Sons of Anarchy Bratva

by Christopher Golden

  “Go away, you idiots. Don’t you know you don’t interrupt a man when there are naked girls around?”

  Jax smiled.

  The sneer died on the man’s face. “Did I say something funny?”

  Jax stepped in close to the sneering man, almost but not quite crowding him. He opened both hands to show he held no weapons and stared right into the Russian’s eyes, knowing he could match the bastard cold stare for cold stare.

  “I’m real sorry we interrupted your pussy gazing. It’s pretty clear you’re a serious man, and I’m not going to waste your time. I’m looking for a guy named Oleg Voloshin, and I heard you guys might be able to tell me where to find him.”

  The sneering man blinked in surprise, studying Jax more closely.

  Yurik said something in Russian, guttural and full of arrogant condescension. The name Voloshin appeared in the midst of a host of other words that sounded like made-up spy language to Jax. But he’d heard that one.

  Thanks, Yurik, Jax thought. Now he knew which side these pricks were on.

  “What you want with Oleg?” the sneering man asked.

  Jax glanced at Joyce as if trying to decide whether or not to confide in these Bratva goons, but he didn’t need Joyce’s reassurance.

  “Nothing he’ll enjoy,” he said.

  The three Russians stood together a moment, looking like nothing so much as a trio of black crows on a telephone wire, the uniformity of their black coats and shirts and pants almost laughable, if not for the guns they surely carried and a history of murder.

  “I am Iov,” the sneering man said, moving closer, so that he and Jax were intimately, uncomfortably near. “What if I told you Oleg is my brother?”

  The music throbbed and the lights flashed. Glasses clinked and men whistled and howled for the new batch of strippers as they began to remove their tops, revealing first one breast and then the other, playing coy. They were the worst actresses in the world.

  “Iov, my name’s Jack Ashby,” Jax lied. “If Oleg’s your brother, then you and me—we’ve got a problem. The prick has my sister.”

  The Russian cocked his head dubiously. “Oleg kidnapped your sister?”

  Jax shook his head. “Nah. She took off with him. Left home. But from everything Oleg said before they left, I know there’s some serious shit going on with you and your people and I want to get my sister back before she ends up in a ditch with a bullet in the back of her head. I want to get her out of this, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure she gets home safely.”

  Iov scratched at a spot under his left eye, thinking.

  “You want us to help you find your sister? To tell you where to find Oleg?”

  “He’s not your brother, is he?” Joyce asked, looking a little squirrely. A sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead.

  “I can pay,” Jax said.

  Iov’s eyes sparkled. “I work for a man who would also like to find Oleg. Right now, we don’t know where he is, but maybe my employer will want to meet you. Maybe you can help him, and he can help you.”

  He sent Yurik to make a call, and the thug headed toward the men’s room, where the thumping music wouldn’t prevent him from hearing voices on the other end of the line. Los Lonely Boys’ “Crazy Dream” came on the sound system, and the girl on the rear stage dropped down and began pumping her lace-covered crotch at the bachelor-party guys. All the while, she stared longingly at Iov—the Russians tipped way better than suburban dads. She caught Jax watching her and scowled at him, pissed that he’d drawn her best customers away.

  A waitress floated their way, a lithe brunette who looked closer to fifteen than twenty, which had to be an illusion given the law. Her purple eye shadow had sparkles in it that changed color with the shifting lights in the club. She wore a little tartan skirt that must have sparked a thousand Catholic-schoolgirl fantasies, and she made a beeline toward Joyce. Her eyes lit up like she knew him.

  “Hey, Harry. Give a girl a taste?” the waitress asked. “You’ve always got the good stuff.”

  Joyce gave her a dark look. “Now ain’t the time.”

  Jax bristled. He didn’t much care if Joyce was using drugs to buy favors from strippers, but if he was selling in clubs, that was the kind of small-time shit that could get the whole charter jammed up. It was something for Rollie to take care of—and Jax would bring it to his attention—but right now the girl was just a distraction.

  Jax saw Opie signal him and looked toward the front of the bar to see what had gotten Opie’s attention. One of the bouncers—the bodybuilder, not the jarhead—stood beside the main stage watching Jax and Joyce talk to the Russians.

  “Maybe next time, honey,” the waitress said, before she turned to the rest of them. “What’ll you have, boys?”

  “Go away, girl,” Iov rumbled.

  She glanced at Jax. “You look like a whiskey man.”

  Iov grew angry. “Are you blind or stupid? We want a drink, we find you. Now fuck off.”

  She looked him up and down with the belittling disdain only a beautiful young woman could muster.

  “I can’t decide if you’ve had too much to drink or not enough,” she said, and then she turned to Joyce, moving close enough to give him a whiff of the perfume that had already filled Jax’s nostrils. “I’m dancing in about half an hour, honey. I hope you’ll stick around for my show. Trust me, you won’t be—”

  Iov shoved her. The girl’s arms pinwheeled, flinging away the trayful of Jell-O shots. For a heartbeat, the music stopped—just between songs—and Jax could hear the little cry of surprise as she staggered backward and fell on her ass, tartan skirt flipping up to reveal the tiny patch of pink lace between her legs.

  Joyce tried to wade in. “Hang on, man, there’s no need for that.”

  “Stay out of it,” Jax told him, shoving him backward.

  Iov barely glanced at them, but he wasn’t stupid. The Russian had to have noticed Joyce’s obedience, recognized that Jax was the one in charge. His eyes narrowed, but Jax wasn’t sure if it was with appreciation or suspicion.

  Yurik came out of the bathroom but stopped with his phone in his hand and a stupid look on his face. The girl had risen to one knee and was glancing around at the splotches of Jell-O and little paper cups strewn around her, cursing like a lunatic in the drunk tank. Opie started to leave his position in the back corner, but Jax gestured for him to stay put, thinking he could salvage the whole thing …

  The bouncer who’d been watching marched toward them, looking confident in his strength and his purpose. Anger rushed like fire through Jax’s veins—any other day, this bodybuilder wouldn’t have been an issue, but he needed to finish his conversation, and time had just run out. One of the bartenders emerged from behind the bar, and a couple of customers—good old boys with noble intentions—had started shuffling as though they might also step in.

  The girl came surging to her feet and spit in Iov’s face.

  He backhanded her, the slap so loud that the stripper on the little rear stage stopped dancing to stare, and so did the bachelor-party guys. Jax swore under his breath and went to intervene, but the bouncer beat him to it. The muscle head slid between Jax and Joyce, brushed by the waitress, ducked a punch from Iov, and grabbed the Russian’s arm, twisting it behind his back in one smooth move.

  The third Russian, who’d been lingering the whole time, kidney punched the bouncer, and the poor bastard roared in pain and went down on one knee, releasing his grip on Iov. Jax almost felt bad for the guy—the way he’d subdued Iov, he’d been better at his job than Jax had expected—but when shit turned ugly, you had to know how to read the situation if you wanted to keep your head from getting caved in.

  Slapping the girl had done it.

  The bartender punched Joyce just for standing there. The noble civilians waded in, but by then all hesitation had passed. Jax stepped inside the reach of the first guy and leaned into his swing, punching the man in the gut so hard he heard the burble of vomit about to
spew from the hero’s mouth. He stepped out of the way, saw the guy fighting the urge to puke, and nailed him in the temple with enough force that he dropped straight down.

  When Jax looked up, Opie had the bartender from behind, crushing his larynx, and Joyce had started to pound on the second Good Samaritan. People were shouting, and the stripper on the stage had stood up and was screaming, covering herself like Eve after her first bite of the apple.

  Jax grabbed Joyce’s shoulder, blocked the guy’s instinctive retaliation, and then spun around. “Opie! We’re going!”

  Opie gave the bartender a shove and started moving. Jax glanced over at the Russians, who’d started kicking the fallen bouncer and took over after Opie abandoned the bartender. He knew they should stay, knew that no matter the consequences these assholes were his best chance to find Trinity, but jail would mean going back to Stockton. As it was, he wasn’t supposed to be out of the state of California. Jail would also likely mean they’d figure out who he was, and he couldn’t have that.

  In a place like this, the management wasn’t likely to bother calling the cops for a bar fight—not with the backroom blow jobs and front-room drug deals likely happening on the premises—but he couldn’t chance it.

  Ablaze with fury, he shoved his way through the bar with Opie and Joyce in tow. Several times guys tried to get in the way before seeing the rage on Jax’s features and changing their minds. Chibs had stayed by the bar, where Jax had left him. He saw them coming and drained the last of his beer, dropped some money on the bar, and smiled at the same waitress he’d charmed when they’d come in. She tucked a piece of paper into his hand that might have been her number, and he stroked his goatee like he was one of the Three Musketeers.

  “Glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Jax snapped.

  Chibs didn’t have time to reply. The doorman had taken over for the jarhead bouncer, who moved to block their path.

  Jax threw his hands up. “The trouble’s back there, brother, and we don’t want any of it. Step aside, and you won’t see us again.”

  The jarhead flared his nostrils and for a second, Jax thought he would put up a fight. Then he moved to let them pass.

  “Don’t come back,” he said. “The Russian pricks have connections. I throw them out twice a month, no choice in the matter. But you guys ain’t Russian.”

  Joyce started to say something, but Jax shoved him forward, into the foyer, and then all four of them were pushing out through the front door and into the parking lot. They were awash with piss-yellow light from the lampposts, and Jax kept moving until they were in the darkness beyond that sickly illumination, not far from where they’d parked their bikes.

  “What happened back there?” Chibs asked.

  “One of the girls was a little too eager,” Joyce said. “Got on the Russians’ nerves.”

  “You didn’t help,” Opie said. “You could’ve gotten rid of her before it blew up like that.”

  An eighteen-wheeler blew by on the main road, kicking up wind and grit. Joyce turned to glare at Opie like he’d just insulted his mother.

  “I just did you a favor, asshole.” The coiled burn marks on his face had a pearlescent hue, catching the light from the parking lot. When he grimaced, one side of his mouth did not move as freely, thanks to those burns.

  “You let it fall apart,” Opie said.

  “All right!” Jax barked. “We’ll figure out another angle. Let’s just—”

  Chibs tapped him on the back. “Jackie.”

  Jax turned and saw Yurik emerging from Birdland. The Russian glanced around, looking jaundiced in that yellow glow. Jazz still played on the outdoor speakers, a jubilant tune that seemed almost absurd as theme music to this hardcore Bratva leg breaker. Yurik spotted them and started over.

  “Careful,” Joyce said.

  “He’s alone,” Jax muttered. “If this was trouble, you think he’d put himself out here like this? You guys keep back.”

  Jax strode back across the lot—back through that piss-yellow light, awash in too-happy jazz—and met the Russian halfway. Yurik had a split lip and a bloody nose and his left eye had started to swell, and Jax wondered if it had been the bartender who’d managed it or if one of the noble bystanders had gotten in a lucky punch.

  “There’s a Russian Orthodox church on E Street, right across from the park. Ninety minutes, you be on the steps of the church.”

  “You can help me find my sister?”

  Yurik dragged a hand across his nose, leaving a bloody streak on his arm. “Ninety minutes. Maybe you help us find Oleg. Maybe we let you take your sister away before she gets hurt.”

  9

  Behind the hotel was a rusted old swing set that sat on a concrete block with grass growing up through cracks. Trinity could see it from the window of the room she shared with Oleg and had felt the lure of it for days. She’d resisted, mainly because she had earned a level of respect from Kirill and the other men in Oleg’s Bratva and she thought sitting on the faded, dirty yellow swing and kicking her feet back and forth would undo the image she’d cultivated with them.

  Tonight, she didn’t care. Oleg and Gavril had gone into Las Vegas, searching for any sign of Lagoshin and his men. Boredom and anxiety had crept inside her, made nests under her skin, and now the little twitchy spiders of dread were being born and crawling all through her body. Some of those spiders were doubt—doubt about her choices, doubt about her love, doubt about her chances of surviving the next twenty-four hours, never mind the next twenty-four days.

  So she sat on the swing. After a little while, alone behind the hotel in the middle of nowhere with the red hills behind her, she began to gently kick her feet, swinging a few inches forward and backward. Little flakes of rust dusted onto her hands where she held the chains of the swing, and the whole apparatus creaked, but she didn’t mind. It was a lovely, familiar sound, almost like an old friend from childhood whom she hadn’t seen in far too long.

  She thought about Sacha and Vlad and the other guys who were still inside the hotel, and she wondered what must be on their minds. Kirill and Logoshin both answered to Bratva higher-ups back in Moscow, men who had once been allies, part of the criminal hierarchy that ran the Russian Mafia. When their operation in America had fallen apart, ripples had traveled all the way back to Moscow, leading to the violent deposing of the man at the top, Anton Maksimov.

  The Bratva boss had fled Russia, or so it was said, and the Bratva had splintered in two. A quiet civil war had erupted, with each man attempting to persuade the rest of the Bratva captains that he was the right choice to lead. It was mostly a chess match, a power struggle in which each man attempted to assert his control over pieces of the Bratva’s business, and if Trinity understood it correctly, the largest remaining piece was the money that came from their operations on the west coast of the United States. Whoever won this fight would win it all, and that meant violence and bloodshed. The squeak of the rusty swing turned into something else, and Trinity paused, dragged her feet to stop herself. To silence the swing. She sat and listened. Had she really heard a howl in the distance? The romantic in her wondered if it had been a coyote or a wolf. Were there wolves in Red Rock Canyon?

  The wind picked up, and she shivered despite her thick, wine-red sweater. With a glance up at the stars she began to swing again, throwing her head back to study the constellations.

  Off to her left, there came a cough. She glanced over but did not stop her slow swinging. In the darkness, someone struck a match. In the flare of orange light, she saw Kirill light his cigarette and then shake the match out. A dark silhouette from that one ember burning in the night, he approached her slowly and sat down on the swing beside her without a word. He drew deeply on the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke, and then he began to swing.

  “It’s nice here,” Kirill said, taking another drag on his cigarette. “Quiet.”

  Trinity glanced at him, making her swing twist sideways. The barbed-wire tattoo that circled his neck seemed blac
ker than black in the moonlight, and it made the sight of this killer on a swing set even more absurd. She couldn’t help but smile.

  Kirill understood without asking, and he smiled in return. It faded instantly.

  “Feliks was a good man,” Trinity said. “A good friend.”

  “A good brother,” Kirill said, swinging his legs, making the rusty swing shriek as he rode higher.

  They were lost in memory for a moment, and Trinity allowed herself to swing a bit higher as well, forgetting her fears of looking foolish. With Kirill beside her, the other Bratva men could hardly think less of her.

  When Kirill stopped pumping his legs, Trinity did the same, and slowly their pendular motion ceased.

  “It is frustrating, yes? Being stuck inside the hotel?”

  Trinity nodded. “I’m gettin’ claustrophobic. Not just with the hotel—”

  “I feel it as well,” Kirill interrupted. “We are trapped by our desire to stay alive. We must keep out of sight because we know they are hunting us, but remember: we are also hunting them.”

  “They don’t seem intimidated by it,” Trinity said. “There are more of them. More guns, more shooters, more money.”

  Kirill glanced up at the stars, perhaps wondering if Feliks’s kindness had earned the key to heaven, in spite of his sins.

  “This is why we hide,” he said. “They believe they are smarter and stronger, that they will destroy us. But their confidence can be used against them.”

  “You sound sure.”

  He smiled, but this was a different sort of smile—thin and cruel. “There is nothing for you to fear, Trinity. Soon we will not be hiding. We will kill them or they will kill us. Either way, it will be over.”

  “That’s not as comfortin’ as you seem to think it ought to be,” she said.

  But Kirill wasn’t listening.

  They heard footfalls coming around the side of the hotel. Trinity stiffened a moment, but when she saw that Kirill wasn’t troubled and heard the calm, easy pace of the crunching steps, she relaxed. The silhouette that appeared from the corner was tall and whip-thin, and she knew it had to be Timur. He’d been a thief and pickpocket as a child and into his teen years before he’d been caught and sent to prison, where the Bratva had taken him under their protection. Oleg didn’t trust him, which meant Trinity didn’t like him, but the skinny thief slunk toward Kirill with the proper air of deference, and so Kirill approved of him.