Four deep glasses of vodka in approximately two minutes. Angie was feeling it. He should have eaten a bigger lunch, but he’d been too distracted by the work of the evening. He’d skipped breakfast, too—unless you counted the scotches Simone had served him on the plane. Scotch for breakfast, and vodka for lunch. His constitution was pretty robust, but that was asking a lot of it.
Trey and Tony looked okay, but they’d eaten both meals better. Also, they were younger, but Angie wasn’t ready to admit that could make a difference. Forty-nine was barely middle-age.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Kuzma was holding his damn glass out again. Were these guys really on their side? When Trey poured again, the neck of the bottle rattled lightly against the edge of Kuzma’s glass. He wasn’t so steady after all.
That settled it. Angie was making everybody heave all this potato juice up after the Ukies left.
Now Myko took his turn toasting. “Za Lyubov,” he said, and then translated in a surprisingly smooth English, “To love.”
Which seemed like a strange toast for six men in a Hilton suite, but whatever. Angie tossed the vodka down his throat. Whew.
When Kuzma took the bottle himself and began to fill the glasses again, Angie couldn’t help but chuckle. They were so fucked, but he didn’t care as much as he probably should.
His chuckle was contagious; Tony and Trey picked it up. The Ukies smirked in a way Angie might have taken offense at, but he wasn’t in the mood for mayhem.
Kuzma sat down and nodded at Angie. “Now you. What toast you make?”
Oh, why the hell not.
Still chuckling, Angie raised his glass. “Cent’anni!”
“Cent’anni!” Tony and Trey replied, and everyone drank.
Finally, Kuzma slammed his glass on the table, and his men did the same. “What it means, chentanny?”
“Cent’anni. One hundred years—it’s a wish for a century of good luck.”
“Ah. Good toast. Not good like ours, but good.” He slapped his hands. “Now, we talk.”
Okay. Hold up. They were sitting in a Kyiv hotel room. Why? Because they had a plan to kill Yuri Bondaruk … There were a lot of Ks in Ukie names; he was just noticing that. Jesus Christ, FOCUS. There were here to kill Yuri, and it was not just a simple hit. They meant to wipe him and his people off the fucking map. On their home turf. In their actual home.
That was what Nick wanted. To violate Bondaruk’s home the way they’d violated the Cove.
These people here, these Zelenkos? They’d been instrumental in that hit on the Cove. They’d been working with the Bondaruks—had, in fact, been the primary face of the Bondaruk moves in the States. But, with the help of the Romano Family in New York, Donnie had flipped them, and now they were allied with the Italians. Serving their own interests, looking now to feed on the carcass of the Bondaruk bratva.
Drinking to test an alliance was one thing, but what if the opposite were the case? He was sitting here letting these flip-flopping, two-faced Ukie sons of bitches incapacitate him and his whole small team. Fuck no.
Angie stood. “Excuse me a minute, fellas.” He waved vaguely toward the bathroom and headed in that direction, demanding his legs stay steady.
Locking himself in, he turned the taps on full blast, crouched before the toilet, and shoved his fingers down his throat until he sicked up all that treacherous vodka. Or whatever they’d called it. Then he plunged his face into a sinkful of cold water.
Dazed and ill, but feeling like his thoughts were hooking up again, he straightened out his clothes and hair, dried off, and went back to conduct this meeting properly.
If these Zelenko sons of bitches tried to flip on them in the midst of this hit, he’d eat their livers with fava beans and a nice chianti.
“Okay, gentlemen,” he said as he took his seat again. “Let’s talk.” There was a tall glass of ice water where his vodka glass had been. He assumed that had been either Trey or Tony’s call, because the Ukies looked like they had more vodka, and his men had water. Good.
~oOo~
It had taken months to put in place, and had countless moving parts in the preparation and, in Angie’s opinion, too many variables in the execution, but the plan itself, on paper, was simple. Tonight was Yuri Bondaruk’s seventieth birthday. A large party was planned for the following weekend, but on this night, according to his tradition, he was having dinner at home, with his men.
Every man of note in the Bondaruk bratva would be at Yuri’s table tonight.
They were going to kill them all.
On paper, simple.
Yuri did not make his home in a normal house in a regular neighborhood. He had a small compound, heavily guarded behind a tall fence and an iron gate.
This was where the Zelenkos came in. They had become—and, as far as Yuri knew, still were—important Bondaruk allies. Yuri and Ilya had grown close. Ilya and Kuzma had been invited to sit at his table tonight. Their body men would thus be, of course, invited into the compound as well.
Assuming the Zelenkos were truly on the Italians’ side now, Kuzma and their guards would neutralize the Bondaruks at the table, leaving Yuri alive for Angie to deal with. Angie, Tony, and Trey would handle the exterior guards, at the gate and the perimeter.
The Zelenkos had also provided the weaponry, from knives to AKs. After Kuzma and his drinking buddies had left the Hilton, after he’d made Tony and Trey puke their guts out, Angie had insisted they all take apart and rebuild every goddamn gun, ensuring each one worked properly. They did.
So far, then, so good.
Angie, Tony, and Trey had trained for months in what Angie still called Tony’s John Wick room, though he’d developed a wholehearted appreciation for the training those scenarios could provide. They were ready for sneak attacks and all-out war. They were ready.
As long as they weren’t betrayed by the Zelenkos, they were ready.
~oOo~
Tony and Trey wore stealth gear, all the way to black beanies on their heads. Angie did not. He meant to be just as stealthy, but he also meant to walk into Yuri Bondaruk’s house through the front door, as Don Nicolo Pagano’s strong fist. So he wore a black suit—one of his more basic versions, those he kept for when he knew he’d likely get messy—and a black dress shirt, cut loose to accommodate one of the vests the Zelenkos had helpfully provided with the weapons.
After he snugged a black silk tie at his throat, he looked like a serious businessman about to conduct serious business.
In the sitting room, he fastened a gun belt around his waist—he hated gun belts, but that was what he had—slipped a 9mm into the holster, holstered a .32 at his ankle, and checked the sheaths on his knives. Over it all, he slipped on a black cashmere top coat, because January in Ukraine was fucking cold.
Tony and Trey stood there like statues, covered head to toe in black.
“You ready, Ninja Twins?” he asked.
They nodded, and Angie picked up one of the gun bags. “Get the other, and let’s motor.”
~oOo~
Luckily, Ukrainians drove on the right, like God intended. Angie drove the little Renault out of Kyiv, following the GPS, preprogrammed by the Zelenkos. They were putting a hell of a lot of trust in a provably unreliable ally, and worry nagged at Angie. He was naturally suspicious—he had to be to do his job—and all his Spidey senses were tingling.