You never shit where you eat. We supplied guns to governments and paramilitary operations, but never to gangs and definitely never to a gang in Chicago. While there was no guarantee of preventing an innocent life being spilt by a government or paramilitary organization, at least it was usually avoided. That wasn’t the case with gangs. Innocent victims were a foregone conclusion. Dimitri and I were already rich men. We didn’t need that much blood money.
Dimitri ripped the foil off a fresh pack of Sobranie cigarettes and offered me one. I selected one of the black paper-wrapped and gold foil-tipped cigarettes. Digging into my pocket, I pulled out a lighter. After lighting my own, I held out the flame for him.
He took a long drag. “I received an odd phone call from Emma on the way over here. Is it true you are holding her best friend prisoner?”
I scoffed as I blew out a cloud of smoke. “My penthouse is hardly a prison. When I left Mary was unpacking the countless boxes of Fifi Chachnil lingerie I had ordered her from Paris while sipping hot chocolate. Trust me, she is not suffering under my care.”
Dimitri took a sip of his coffee. “So it’s true. What exactly is your endgame, Vaska?”
I turned to face him. “I don’t interfere with Emma. You don’t interfere with Mary.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You know I can’t stand by and let you hurt her. If you upset Mary, you upset Emma and I won’t allow anyone, even you, my friend, to upset my wife.”
I took a long drag off my cigarette before responding. Dimitri was my best and oldest friend but I would be damned if I’d let him interfere in any way with my relationship with Mary, regardless of his intentions. “I have warned you before, Mary is my concern, not yours.”
He flicked ash onto the filthy cement floor. “Should I be congratulating you?”
I smiled. “As soon as I can arrange it.”
Dimitri laughed. Tossing the remains of his cigarette aside, he pulled me into a bear hug. Clapping me on the back, he said, “I am happy for you. Although I think you will have your hands full.”
I winked. “That’s half the fun.”
He quickly sobered. “You may have to act fast.”
I was already having a custom-made engagement ring created for her as we spoke. I wasn’t a patient man, but I planned to give Mary at least till the end of the summer to come to terms with her new life as my wife. My brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”
“I saw Gregor last night at that art museum event. He was with Samara.”
I tossed my cigarette onto the cement and crushed it with my toe. “Really? So he finally found his runaway bride?”
The most powerful Russian families kept tabs on one another. It was no secret Gregor Ivanov had arranged to marry Samara Federov over three years ago by giving her father a tidy sum to handle his debts. The girl ran off in the middle of the night the moment she learned of the arrangement. He refused to let her go, chasing her and her friend clear across the United States and back these last three years. They’d had several close calls but the two girls always managed to slip their grasp.
He nodded. “Hiding out here in Chicago, no less. Gregor wants to meet with us in an hour. Trouble is coming.”
The man pleaded for mercy again. I looked over my shoulder to watch as his limp body swung back and forth, propelled by the punches to his gut. “Dovol’no. Ubey yego.”
Obeying my sharp command, they put a bullet in the thief’s head and prepared to dump the body. “What kind of trouble?”
Dimitri finished his coffee and crushed the cup in his fist. “Novikoffs are trying to claim Gregor’s woman. Apparently they made a second deal with her shifty as fuck father. We have intelligence they might already be in our territory. It could interfere with… business.”
The Novikoffs were a pain in everyone’s ass. Stupidity and violence were always a bad combination, and the Novikoff father and sons had both in spades, especially if they were in our territory without our permission. That kind of transgression could start a war no one wanted. Territory wars attracted the attention of the authorities, which was bad for business.
Two of our men dragged the thief’s dead body past us, as a third mopped up the bloody trail with a rag he pulled beneath his boots in their wake. I looked on with dispassionate interest. “Well, we know how we treat those who interfere with our business.”
“I’m having the safehouse prepared in case I need to protect Emma.”
“Good, I’ll be prepared to bring Mary there if necessary, as well.”
Dimitri chuckled.
I frowned. “What?”
He shook his head. “Better bring handcuffs… and maybe a small army.”
My friend probably wasn’t far off the mark. I knew Mary started her new job as a summer school teacher tomorrow. I doubt she would take lightly to me informing her she had to quit and hide out in a safehouse for a week or more till we determined the trouble had passed. It was a hard reality of being with me, one she would have to learn to accept. There would be times where her safety was more important than her career. Besides, I could always pay off any supervisors who tried to make trouble for her. Still, that didn’t mean Mary would be okay with the arrangement.
Maybe Dimitri was right, having a pair of handcuffs handy might be a good idea.
Just in case.
Chapter 25
Mary
One week later
“All right, class, who can tell me the function of the gravediggers in Act Five of Hamlet?”
No one raised their hand. It was okay. I enjoyed a challenge, and there were few things more challenging than a classroom of high school juniors forced into summer school. If I did well during this trial period, I hoped to secure a permanent position on the teaching staff.
“Open your copies of Hamlet and review,” I raised my voice over their groans, “Act Five, now. You have fifteen minutes then I expect an answer.”
I sat behind my desk and opened my lesson planner. I pretended to work, but really I was thinking of Vaska.
This last week had been surreal. It was like I was living in a fifties sitcom but with a Godfather mafia twist.
Every morning Vaska made me breakfast. We would eat it at an actual table, not over the sink or out of a paper bag, while he asked questions about my new job, and not half-ass boyfriend, I’m-only-asking-so-you-won’t-bitch-later questions that just feigned interest. Real questions. I made the mistake of reciprocating by asking him about his work and got treated to a blunt response about taking care of some guy who tried to steal from them and having to monitor an incoming shipment of super scary-sounding sniper rifles being smuggled in on a cargo ship from Africa. It gave a whole new definition to TMI.
It was strange. It was hard to be bothered by the criminal aspects of Vaska and Dimitri’s business when they were both so candid about it. You’d think they were just a couple of businessmen making widgets with how they talked about gun shipments and the street market price of the latest smuggled surface-to-air missile launcher. It was easy to fall into this false sense of complacency that what they did wasn’t that bad. And in reality, it wasn’t. They truly weren’t any worse than the average American CEO trying to make a buck. At least they weren’t taking advantage of cheap labor or stealing from pension funds or trying to get half of America addicted to opioids. All I was saying was there were probably worse things in this world than being an arms dealer. A sentence I never thought I would ever utter in my entire life.