
in red tape and now it was just an empty block of dirt
and half-built buildings. With the dark sky and the
pounding rain, it looked like a city that had been built
and then bombed, girders reaching towards the slate
gray sky like dead men’s fingers and the streets nothing
more than thick, glutinous mud.
“We have to show them we’re serious,” I told Rico. The
real reason I wanted to go alone was, I didn’t want to
put anyone else at risk. This was my stupid gamble, not
his. And if it went wrong, I wanted to take all the heat
from The Saints.
I saw the headlights of a car approaching, picking its
way carefully along the single gravel road that led
through the site. “Now get out of here. I’ll call you when
they’ve gone.”
Rico let out a long sigh and nodded. I opened my door
and stepped out into hell. Freezing rain slammed into
my shoulders and scalp, like being under a fucking
power shower. I was soaked instantly and the rain
poured down my face—I had to keep blinking it out of
my eyes just to see. It was even worse than the day
when I first saw Irina. The day my whole life started
going wrong...and right.
I slammed my door. Rico turned the car around and
headed off along the road, his tail lights quickly fading
into the gloom. By now, the other car was closer, its
headlights lighting me up. There was a flash of lightning
overhead and then a boom of thunder so loud it
sounded like the sky was splitting apart.
The car came to a stop right in front of me, but no one
got out. I could see Vasiliy in the driver’s seat and that
prick Mikhail sprawled out in the back. He was on the
phone to someone and I saw him finish the call and
drop the phone into his pocket as he looked at me, a
smug grin on his face.
I pantomimed looking to my left and right and held my
arms up, indicating I was alone. Rico was right, of
course. The buildings around me would be full of
Russians. I’d just have to hope this went well.
Vasiliy nodded me towards the passenger door. Oh, of
course, they didn’t want to get wet, so the meeting
would happen in their car. That gave them about a
million advantages: I couldn’t see what weapons they
were carrying and they had the option of putting a gun
to my head and driving me off somewhere.
But I didn’t have a choice. Opening the door was almost
surreaclass="underline" standing in the pounding rain, looking in at the
calm, clean, dry interior with the bong bong bong of the
door chime sounding and my two enemies staring back
at me. What the fuck am I doing?
For Irina. I climbed in, sat down in the passenger seat
and slammed the door. Immediately, I could feel
Mikhail’s presence in the rear seat behind me. I couldn’t
watch both him and Vasiliy at the same time and the fat
fuck could just lean forward and throttle me at any time.
The hairs on the back of my neck started to rise.
“Mr. Baroni,” said Vasiliy. “I was...surprised to receive
your call. Surprised but intrigued. Let us keep this short.
What are you offering?”
“How much of your territory will you give up?” Mikhail,
from the rear seat. I looked in the rear view mirror, but
the angle was wrong and I couldn’t see him. Shit.
“I’m not offering territory,” I said cautiously. “But—”
“You’re wasting our time,” snapped Mikhail. I heard his
bulk shift on the rear seat, maybe getting ready to
pounce.
Vasiliy held up his hand. “Let me hear what he has to
say.”
Mikhail cursed, but stopped moving. It was dark inside
the car, especially in the back, and I didn’t want to show
weakness by turning around to look. But I imagined he
was sitting there with his arms half extended, ready to
wrap those big hands around my throat. Thank God
Vasiliy was there to hold him back.
“A partnership,” I began. I couldn’t figure out if dad
would be spinning in his grave or telling me I was doing
the right thing.
“He already has partnership!” snapped Mikhail, his
English fracturing in his anger.
“The way I see it,” I said, keeping my eyes on Vasiliy,
“you don’t need more territory. You just want safe
passage for your guns. You want security. I can give
you that. We share the contacts: property development,
politicians, the cops. Everything can run smoothly. No
more fighting. No more territory grabs.”
Vasiliy stared at me for a long time. I could only
properly make out his face when a flash of lightning lit it
up and even then it was an unreadable mask. “Why
should I not just carry on and crush you, take your
territory street by street?” he said at last.
I looked him right in the eye. “Because I’ll give you a
war you’ll never forget. You’ve got the money, sure. I
hear you’ve got billions in the bank. But how much of it
do you want to spend to take each bar, each restaurant,
each tattoo parlor? How much is it really worth to you?
Because make no mistake, Vasiliy, I will turn this into
your personal Vietnam. Your Iraq. You’re the invading
force here and we’re the locals. We will fight you for
every fucking inch and you’ll bleed money and men. Do
you really want that, when you could just do a deal
instead?”
This time there was an even longer pause while he
considered. The son of a bitch had the best poker face
I’d ever seen. Eventually, he said, “A partnership is not
out of the question.” I heard Mikhail hiss air through his