Immaculate Deception

Chapter 4 Episode 4

Gennady rubs his chin. “And how do you plan to do that? All by yourself, Captain America?” He doesn’t go so far as to actually block the door, but he positions himself between me and it, trying to buy himself some time to keep talking me down.

I tap my hip where I keep my gun holstered. “I’ll manage. Get out of my way.”

He doesn’t budge. Gennady might be the only man alive who disregards my orders so regularly. He’s lucky he’s my best friend or else I’d make real on that peg leg threat.

“They have weapons, too, Dima,” he argues. “Zotov and the men who support him have claimed the main armory bunker. Right now, he’s more powerful than you are.”

I bristle at the suggestion, clenching my teeth. “That motherfucker is a scared little puppy. He doesn’t know what it takes to lead.”

“You’re not wrong. The dipshit wouldn’t be able to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel,” Gennady agrees. “But he is smart enough to point the dangerous end of the gun at you and make it go bang. He’s not playing around, Dima. And he’ll kill you if you charge in there trying to demand their respect. We have to be smart about this.”

Anger curdles in my chest. “I don’t demand anything,” I retort harshly. “I earn it. No one in the Bratva has hungered for a goddamn thing under my command. I provide. I lead. The smart thing to do would be to execute all these traitors for disloyalty. Make an example of them.”

He shakes his head. “We don’t have the firepower, Dima. They’ll kill you if you stick your head above ground.” He enunciates every word, trying to make the point clear.

I growl in wordless fury and spin around, kicking the leg of the coffee table. The entire thing tips over, spilling house plants, coasters, and bullets across the floor.

Adrenaline is coursing through my veins and I don’t have anywhere to put it. I’d like to put it in Zotov’s head with a f*****g bullet.

Or my bare hands, if that’s what it came down to.

But right now, it seems that’s not an option.

“My table isn’t the one revolting, you know,” Gennady grumbles. He bends down to scoop the spilled potting soil off his carpet. “Christ, that’s the third time this month you’ve made a mess in my apartment.”

“Zotov Stepanov,” I mutter under my breath, ignoring him. “f*****g coward. f*****g traitor. And who’s with him?”

Gennady rattles off a quick list of names as he continues to clean the mess. A few of my key lieutenants and their crews have thrown their weight in with the mutineers. A few others are already dead.

Soon enough, they all will be. I’m going scorched earth on anyone who thought betraying me was wise.

“I don’t know why the f**k they thought this was a good idea,” I growl.

When I snap my head back around to glare at him, he holds up his hands in surrender.

“It’s not an excuse, obviously. Just an explanation. They’re scared of the recent crackdowns from police and what it means for business. Partnering with the Albanians could lead us—”

“To f*****g disaster,” I finish. My top lip curls in disgust. “Beginning and end of story. That’s the only thing that matters. But if you need another, the Albanians would just as soon kidnap and sell your mother or sister off the street and sell her at auction like cattle. Is that what you want? You wanna see your family get bought by some Albanian f*****g pig?”

“I’ve been your best friend for a long time, Dima,” Gennady says. His voice is quiet. Almost mournful. “I want the same things you want.”

That makes me take pause.

Scowling, I pace across the room again and take a deep breath. I know Gennady is on my side. We’ve been through hell and back together more times than I can count. He’s one of the few people in my life I trust.

But a lot of the blame for this falls on him.

It was Gennady’s job to watch over Zotov and the other brigadiers. His job to ensure none of them became too powerful. That none of them thirsted for control.

He f****d up. And now he’s trying to fix it.

“Zotov is not a natural-born leader, but he is clever,” Gennady continues. “His plans escaped my notice, which means he’s organized and careful. That counts for something.”

Gennady is right. But it still doesn’t seem like enough reason for me to have to skip town.

“Has he spoken with the Albanians yet?” I demand. “Have they officially struck a deal?”

Gennady shakes his head. “Not yet. And I can assure you that intel is good. Zotov may have convinced the men under him to follow along, but it will be an uphill battle negotiating with the Albanians. They won’t cross you that fast. They know it could be the last thing they do.”

“f*****g right,” I mutter, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides. “I should have pushed back harder the first time they came to us. I should have killed the messenger to make my stance clear.”

“Human trafficking is big business. Men like Zotov will always be tempted by it,” Gennady says.

He’s right, of course. After all the criminal s**t the Bratva has done under my leadership, drawing a hard line at human trafficking was tough for my men to comprehend.

I saw innocent lives being desecrated.

But they don’t need to comprehend a damn thing. They just need to obey.

“f**k it. I’m going to go talk to him.” I swipe my car keys off the floor and start marching for the door.

“Hold on, Dima. We should—”

Gennady doesn’t even have a chance to finish his sentence before a huge explosion rocks the room.

I drop into an instinctive crouch and whip out my gun. Next to me, Gennady throws himself on the floor and finds his own weapon.

The windows rattle, the walls shake, and car alarms all down the street start going off.

“What the f**k was that?” I jump up and run to the window.

“Stay low!” Gennady is still sprawled in the middle of the room, though he’s getting back up to his feet now.

I scan the street below. People are coming out of their houses to figure out what the noise was. It isn’t hard to see.

A car on the street exploded.

There’s a smoking crater along the curb where it was parked. Foul black fumes are swirling up into the air and fire is licking at the charred metal remnants. Even the tires are completely melted, turning into a river of dark sludge creeping down into the storm drains.

I feel Gennady walk up behind me and look over my shoulder. “s**t, man. Is that—”

“My car,” I finish for him with a nod.

Gennady starts making calls immediately. But there’s no point, really. As soon as I see the ragdoll corpse sprawled at the side of what was once an absurdly expensive top-of-the-line Range Rover, the conclusion is obvious.

Zotov sent one of his men to rig my car with a bomb. Unfortunately for him, the i***t blew himself up in the process.

His plan didn’t work, but his intentions are now crystal clear: I’m under attack from my own men. We are long past the point of talking this out.

“It’s not running away,” Gennady sighs, handing me a burner phone and his car keys. “It’s regrouping. You need to get out of the city. We can’t put Zotov back in his place if you’re dead.”

“It sure as hell looks like I’m running. Feels that way, too.”

Gennady is ready to tear his hair out in frustration with my stubbornness. “Good! Great! Wonderful! Let them think you’re running. Hopefully, that means they’ll let their guard down. It will be easier to destroy them all if they think you aren’t a threat.”

I hate the idea that I’ll look weak, but Gennady is right. This tiny detour will give me the element of surprise.

Lull my enemies into complacency… then plant a knife right between their shoulder blades.

I look him in the eyes. “Fine,” I growl. “I’ll go. But I’m coming back very f*****g soon. And when I do return, I’m returning with a gun in each hand. Zotov is gonna suffer, sobrat. I swear it.”

Gennady nods solemnly. “You go alone for now. One man is less suspicious than a pair of us. I’ll be here gathering more intel. We’ll reconvene when the time is right.”

We shake hands. Then I use the fire escape in the back of his place to clamber out and down to the street.

Gennady’s car is parked on the other side of the block, thankfully, which means it wasn’t destroyed in the blast like mine. I eye the blast site mournfully.

Goddammit. I really loved that car.

As I get in Gennady’s sedan and drive away, I see squad cars squealing onto the scene and an ambulance pulling up along the curb.

And, out of the corner of my eye, I spy the last bloodied fragments of the poor i***t who apparently didn’t do so well in bomb school.

One less traitor to kill.

I’m not even a mile away when I notice a black SUV on my tail. I call Gennady.