Chapter Seven
Dmitri
Ihad a headache. Resting my elbows on the desk in front of me, I rubbed my temples with my thumb and forefinger while my other hand squeezed a stress ball I kept at my office of the construction company.
I spent a lot of time here, leaning into the cover provided by this legitimate business. It was what I told people my job was, but the truth was that I didn’t do shit for the construction company. My office was a home base for me and my work with the Bratva, and I had well-paid managers to run the actual construction side of things.
“You look like hell,” my brother said from the doorway, and I looked up with a frown.
“Thanks a lot.”
He snickered as he walked in and took a seat in one of the two chairs in front of my desk. My office was huge, with a separate, more relaxed sitting area on the other side of the room with two couches and a couple of armchairs. I had a wet bar over there too, stocked with the best liquor money could buy.
“What’s bothering you?” Maxim asked.
“Headache,” I grunted. “The kind that feels like my head is in a vice.”
“You’ve always gotten stress headaches. What triggered it?”
I sighed. “The fucking Italians, of course. I think they must have an informant within our organization. They knowthings about our operation and plans that they just shouldn’t know.”
“Has something new happened?”
“I talked to Lev. I’ve had him quietly investigating why our new nightclub wasn’t approved by the department of buildings last month. It turns out that the Italians bribed the inspector to fuck with our plans.”
It infuriated me when the inspector from the department rejected our permit, citing issues that didn’t really exist in the old meatpacking plant I wanted to convert. I hated having to do things by the book, but it was necessary when I was determined to work within the confines of the law.
I wanted this nightclub. Not only would it be another legitimate business for the Bratva, but it was supposed to become an iconic representation of my family. The name Gorsky already had power in Brooklyn, but I wanted this club right in the center of the borough to be a symbol of our hold and importance in our own territory.
I was sure it’d be highly profitable too, which was exactly what I needed right now. The construction business was a good cover, but I needed another legitimate business to launder the large amount I would soon have coming in when I started receiving my arms shipment from Detroit.
But the damn Italians were proving to be a problem, and I didn’t want to go ahead with the plan just yet. Not until I got a handle on what they were up to.
“We need to try to find a spy of our own,” I said. “There must be someone within their organization that can be turned.”
Maxim looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll look into it. There are bound to be weaknesses in their criminal empire. Baldoni has really shaken things up in the past few months.”
He had a good point. Luca Baldoni just took over as head of the Italian mafia in New York four months ago after killing his father, the previous don. It was a messy situation, a takeover that was supported by some of the men in their syndicate, but not all. His father, Dario, was a strong leader, one that commanded respect. The fact that his thirty-year-old son murdered him to take over the mafia didn’t sit well with some of Dario’s loyal followers.
I didn’t have an informant in the inner circle of the Baldoni mafia, but I heard things just the same. I knew there was unrest among them. Luca had maintained his power because he built up a core group of men that supported him, and he put them in top positions within his mafia. It had kept him protected so far, but it also pissed off people who were older and held power under the previous don.
Maybe I could exploit the situation for my own purposes.
I was contemplating that when I heard a commotion outside of my office. My ‘secretary’, Eliza, was from an old family that had been a part of the Bratva since my grandfather ran things. She was the daughter of one of my brigadiers. She had no role in the Bratva, but I paid her to act as my secretary as a favor to her father.
In reality, she played on her phone and shopped online most of the day, like any woman in her early twenties would with little responsibility and access to her daddy’s credit card. That was all fine by me. All I needed her for was to make sure no one came into my office when I was conducting business. Eliza had no shortage of attitude, and anyone who worked with me knew Iexpected her to be shown respect, so she usually had no problem running interference with any of my men who wanted to see me at an inopportune time.
But from what I could hear through the closed door, someone was giving her trouble today.
“You can’t go in there!” Eliza’s voice was firm, but there was an edge to it that I’d never heard before. She sounded worried. “Mr. Gorsky isn’t available right now!”
I was already out of my chair and coming around my desk when I heard an unfamiliar voice respond to her.
“Get out of the way, lady, or I’ll move you myself.”
Anger surged through me as I rushed to the door with Maxim right behind me. Someone was trying to invade my office, and they were going to learn that fucking with me was a big mistake.
Ripping open the door, I glared at the two men standing over my secretary, obviously trying to intimidate the young woman who was about a foot shorter than both of them.