Page 62 of Mistaken
“Wow… that’s uh, that’s really intense, Lucya.” Right now, she looks just as scary as our men do.
Then she smiles sweetly, and my new friend is back. “Let’s have some cake and fruit to go with these drinks, hmm?”
Maksim…
“They hit both warehouses at once, here in St. Petersburg and in Queens. Anything they couldn’t steal, they torched along with the structures. There were enough explosions that the police launched an investigation in the US. Here, of course, there’s no further official inquiry, but…”
I rubbed the back of my neck. No news Yuri delivered after a pause like that was going to be anything less than disastrous. “Go on.”
“They found fifteen bodies charred in the fire at the Queens location. We were luckier here since it was Christmas and everyone had the day off, but we still lost four guards.”
“We lost eight men on New Year’s Eve, another nineteen last night,” I could feel the headache thundering into my skull. “The coordinated attack here and there seems to make it more likely this is a rival Bratva. The Sokolovs still make the most sense, but as brutal as Pavel is, this seems suicidal.”
“We managed to pull two of the survivors from the New Year’s Eve attack from police custody and question them,” Yuri poured us both a generous drink, the chilled vodka slopping over the sides of the glass, “the most Bogdan could get from them - and you know how talented the man is with torture - was that they were mercenaries. They didn’t know who hired them, money was sent in untraceable Bitcoin.”
“And the same with the sniper here,” I sighed.
“You know I employed everything in my skill set to drag more information out of him, Pakhan,” he apologized, “though it was nothing compared to what Alexi did when he showed up.” Yuri took a healthy gulp of vodka.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so shaken by a torture session.”
He glared at me. “You didn’t see this one.”
Irritably tugging my tie loose and taking off my jacket, I resumed pacing. “How much inventory did we lose?”
“Both warehouses were a complete loss. Over thirty million dollars’ worth. What makes this worse is the loss of the structures. They were our main sites for arms storage and movement. We can’t supply most of our clients for orders they’ve already placed.”
The vodka spread like fire down my throat, but it didn’t warm me the way it usually did. “How much money do we have to return?”
Yuri sighed, “Even if we find new warehouses we can run that are away from other Bratva territories in the city and free from police scrutiny, the very least we have to return is around one hundred million dollars. That doesn’t include buying new inventory and bribes to end the police investigation in New York.”
I’m staring out the window of my office, trying to come to terms with what I’ve heard. An incalculable amount of manpower and money was wiped out in one night. Whipping around, I throw my glass into the fireplace, sending up a flare of fire and shattering chunks of crystal across the floor.
“Get in touch with your sources on the dark web. No one can hire this many mercenaries without leaving tracks somewhere. And call Farid in Morocco, he can arrange a new route for weapons.”
“You said you would never work with him after he started sex trafficking, you said-”
“I know what I said,Sovietnik!We’re running out of weapons sources and we have orders to fill,” I’m shouting, but it doesn’t crush the queasy feeling of disgust from even mentioning that?????.“We’re not buying women, we’re buying guns.”
“Women and children,” Yuri said coldly.
“You have the audacity to speak to me like that?” This day… the loss, the destruction, and my own brother defying me?
“If you buy from one side of the business, you’re still supporting the other.” He stands and straightens his jacket. “I will get started immediately.”
“I’ll call Farid since the thought is so repellant to you,” I snarl. To be honest, if only with myself, the man is a pig. I would not expose my brother to him, it’s my duty.
“And have the jet prepped and word sent to Ella to pack,” I add. “We’ll need to leave within two hours.”
Ella…
I’m sitting back in my little corner on the jet, and it feels just as bleak flying home from St. Petersburg as it did going there. Maksim, Yuri, and three of his senior advisors are sitting with their heads close together, speaking in urgent, low tones. I know something terrible has happened, it was clear when I boarded the jet and they were in this exact position. Maksim didn’t even look up to acknowledge I was on the jet.
Ivan, my new personal bodyguard after I put that tourniquet on his leg during the New Year’s Eve Shootout, is my biggest fan in the Morozov Bratva. He’s the one who set me up in my cushy leather seat, fetched my “special” blanket, and ordered snacks. The man even remembered the charge cord for my phone which is nice, since I had approximately thirty seconds to pack before I was hustled into a car and brought to the private airstrip.
I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Ekaterina and Mariya.
Putting my earbuds in with a sigh, I tried to relax. Another fourteen hours to go.
