“Oh, I am.” Pulling the trigger, Peaches shot the woman center mass in the chest. Her body flew back against the wall and slid down to the floor. Gasping for air, she looked up at Peaches in surprise. Touching her chest, she pulled her hands away and looked at her blood-stained fingers. Years of pimping had made her a genius with words when needed. As a result, she half-expected an opportunity to get away or at least talk her way out of the situation.
“Women like you make me sick,” Peaches said, pulling the knife from her back pocket. She gripped the blade in her hand and wiped her face with her arm. “You give the rest of us a bad name. We’re supposed to be there to protect each other, not still babies from their mothers and pimp out young women for profit. I hope you burn in hell.” Bending down, she ran the serrated edge across the woman’s throat slicing it open. She watched her as she succumbed to her injuries, eyes rolling back into her head and mouth wide open. When Peaches was sure Tenisha was dead, she wiped the blade of her finger prints with a dirty towel in the corner and threw it and the towel in the dead woman’s lap.
The girls in the corner screamed out, terrified by the gunshots and the dead bodies. Eying Peaches, they waited to see if she would turn her gun on them.
“Don’t cry,” Peaches said, demeanor quickly changing. Her voice was soft and soothing now. “Everything is going to be okay. I’m here to help you.”
The girls quieted their sobs, understanding that this was a rescue mission.
Now that the storm was over, there were other things that needed to happen quickly. She grabbed the keys to Tenisha’s Tahoe off the night stand and opened the door. Sticking her head outside, she didn’t see anyone around. Evidently, everyone who was in earshot of the shooting had taken cover. No witnesses, no problems. She turned to the girls and waved them over. “Come on. Hurry up. We need to get out of here.”
When they stepped outside what Peaches didn’t hear was a police siren yet. She loaded them up quickly and drove to the front of the hotel where the manager’s office was. There was one more thing on her list.
“Where are you going?” one of the girls asked, when Peaches put the car in PARK. They didn’t want her to leave their sight.
Peaches looked over her shoulder at the girls. “I’ll be right back. It will just take a second,” she promised, jumping out of the SUV one more time.
Pushing the glass door open, Peaches saw a man sitting in the corner of the wood-paneled room watching television and counting a stack of money. Standing up, he looked her over and moved toward the front desk.
“Can I help you?” the man asked, placing his hands on the desk.
Peaches knew his type. He had greedy eyes and a slick mouth just like all the other sex profiteers. “Are you the owner?” she asked, touching her swollen lip.
“Yes.” Looking out the window at the truck, he saw Tenisha’s truck and assumed she must have been there to pay him his cut for using his room to sell the girls.
“You’re Nishith Patel?” Peaches asked again.
“YES,” the man answered again, this time more forcefully. “Now, what do you want?”
Peaches pulled the snub nose from the back of her shorts and pointed it at him. Before he could say a word, she pulled the trigger, using her last bullet to send the man screaming from this world.
“That’s what I want.” Turning back around, she walked out of the door as quickly and quietly as she came.
She had been given specific instructions to not only kill Tenisha and her crew but the owner of the hotel. In Royal Medlov’s mind, if you weren’t a part of the solution, you were part of the problem. And this problem had to be terminated permanently.
Jumping back into the SUV with her mission accomplished, she sped out of the parking lot and into the busy traffic on Elvis Presley Blvd.
The girls in the back looked out of the window in a daze. They never thought they would be free again, but somehow, they had been saved.
“Thank you,” one of the girls said, wiping tears of joy.
“Don’t mention it,” Peaches said, adjusting the rearview mirror. She pushed back in the seat and unzipped her pants. There weren’t many places a girl could smuggle a phone. Grunting, she gripped the steering wheel to push down hard and then reached into her pants, past her panties and up into her womb. Pulling out the cellphone wrapped in cellophane, she flipped it and turned it on.
“Did she just do what I think she just did?” one of the girls whispered to the other.
Peaches ignored them. A girl had to do what a girl had to do. Dialing a number slowly while keeping her eye on the road, she pushed the phone to her ear and threw the baggie out of the window.
***
Royal picked up the call from Peaches as soon as she saw the number. Her heart raced in her chest, praying for good news. Clicking on her conference phone so that everyone sitting around her could hear the news as well, she looked down at the receiver.
“Yes.” Royal clasped her hands together.
“It’s done,” Peaches reported.
“Are the girls hurt?”
“No. They’re fine. I’m going to drop them off at the church now.”
Royal sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “The coupons?” She asked of the targets, careful to use the code words over the phone.
“Expired,” Peaches said, happy to get the job over with. She needed a long vacation after this and a very large ice pack. Her bags were already packed and hotel booked for Miami Beach. In two weeks, she’d be on the beach, pushing sand through her toes and drinks down her throat.
Royal exhaled a sigh of relief. “Good job. Get some rest, and we’ll see you in a few days for a full report.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Hanging up the phone, Royal looked around the room at her council and smiled gratefully at everyone who had helped her.
“Great job, ladies and gentleman,” she praised each of her members with a nod. “Great job indeed.”
They had done it. The Medlov Women’s Council was on its way to making a difference in their city by protecting its most valuable asset – their women. They would kill sex traffickers indiscriminately until the word got out that taking advantage of poor, unsuspecting girls wasn’t an option in Memphis without brutal retribution. She was amazed at how good it felt. The rush was better than any vice she had ever known.
At that moment, she wondered if this was how her husband, Dmitry, always felt after a major arms deal or buying out some rogue company. It was addictive to have that much power in her hands, to give an order of such magnitude and have it carried out, while she waited in the cozy confines of her home.
“Congratulations,” Nadei said, pleased that his mistress was happy. With their first successful mission under their belt already, it was possible this new council could truly make a name for itself. Plus, as a father of a little girl who had stolen his heart, he saw the merits of its existence for more personal reasons.
“Thank you, Nadei. We couldn’t have done it without you,” Royal quipped, hitting her conference machine again. Now that the worry was over, she was starving. Ringing the kitchen, she did a little dance in her chair as the butler answered the phone.
“Yes, Mistress,” the Russian butler answered, quickly turning down the television. He was in the middle of watching replays of the boxing match and overseeing the wait staff while they prepared a late-night dinner for the guards.
“Bring a few bottles of champagne and caviar to my conference room, please.” Winking at Valeriya, Royal clapped her hands together like a giddy little girl.
“Of course. On the way,” the butler answered. “Will there be anything else, Mistress?”
“Well, since he’s asking, I want risotto with white truffles and that special sauce the chef makes,” Lilly yelled out.
“Umm, that sounds good.” Valeriya’s mouth started to water. She had already had dinner, but why not indulge a little. Her post-baby diet could suffer a little. “I’d like
the chef’s version of Norma’s Lobster Frittata with a hefty helping of Beluga caviar. Tell him not to skimp on the lobster.”
“What about you, Lauren,” Royal asked. “Our chef is the best. You can have anything you want. He can whip it up like that.” She snapped her fingers to illustrate his speed.
The new lawyer was astounded by what the women sitting around this table considered a late-night snack, but if they were offering fine dining as well as her more-than-generous retainer, she would give it a try.
“I’d love a Kobe steak,” she said more as a question than a food order. She looked around the room and shrugged with a hesitant smile. “And a side of pasta with the white truffles sounds great. So, I’ll take both.”
“And you?” Royal asked Nadei.
He rubbed a hand through his blonde locks and frowned. “I’m not very hungry, but spasiba.”
Royal wouldn’t hear it. “Come on, Nadei. You’re one of us now. Order something. I insist.”
He wasn’t sure if being one of them was a good thing, considering they were all very delicate, sophisticated women, but he knew what she meant. Not wanting to offend her by turning down her kind offer, he thought of the first thing that came to his head.
“Ribeye and whiskey,” he said, finally giving in to the collective pleas in the room.
Royal laughed. “That’s the spirit, Nadei. Let your hair down a little.” Leaning over on the conference table, she spoke into the intercom. “Did you get all that?”
The butler had been quietly writing it all down. “Yes, mistress. It will be up directly. In the meantime, I’ll send up some h’orderves for you.”
“I love how formal he is,” Royal quipped. “Thank you.” Hanging up the phone, she sat back in her chair and kicked up her feet. “Now that’s what I call a council meeting.”
Chapter Five
Family is Everything…
Atlanta DeKalb Peachtree
Atlanta, Georgia
E ven after suffering a humiliating career defeat in front of millions, the hope that washed over Klenchvenko’s face when Anatoly told him that his father was safely out of harm’s way was still etched in the back of his mind.
It lingered in the man’s beaten, bloody eyes – the immense gratitude that he’d never be able to express fully after realizing that something he could not replace had been protected and preserved – such a thing was immeasurable.
A father’s love was priceless and absolutely irreplaceable.
No matter how much wealth a man had accumulated, no matter how many sycophants he enlisted to sustain his inflated ego, there was nothing on this planet that would replace the innate need for family; and for that family, one would be anything, do anything, risk anything. Such was the human condition.
Anatoly knew that better than anyone, yet it still amazed him how powerful it was to witness. Klenchvenko’s precarious circumstance made Anatoly think of his own family and the lengths that he had gone to keep them safe, over the years, mostly without their knowledge.
To him, being a man, a husband and a father, meant not only protecting his family, but protecting their hearts and minds from what he had to do to protect them. How could a perfect little girl adore her father if she knew the cold hard truth – that he was a murderer, a monster, a thief in the night? How could a faithful, doting wife truly submit to the same hands that were drenched in other’s blood for her survival?
Anatoly had grown to know that in his chosen profession, the real deception took place in the home, because when he was there, he had to pretend to be the person that they saw when they looked at him, not the person that he was in the world, not the person he saw in the mirror.
He understood why his brotherhood had denounced family for so many years as a part of the code.
Family made a man human and vulnerable.
Before he had experienced unconditional love, before he had been exalted to being the head of a household, before he knew what it was like to be the center of someone’s universe, he could go through this world recklessly, unafraid to die because he had never really lived.
But after he had experienced those things, this world and his purpose in it took on a completely different meaning.
Before Renee and Alexandria, he was fine being a soldier and doing his father’s bidding without question.
But after he was given permission to marry his wife and have a child, after he was appointed to sit on the Medlov council, he felt the weight of everything and everyone counting on him.
After he became a husband, he finally became a man, and after he became a father, he believed in God, because who else could create someone as perfect as Alexandria?
Such transitions in a man’s life was so powerful that it shook the heavens and earth. It shook him to his core. It made him wake up and realize that money, even billions of dollars, would not replace family.
There was no turning back after Renee walked down the aisle in her white dress and proclaimed her love for him for as long as he lived, and after his daughter was born, and he held her little fragile body in his arms for the first time, and she looked up into his eyes like he was a perfect man. There was no denying who he was after that, and there was no denying who he no longer was.
Heavy was the fucking crown.
Heavy was the responsibility.
Heavy was the honor.
Anatoly Medlov was the son of the world’s most powerful underworld Czar, thus mafia royalty. His father’s reign would last for decades, and his reign would last for longer. He was feared by many and respected by most. He was a giant, a captain, and a trailblazer to many.
But every day that he looked into the mirror, all he saw was a desperate father and husband living on the edge and fighting tooth and nail night to keep from falling over and drifting into an existence where there was them.
***
As the Medlov’s jet pulled into their hangar on the private airstrip, Anatoly felt a complete sense of reprieve overtake him. This wasn’t the same type of relief that came from closing an arms deal or even closing someone’s eyes – which he thoroughly enjoyed when necessary; it was more domestic, more demonstrative.
Getting close to Renee Medlov was like being born again. She was a nurturer, a safety blanket – soft, warm and inviting. When he was reunited with her after an extended business trip, he felt as though his sins were instantly washed away simply by her touch. It was hard to explain, but even harder to deny. He needed his bull-headed wife.
The only other person outside of Renee who evoked that type of emotion in him was his beautiful little princess of a daughter, Alexandria, who was tucked safely in Memphis behind the fortified walls of the Medlov compound with murderous guards, a full domestic staff, her psycho aunts and her overindulgent step-grandmother to watch over her. Essentially, she was safer than the president of the United States.
Unfortunately, things had been choppy lately in the marriage department, despite all of his undying love. He had been inundated with work, and Renee had been busy taking care of her grandmother. But there was something even more than work that was separating them.
Since Briggy’s death, the tension between them had only grown. Renee had asked repeatedly about where their former maid, who also happened to be his cousin’s former girlfriend and his former fuck buddy, had disappeared to after giving birth to her child.
It was too hard to explain to Renee that Briggy had been killed out of sheer necessity. Murdering other mobsters was just a part of their reality, and he believed, although she never said so, Renee accepted that.
But killing a woman who was not a criminal was something that the women in their family couldn’t quite accept as acceptable. Well, maybe Royal, but not Renee.
Briggy, in an attempt to extort money, had threatened to expose their enterprise and turn them over to the government, if they didn’t meet her demands.
Instead of giving in, they killed her.
Anatoly had not lost one ounce of sleep over it,
but he knew Renee would have. She wasn’t a proponent of murder, where he was an advocate for it.
The truth of the matter was that the child Briggy was trying to pawn off as his cousin’s, Gabriel, was actually the spawn of her bodyguard, Nadei.
Nadei had been forgiven, partly because he sacrificed his life to save Gabriel and partly because he came clean about the affair. However, Briggy continued to be a lying bitch, and the only thing Anatoly regretted about her death was not being there to witness it.
However, if Anatoly allowed that truth to be exposed, then he’d have to talk about Victoria’s death. And that woman was simply vile.
So, he kept it all away from Renee.
No matter how mad she became with him, no matter her threats or her insults, he never told her anything.
What good would come from telling her?
He wasn’t proud that those women had pushed his family into a corner. He wasn’t proud that his family had been forced to push back. But a man had to do what a man had to do. And if he had to choose between spending the rest of his life in a cell away from those he loved or getting rid of two ungrateful hags who only wanted to ride their riches and their name into the sunset, he chose to get rid of the women. For him, it made perfect sense. For his southern, African-American, Christian wife with all of her morals, it would be life altering. So again, he was protecting her from the world and its truths again without her knowledge.
The coordination of the fight and other meetings had not made things better. Every day he was busy and unavailable.
It had taken a week to get here – back by her side, but he was finally close to holding his wife in his arms again. And while it had taken their jet ball-clenching speeds to get here in three hours flat, the risk and money were well worth it.
He just hated that it had to be under these circumstances that he returned to her.
Big Momma was dead. Damn.
It was a hard pill to swallow, even for Anatoly. She had been the only grandmother that he had known, a rock at times when he and Renee hit rock bottom emotionally, and a warm, non-judging smile whenever he graced her presence. Big Momma knew who and what Anatoly was, but as long as he didn’t bring it to her doorstep, she never broached the subject, unlike other members of her family, namely Renee’s father.
Anatoly's Retribution: Book One (The Medlov Men 5) Page 8