I was wrong. The problem was that I’d been away from my family too long.
I’d forgotten how to think like a gangster. I didn’t see it: not when I fetched a mug, not the whole time I stood there waiting for the coffee machine to whirr and hiss, not even when I was adding extra milk. It didn’t hit me until I turned back towards the living room, the coffee’s creamy froth just touching my lips. My eyes fell upon the chessboard. Half of the pieces were still out of position from when Vasiliy had knocked them, days ago. The black king stood exposed.
It’s so that Vasiliy’s alone with Angelo. That’s why he waited.
The mug slipped from my fingers.
It was all so perfect: Angelo in a remote location; Vasiliy’s guards just itching to pull the trigger on their hated enemy. Mikhail would reveal our relationship. A moment of rage from Vasiliy and he’d give the order, or pull a gun himself…
And Angelo would die.
The mug exploded on the tiles, coffee spraying across my jeans. I didn’t even feel it. I ran into the living room, grabbed my phone and called Angelo, then paced as I waited for him to answer. One ring. Come on. Two rings. Come on!
It went to answerphone. Chyort! Chyort, Chyort, Chyort! “Don’t go to the meet!” I screamed. “Mikhail knows about us! Vasiliy will kill you! Call me back when you get this!”
I ended the call and then stood there staring at the phone, willing it to ring. How long since Vasiliy and Mikhail had left? I didn’t know when the meet was set for—it could be happening right now. What if Angelo didn’t check his messages in time?
There was only one thing to do. I had to call Vasiliy and break the news myself: defuse Mikhail’s weapon before he could use it. But what if I was wrong? What if Mikhail didn’t know? I could tear our family apart and put Angelo’s life in danger for no reason. I stared at the chessboard, going rapidly insane. Tactics. Strategy. Which was the right move? I was a Malakov, I was supposed to be good at this!
I gave a long, despairing cry of rage and kicked the table that held the chessboard, scattering pieces across the room.
Then I took a deep breath...and called Vasiliy.
30
Irina
Vasiliy’s phone rang once. Twice. What the hell am I going to say? Three times.
“Irina?” Vasiliy sounded annoyed. “What is it? I’m driving.” Chyort. I’d forgotten that. And he always got stressed when he drove himself anywhere.
“Okay,” I said. I dug my nails into my palms. “Listen….”
A muffled voice in the background. “Let me speak to her.”
“Tell Mikhail,” said Vasiliy.
“No, WAIT—” I yelled.
That disorienting, falling-through-space feeling as the microphone suddenly moved. And then I heard the fake warmth of Mikhail’s voice. “Hello, Irina.”
I think I knew, as soon as he spoke, that I’d been right. But I clung on to any forlorn hope. “Hi Mikhail,” I said, forcing my voice level. “Could I speak to Vasiliy, please? It’s private.”
“What is it?” Vasiliy’s voice in the background. He sounded horribly distant. Then he cursed. “Fucking potholes.”
“It’s okay,” called Mikhail. “I’m dealing with it.” I heard him settle his bulk back in his seat. When he spoke again, his voice was low, for my ears only. “Do you know when I first knew, Irina?”
Fuck. I closed my eyes. “No.”
“The necklace. You wore it when you came to lunch with Vasiliy and me. That’s not the sort of necklace a girl buys herself. That’s the sort of necklace a man buys a girl because he wants to see her neck adorned. I could have bought you a necklace like that. But you would have thrown it back at me and laughed, wouldn’t you?”
My insides flipped over. This wasn’t just about him wanting all-out war with the Italians so that he could grab more territory. This was personal.
“And you kept touching it,” he said. “You sat in my lap, with my cock right up against that precious, holy cunt of yours and you smiled at me, but you were touching your necklace because you were thinking of him. That’s when I knew you were seeing someone else. So I had you followed...and discovered it was Angelo.”
His voice was quiet, but so savage that I took a stumbling step backwards. I’d been ready for him to be evil, but I hadn’t been expecting this, this hatred.
He hated me.
Someone else, he’d said. You were seeing someone else. He hated me, knew that I detested him...and yet he thought of me as his. In his mind, I’d cheated on him.
“It’s fucking perfect, Irina. Thank you. Thank you for spreading your legs for our enemy, because now Vasiliy’s going to kill your boyfriend and I’ll get exactly what I want.”
I didn’t know when the tears had started, but I could feel them running down my cheeks. Why can’t Vasiliy hear this? But then I heard Vasiliy’s voice: “What are you gossiping about, back there?” And I realized Mikhail was lounging in the back seat, and that there was no hope at all.
“Please,” I begged. I don’t think I expected him to suddenly show mercy. I was more begging the universe for this not to be happening.
“We’re here,” I heard Vasiliy say from the front seat.
“Proshchay, Irina,” said Mikhail. Goodbye.
And the phone went dead.
31
Angelo
“This is a bad idea,” said Rico. He was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, but the sound was drowned out by the rain outside. After days of snow, it had warmed up just enough for the skies to unleash torrential rain. It wasn’t yet noon, but it was as dark as twilight outside. He turned to me. “Just to be clear, I mean you going alone and this entire fucking peace plan. Both of them.”
Usually, Rico will argue with me but know when to shut up and follow orders. The fact he was fighting me so hard on this spoke volumes.
“We’ve got to stop this thing,” I told him. “Or it’s going to get worse and worse. People are going to die. A lot of people.”
“We’re not beat!” snapped Rico. “Mikhail’s got all the money from Vasiliy, sure, but we’ve got plenty of people loyal to us.”
“It’s not about being beat,” I told him tiredly. “It’s about being smart.”
Rico glared at me, arms crossed. I noticed he’d stopped calling me boss. It wasn’t that he’d lost any of his loyalty: his loyalty was the problem. He was trying to protect me from myself. He was smart enough not to say it, but we both knew he was thinking it: this is all because of Irina.
And he was right. It was. But how did I explain to him that she’d changed me for the better? How could I say that she’d made me realize I’d become twisted, over the years, and that being around her made me want to be more like her. Not good, because I’d never be that. But maybe I could go back to being honorable instead of being driven by hate. I couldn’t figure out how to put any of that into words. When Irina had called on the way over, I’d let it go to voicemail: I knew if Rico heard me talking to her, we’d get into a full-on shouting match.
“At least let me come with you,” Rico said. “You don’t seriously think Vasiliy and Mikhail will have come alone?” he nodded through the windshield. “Those buildings will be full of Russians. Full.”
The place we’d chosen for the meet was a construction site, one of mafia boss Erico Fiorentini’s projects. When he’d gone to jail, the whole thing had gotten bound up in red tape and now it was just an empty block of dirt and half-built buildings. With the dark sky and the pounding rain, it looked like a city that had been built and then bombed, girders reaching towards the slate gray sky like dead men’s fingers and the streets nothing more than thick, glutinous mud.
“We have to show them we’re serious,” I told Rico. The real reason I wanted to go alone was, I didn’t want to put anyone else at risk. This was my stupid gamble, not his. And if it went wrong, I wanted to take all the heat from The Saints.
I saw the headlights of a car approaching, picking its way carefully al
ong the single gravel road that led through the site. “Now get out of here. I’ll call you when they’ve gone.”
Rico let out a long sigh and nodded. I opened my door and stepped out into hell. Freezing rain slammed into my shoulders and scalp, like being under a fucking power shower. I was soaked instantly and the rain poured down my face—I had to keep blinking it out of my eyes just to see. It was even worse than the day when I first saw Irina. The day my whole life started going wrong...and right.
I slammed my door. Rico turned the car around and headed off along the road, his tail lights quickly fading into the gloom. By now, the other car was closer, its headlights lighting me up. There was a flash of lightning overhead and then a boom of thunder so loud it sounded like the sky was splitting apart.
The car came to a stop right in front of me, but no one got out. I could see Vasiliy in the driver’s seat and that prick Mikhail sprawled out in the back. He was on the phone to someone and I saw him finish the call and drop the phone into his pocket as he looked at me, a smug grin on his face.
I pantomimed looking to my left and right and held my arms up, indicating I was alone. Rico was right, of course. The buildings around me would be full of Russians. I’d just have to hope this went well.
Vasiliy nodded me towards the passenger door. Oh, of course, they didn’t want to get wet, so the meeting would happen in their car. That gave them about a million advantages: I couldn’t see what weapons they were carrying and they had the option of putting a gun to my head and driving me off somewhere.
But I didn’t have a choice. Opening the door was almost surreal: standing in the pounding rain, looking in at the calm, clean, dry interior with the bong bong bong of the door chime sounding and my two enemies staring back at me. What the fuck am I doing?
For Irina. I climbed in, sat down in the passenger seat and slammed the door. Immediately, I could feel Mikhail’s presence in the rear seat behind me. I couldn’t watch both him and Vasiliy at the same time and the fat fuck could just lean forward and throttle me at any time. The hairs on the back of my neck started to rise.
“Mr. Baroni,” said Vasiliy. “I was...surprised to receive your call. Surprised but intrigued. Let us keep this short. What are you offering?”
“How much of your territory will you give up?” Mikhail, from the rear seat. I looked in the rear view mirror, but the angle was wrong and I couldn’t see him. Shit.
“I’m not offering territory,” I said cautiously. “But—”
“You’re wasting our time,” snapped Mikhail. I heard his bulk shift on the rear seat, maybe getting ready to pounce.
Vasiliy held up his hand. “Let me hear what he has to say.”
Mikhail cursed, but stopped moving. It was dark inside the car, especially in the back, and I didn’t want to show weakness by turning around to look. But I imagined he was sitting there with his arms half extended, ready to wrap those big hands around my throat. Thank God Vasiliy was there to hold him back.
“A partnership,” I began. I couldn’t figure out if dad would be spinning in his grave or telling me I was doing the right thing.
“He already has partnership!” snapped Mikhail, his English fracturing in his anger.
“The way I see it,” I said, keeping my eyes on Vasiliy, “you don’t need more territory. You just want safe passage for your guns. You want security. I can give you that. We share the contacts: property development, politicians, the cops. Everything can run smoothly. No more fighting. No more territory grabs.”
Vasiliy stared at me for a long time. I could only properly make out his face when a flash of lightning lit it up and even then it was an unreadable mask. “Why should I not just carry on and crush you, take your territory street by street?” he said at last.
I looked him right in the eye. “Because I’ll give you a war you’ll never forget. You’ve got the money, sure. I hear you’ve got billions in the bank. But how much of it do you want to spend to take each bar, each restaurant, each tattoo parlor? How much is it really worth to you? Because make no mistake, Vasiliy, I will turn this into your personal Vietnam. Your Iraq. You’re the invading force here and we’re the locals. We will fight you for every fucking inch and you’ll bleed money and men. Do you really want that, when you could just do a deal instead?”
This time there was an even longer pause while he considered. The son of a bitch had the best poker face I’d ever seen. Eventually, he said, “A partnership is not out of the question.” I heard Mikhail hiss air through his teeth behind me. “But I must be sure I can trust you. We must proceed very carefully. The first step—”
“You can’t trust him,” said Mikhail from behind me.
Vasiliy looked around at him, frowning angrily at being interrupted. I noticed the car had lit up with a soft pink glow, coming from the rear seat.
“Here,” said Mikhail. And passed something to Vasiliy. A smartphone. Now Vasiliy and I were both frowning. Vasiliy brought the phone into the front seat with him and stared at the screen and I stared with him. It was a porn picture. A naked guy entwined with a naked blonde, up against a mirror—
Oh Jesus.
I realized a split-second before Vasiliy. I guess my mind had been full of nothing else but Irina naked, ever since I first saw her. And you don’t look at a picture like that and even consider, at first, that it might be your beloved niece.
In slow motion, I saw Vasiliy’s jaw start to fall. I could actually see his face flushing, all the tiny blood vessels swelling as the scarlet spread.
“He seduced her,” said Mikhail from the rear seat. “Fucked her. Used her. To get to you.”
Vasiliy’s head slowly turned to look at me. The look in his eyes wasn’t the Vasiliy everyone fears, the cold, calculating businessman who’ll murder to get what he wants. This was hot and human and very, very personal. This was betrayal and outrage and fury. There would be no reasoning with him. Not on this.
I was going to die.
I felt for the door release. Found it and pulled...but even as the door opened, Mikhail’s sweat-damp hands slapped onto either side of my neck, heaved me back against the headrest and squeezed. He was a fat fuck but he was strong—I was pinned in place and his fingers were digging deeper and deeper, crushing as much as strangling. I clawed at them, making choking sounds in my throat, but I couldn’t pry them loose. My windpipe narrowed, narrowed...and then I couldn’t breathe at all.
Vasiliy pulled a gun from a shoulder holster. A second later I felt the cold kiss of the metal against my temple. I met his eyes and saw an anger I’d never seen in all my years. He practically raised me, I remembered Irina saying.
Shit.
There was a metallic click as Vasiliy cocked the gun.
32
Angelo
There was a boom, but no pain. Maybe you don’t feel the one that kills you. My head didn’t hurt and even the crushing of my windpipe had stopped. Is this heaven?
For a second, I just sat there, dazed. Then I started to become aware of things. Mikhail was no longer gripping my neck and I could hear him screaming in the rear seat behind me. Vasiliy was trying to hunker down low in his seat, his gun still drawn but not pointed at me. And his pristine suit was sprinkled with glittering diamonds. I looked down. My suit was the same.
Then I saw the hole in the windshield. Not diamonds: glass.
I twisted and looked behind me. Mikhail was clutching his left ear, blood dripping from between his fingers. Behind him, there was a ragged hole through the leather seat at roughly head height.
I looked out of the windshield just as a flash of lightning lit up the construction site. Up on the second floor of one of the half-finished buildings was a dark shape: a man, lying full-length. Rico, with his favorite sniper rifle. He must have seen me staring at him through his scope because he lifted an arm and pointed frantically to the side. Go! Go!
I looked across at Vasiliy. He was still trying to hunker down beneath the level of the windshield, but he was swinging
his gun around to point at me again.
I dived out of the car and staggered across the gravel road. Immediately, gunshots cracked the air around me, some close enough that I could hear the hiss of the bullet. Not Vasiliy and Mikhail, the Russians who they’d brought with them. They were all around me. Shit!
The road was brightly lit by the Mercedes’s headlights: staying there was suicide. I ran into the darkness, panting with adrenaline, rain slicking my face. Almost immediately, I slipped and went full-length in the mud. That saved my life: a bullet aimed at my chest zipped over my head.
I started to crawl, but each time I put my hand down, it sank into the thick, black mud to the elbow. I gritted my teeth and forced my way onward, wincing as more bullets whistled overhead.
The ground was churned up by construction machinery, with countless ditches and potholes, some of them a few feet deep and many of them filled with rainwater. The storm had darkened the sky so much, I couldn’t tell what was mud, what was shadow and what was water. Every few steps, I’d suddenly find there was no ground and I’d lurch down into a hole with a bone-jarring thump. Only the softness of the mud saved me from breaking something. Other times, I’d suddenly find myself chest-deep in freezing water, desperately trying to free my legs from the mud so I could lift my face clear.
And the bullets never stopped coming. The only blessing was that my overcoat was black and, as long as I stayed low, I blended in with the darkness and the mud. With the rain still hammering down, the Russians must have been guessing where I was. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get lucky. Some of the bullets hit the mud horribly close to me. And over the hammering rain, I could hear running footsteps: the Russians were spreading out, searching for me....
I tried to crawl faster, but powering through the thick, sucking mud was exhausting. Already, my limbs felt like lead. The mud coated every part of me and it had oozed through my cashmere overcoat and thousand dollar suit to squish against my skin. The rain was flowing down my face and into my ears. I had no idea where I was or where the Russians were. I just had to keep crawling, crawling—
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