Sergi

by K. J. Dahlen

  “You know what would really link them as a family?” Levi suggested. “A DNA test.”

  “How long would that take though?” Misha asked.

  “Too long,” Levi announced. “We could possibly get a result in two to three days.”

  Petr shook his head as he stared at Levi. “We don’t have that much time and I don’t need the results anyway. I know your mother is my Nina’s missing child. I’ve always been told there is no doubt about whose daughter Nina was. She had my eyes as well. Many of the Council will remember her and once they see your mother, they will see my Nina in her as well.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to have actual proof no one can contest though,” Levi added. “If we do the test, we’ll know for sure and then we won’t have to guess.”

  “Please let my son do the test?” Anita asked. “I know it will show that I am Nico’s daughter, but I never knew who my mother was. I’d like to have solid proof for the future. If we are related, I’d like to get to know you and her family. He took me away from you but he also took you away from me.”

  Petr nodded. “Very well. My wife will be so happy to hear of you and your son. She would like to know there is a small piece of Nina still alive. She…we were all devastated when we had to bury our daughter. You also have a great many uncles and aunts waiting to meet you.”

  Sergi spoke now, “As soon as the Tribunal is over, I will petition for the Council to recognize Levi as my son and get his name changed to mine. He is a Constantine and should carry my name.”

  Petr quirked an eyebrow. “And his mother? Should she not carry your name as well?”

  “Point taken old man.” Sergi nodded. “In due time.”

  Petr nodded then turned to Anita. “Tomorrow will be a big day, so I suggest you get some rest tonight. After the tribunal, you can meet the rest of your family. My wife is waiting impatiently to meet you. I had to phone her to let her know about you and Levi while you were upstairs. It was quite a shock to her as well after all these years. She’s gathering the rest of the family even as we speak.”

  Anita glanced at Sergi and noted his rather daunting look. Turning back to Petr she smiled. “I can’t wait to meet them either. This is something I never thought I’d have before. A family, a real honest t goodness family. I can’t wait to get to know you all. But before I can do that I have some legal stuff to work out. I’m here in this country illegally and as much as you have influence, I can’t impose my self on your kindness for that. I have to follow the rules too and so do you.”

  Petr smiled. “But my dear, you were born here which makes you a citizen of this great nation. All you need to do is apply for a birth certificate. We can help you get that.”

  Anita smiled brightly. “That’s true. I forgot about that.”

  “All will be well on that account. Trust me on that,” Petr assured her.

  “That still leaves tomorrow to get through.” She exhaled deeply. Turning to Sergi she asked, “What do you need me to do? I want both of them to pay for what they did to your wife and Misha’s mother, not just Gavril. Nico might not have stabbed her but he was just as guilty as his father was. Now that we’ve figured out we don’t need him, I want him to pay for what he did too.”

  “Thank you for that but he needs to pay for Nina more then he needs to pay for Tasha,” Sergi announced. We will know in our hearts that he is responsible for Tasha along with his father.”

  “May I ask you a question my dear?” Petr asked.

  Anita turned to the other man and waited.

  “Why were you doing here twenty four years ago?” He looked at Sergi then back at her. “I don’t recall anything happening back then.”

  “Do you remember Dmitri Salvo’s grandson, Anton?” Sergi asked his old friend.

  “Indeed I do. What about him?”

  “Well, we all knew just how hard Dmitri fought to keep the drug trade away from the Bratva,” Sergi reminded him. “We both did, but while we were trying to keep drugs out of our country, his grandson Anton was here to set up a drug route to bring them in. Twenty four years ago, he brought her here to cover his tracks when he met his contacts. It was her job to sidetrack me so he could do his own thing. Only trouble was she didn’t know that. When the Bratva got to close to tracking him down, he fled the country taking her with him.”

  Petr looked troubled for a moment. Shaking his head he commented, “Then her son was born in America then, after she got back.”

  “What are you thinking?” Sergi asked.

  “Let’s just hope they don’t delve to hard into her birth certificate. If they find it’s a fake that could cause more problems then getting her a Russian certificate. We don’t want that to cause any delay’s here.” He focused on Sergi again, “Now what were you saying about Anton? Where did he end up?”

  Sergi shrugged. “That’s just it, no one knows where he went after they got back to America. He dropped her off and disappeared. He left her holding the bag as far as his business partners and they threatened her until they figured out she didn’t know where he was. And no one has known where he ended up. As far as we know he’s been AWOL for twenty some years.”

  “Huh?” Petr scoffed. “Imagine that.”

  “That is another reason why I want this over quickly and quietly,” Sergi admitted.

  Anita frowned. “Why is that? I don’t understand.”

  “If the man you know as Adrian is here in Russia and he hears about Nico and Gavril being on trial, he might just come looking to see if you are with them. You are the key to linking him to the drug trade and to what he started twenty-four years ago. He would have to quiet you in order to stay free.”

  “And if he’s following what’s going on here,” Misha told her. “His old business partners might be as well. He probably owes them a great deal of money that I’m sure they will collect interest on. If Anton is here, you can almost bet they will be here soon in person.”

  Anita felt her knees weaken and threaten to buckle.

  Sergi caught her in his arms and carried her over to the sofa. “Are you all right my dear?” he asked her worriedly.

  Anita nodded, not quiet trusting her voice at this point. She glanced over at Levi and saw him pale as well. Looking back at Sergi she whispered, “Adrian’s business partners were not good people. All I knew when he brought me here before was he told me he was looking for a pipeline out of the Kara Sea. I had no idea he was setting up a drug route or using mob money to do it with. He took them for millions of dollars.”

  “Da and I can only imagine the interest they will charge him for that. That is, if they ever find him.” Sergi nodded. “Which is why I’ve ordered extra security surrounding both you and Levi until this is over.”

  “I can lend you some of my security as well,” Petr suggested. “Both of them must be absolutely safe until this is over.”

  “We will lock down this city if we have to,” Sergi assured her. “Try not to worry.”

  “We will have to start hunting this man down and bring him to justice as well,” Petr stated.

  “The search is already beginning,” Sergi stated. “My men began looking for him two days ago.”

  “What?” Anita was confused.

  Sergi looked over at her. “Nikoli has been tracking his movements after he dropped you off in New York twenty-four years ago. Surprisingly, he didn’t leave America right away. Instead, he met with a chemist and another set of distributors. Only when he had a new designer drug did he come back here. We lost him as soon as he set foot back on his homeland but we think we know the area he settled in.”

  “And where would that be?” Petr asked.

  “I would rather not say until we narrow the area down. We have only just begun to connect the dots here. We have been watching this trend for a while now but we never knew who was in charge. Now that we have a name, we can move in quickly and quietly and dismantle his whole set up.”

  “What does that mean?” Levi asked.

  “We woul
d catch a trail to follow almost too late to stop it, then he would move his base of operations until he disappeared altogether. We would go months without finding any trail of him then we would catch him again, but he would move on before we could close in on him. We’ve been trying to find this phantom for a very long time. But now we know who we’re dealing with and we’re beginning to figure out his pattern.”

  Anita began wringing her hands together as she remembered the Adrian she once knew. “Be very careful with him,” she warned Sergi. “He’s like a snake when he’s cornered. He strikes without warning and he always carries a knife. He always told me that he likes the versatility of a blade over a gun because it’s a quiet form of killing. You can stab someone and walk away while they are dying. No one knows they’ve been hit if you do it right, until its too late to stop it.”

  “And you know this how?” Misha asked with suspicion in his voice.

  “When he brought me here twenty four years ago, he was making me nervous. I didn’t know then that much about the man but I was paying attention to who he was making contact with. They were not the sort of people I thought would be in the shipping or oil fields and we were talking about it the second day we were here. He told me to mind my own business and not worry about it. Then he showed me his knife and he told me he could protect himself just fine. He even pointed out the places on a human body that he could cut someone for the maximum amount of injury and still get away.” She shivered as she recalled his response. “He laughed and told me not to worry. He said he always made sure his victims didn’t suffer too much anyway.” She looked over at Sergi. “That was the day before we met for the first time and I was never so glad to be away from him.”

  Sergi looked at Petr and shrugged. “I’ll let my security team know this. Maybe we can use this information to help us track him. For now, I think we should try and get some rest. We need to be clear and level headed for tomorrow.”

  Petr got to his feet. “Da, I think I will head back to my hotel room and call my family again. I will meet you in the Council chambers in the morning.” He turned to Anita and Levi. “It has been a delightful surprise to meet you both. I hope once this unpleasantness is over that we will get the change to get to know you both. I have so much to tell you about your mother.”

  Levi stepped up and asked, “Before you go, may I get a sample of blood to begin the test with? I, for one would like to verify the proof for any future concerns people may have.”

  “Of course,” Petr agreed.” Your father…” He paused and smiled at Sergi. “Has told me of your degree. It is a very honorable vocation.”

  “Misha can get whatever you need to get the sample,” Sergi suggested as he motioned for his son to go with them.

  When they were alone in the room, Sergi took Anita in his arms and nuzzled her cheek. “Are you all right?” he whispered in her ear.

  “I don’t know.” She sighed. “So much has happened in such a short amount to time.” She looked over at him and whispered. “Is this real? Could that man really be part of the family I never had before?”

  Sergi searched her face for a moment. He was remembering the first time he saw her twenty-four years ago. “Petr and I have been good friends for a very long now. When I first saw you, I thought there was something familiar about you. Even your mannerisms seemed familiar to me. It took me a few days to realize who you reminded me of and then I remembered his daughter Nina. When they found her body, he was truly devastated. He never spoke to anyone of what she went through but me. By the time I put it all together, you were gone and I didn’t know where you went. I couldn’t tell him then as it would have hurt him even more not to know where you went a second time in his life, but when I found you again, I had to tell him.”

  She cupped his jaw and smiled. “Thank you for this chance. If he was my mother’s father then I will finally be able to find out about her. You will have given me so much more than you will know.”

  “If the test reveals what I think it will, then I will be very happy to give you this chance. Family is very important to me and you are part of my family.”

  “That brings up another aspect of all of this I do not want to admit,” she reminded him. “We will need a sample from Nico for the test to be complete.”

  “Don’t you worry about that.” Sergi grinned at her. “I can get you a sample of his blood. It will be my pleasure.”

  Anita paused and looked at him.

  Sergi shrugged but the smile remained on his face. He was Bratva after all and she was unaware of the history.

  Chapter Ten

  At long last, the house was quiet again. After Petr left Misha and Levi had gone to bed leaving Sergi and Anita alone in the drawing room. Sergi poured her a drink to calm her nerves and they sat in a comfortable silence thinking about the evening’s events.

  She turned to him at one point and asked, “If they are convicted in the next few days, how much time will pass before they are punished?”

  Sergi shrugged. “Not long at all. Maybe a week, maybe less.”

  Anita frowned and looked at him strangely. “Seriously?”

  “Da, we do not coddle murderers and thieves here. One reason the Bratva is so strong here is that we believe in swift justice. Our form of government doesn’t allow criminals to live twenty years in overcrowded prisons paid for by people who can’t afford to keep them going.” He sipped from his glass. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I would really like to know exactly who I am before he pays the ultimate price for what he did. I want to look that man in the eyes and tell him that what he did was despicable. He allowed a woman to die for no other crime than that she fell in love with him and he couldn’t be bothered. There is a certain place in hell for men like that, or at least there should be. I want him to know this from me.”

  Sergi nodded. “Then know it he shall.” He picked up his phone and made a call. When he was finished, he turned to her and said, “My men are getting a sample of his blood as we speak. We’ll put a rush on the findings and see if we can delay the Tribunal’s ending. Hopefully we can have the results in two days.”

  “Thank you,” she told him softly.

  “I would do anything within my power, for you,” he assured her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “I have a confession to make. I’ve never told anyone this before, so I hope I can do this right. All my life I’ve been a solitary man. My father and my grandfather taught me to be a good man but they were never really were comfortable showing affection and I think they passed that down to me. They were good men though, they loved only one woman their whole lives and I thought that was something else we would share as well. I thought I found that one woman when I found my Tasha. I don’t say these things to hurt you but instead, I tell you these things so you can understand me better. Tasha was the one woman I thought I would live my whole life with. We met when we were very young and with her, my heart was full and my life made sense, if you know what I mean. I first got interested in becoming a member of the Bratva when I was twelve years old. I met an old friend of my fathers at that time, Anton was his name. He was a high ranking officer and when he came to visit my father, I would sit there for hours and listen to them both recalling their stints in the military. My father did his time then moved back to my grandfather’s farm while Anton moved into the Bratva. The stories he was able to tell me enthralled me. Being stubborn only made me my father’s son.” He chuckled a bit. “I made up my mind to become Bratva when I was twelve and that was what I did. My father began training me when I was fourteen. Anton came by and oversaw my training, so I was ready to enroll by the time I was fifteen. Life for me after that was a shock. They took a young kid and turned me into the man I have become.”

  Anita stared at his handsome face as he shared this with her, she wore an expression of awe.

  “I trained hard and worked even harder but that was my goal. The Bratva was a fit and it became my life. I met my Tasha when I was eighteen years
old. I knew the moment I saw her she was my woman, the one woman I would love for the rest of my life. We got married three weeks after we met. Misha was born nine months after we got married. We were together for six years when she was killed. I thought my life was over but at least I had those six years with her. That carried me for a long time. Oh, I am a man and I had needs but I never got close to anyone else the way I was with her.” He paused and sipped his drink.

  Anita stared at him and held her hands together.

  Then he looked at her. “Then I found you and the moment I saw you in the park that day, my heart began beating again. When Tasha died so did my heart. But you woke it up from its deep sleep again. I couldn’t believe it. You were my second chance and I wasn’t going to waste it.”

  Anita opened her mouth to say something but Sergi put his finger over her lips. “Please Dragotsennyy, this is my turn to speak. Let me get through this then you can ask me whatever you wish.”

  Anita nodded.

  He took a deep sip of his vodka and continued with his story, “The three days we had together meant something to me. I couldn’t believe I had a second chance with you. As soon as we touched, I knew how much you would mean to me. I loved a lifetime in those three days. Then you left me and I crashed. I didn’t know enough about you to even think about looking for you. All I knew was the loss I felt. It was worse than losing Tasha all over again. For many years, I had to control the rage inside me. I became hard and unbending. For a number of years even my friends were worried about me. I really had to think twice before I acted I was in so much pain from missing you. I looked for you everywhere I could think of. Every trip to America, I would search for you. I just wasn’t looking in the right places I guess.”

  “Then you found me,” Anita whispered.

  “Da, I found you and now, I will never take any chance of losing you again,” he vowed. “I never thought for a moment that you would be with Gavril though. I wanted to rip your grandfather apart with my bare hands for what he did to my family so long ago. I wanted to watch Gavril bleed to death in front of me. Then to find out you were part of his family almost destroyed me. You were part of the enemy I hunted for most of my life? I think I almost hated you for a moment. Then I looked in your eyes and I saw the love I lost all those years ago. That one look into your eyes… healed the hole in my heart. I could finally breathe again. Then I saw Levi and I knew he was mine. You had taken my seed and given me a gift I thought I would never have again. You gave me a son. You opened a new branch of my line that will extend my own mortality. You breathed life into this old man again, and I will not let you go again. You belong to me now, Dragotsennyy and I take care of my own.”