Page 6 of The Enemy Protector
Mikhail Baranov. Sixty-two years old and built like a man who fully intended to live to be one hundred through sheer will alone.I’ve watched him operate for fifteen years. Sat across from him at the five-family meetings and pretended he was just another family head.
He’s not.
I don’t trust him. Don’t like him. And quite frankly, his death is something I will quietly celebrate. The feeling is mutual.
He has a dying empire and no male heir.
Only a daughter.
I reach for my coffee and let the smooth, rich flavor slide over my tongue.
“The legitimate holdings are already showing her fingerprints,” Kirill says. “Three of the subsidiary companies had management restructuring in the last two months. The construction arm renegotiated two contracts she apparently flagged as underperforming. No one’s told Mikhail.”
“He knows.”
“Probably.” Kirill almost smiles. “He hasn’t stopped it.”
I say nothing. There is nothing to say about that, nothing that doesn’t edge into my territory I do not talk about.
“One more thing.”
I look up and catch his reluctance before he says the last part.
"Yuri Baranov landed at JFK this morning. One-way from Moscow."
I look at Kirill.
He looks back.
My expression doesn't change. I've trained it not to. I could be standing in an inferno and my face would give away nothing. Instead, I watch Kirill and read his irritation with this new complication.
Yuri Baranov. Mikhail’s nephew. Raised in Moscow. Educated in violence and leverage the way all the old families educate their heirs. I know who and what he is. He’s thirty-three, intelligent, and has spent the last decade building relationships with the Moscow bratva’s senior leadership. He’s been watching New York from a distance for years.
And now he's here.
He's not visiting.
“Does Mikhail know?”
Kirill slowly shakes his head. “Not that I can find. They could be keeping it close, but I have a feeling his nephew is paying him a surprise visit.”
Yuri didn’t fly to New York to pay his respects. He’s assessing. I knew this was a possibility.
A succession war. Not coming. Already beginning.
"Keep eyes on him," I say. "Everything—who he meets, where he goes, what he orders at dinner. I want to know his operational contacts in the city within forty-eight hours."
"Already started."
Kirill gets to his feet and leaves my office without another word.
I turn my chair and stare out the bulletproof glass window of my brownstone. The street is quiet. Idyllic. My neighbors are all rich upper-crust people who host dinner parties and schmooze withthe movers and shakers in the city. They know me as the quiet businessman with an impressive real estate portfolio. Some of them probably suspect I’m not exactly what I appear to be. None of them are stupid enough to ask.
I get up and leave the office. My guards follow me down the hall.
“No,” I say.
I go downtown and slide into the chair across from Nelson.
