There was laughter around the room, and all of us dug into the food. Alina was a hell of a cook. I didn’t just put her in charge of this place and name it after her because she was family. The place did well because she used old recipes passed down through her family for several generations to create classic Russian dishes that the public loved.
I made this a meeting place for the Bratva a long time ago because I found that discussing business over a good mealwas helpful when dealing with tough situations and making hard decisions.
We were all quiet for a while as we ate, but there were things to deal with. So, I broke the silence.
“Give me a status update, Lev.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary in my brigade. The gambling den in the basement of the bar on 12th Street had a small incident where a patron attacked one of our workers, but he was taken care of.”
“How?”
“I broke both of his thumbs. Sent a message to him and everyone else that no one is to put their hands on our people, no matter how much money they lose.”
I nodded.
Nikolay and Maxim filled me in on what was going on in the other brigades, but things were running smoothly for the most part. The only issue was that police were cracking down on drug use in clubs, which was affecting our profitable drug trade.
“We should consider trying to specifically reach college-aged customers. We can have people push product at parties on or near campus at Brooklyn College. If we want to expand our customer base, that’s the way to do it,” Maxim said.
“I’ll put some men on it,” Lev said.
“Anything else we need to discuss?” I asked.
Ivan shot Lev a significant look. They were trying to be discreet, but I saw it anyway.
“What is it?” I asked, looking directly at Ivan.
“I told Lev he should tell you—”
“It’s not important,” Lev cut in, but the hard set of his jaw told a different story.
“What is it?” I asked again, directing the question at Lev this time and putting a little bite into it.
Lev sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “It’s not important. It’s just… nearly twenty years have passed since my old man went away.”
I thought back to when his father was arrested for murder and sentenced to thirty-five years. I was only eighteen at the time, and my father was still in charge of the Bratva. I didn’t know many of the details, but I knew Yuri was found guilty of murdering a man by running him over with his car. I wasn’t privy to the details as to why because my father didn’t want me to be a part of it, but I always suspected something was amiss about the whole thing. Now that I was Pakhan, I could investigate it more thoroughly, and maybe I would, when I wasn’t so busy being tried for crimes I didn’t commit.
Lev had issues with his father, mostly because he’d been in prison for most of his life, going away when Lev was only eight years old and leaving Alina to raise Lev on her own. But I also suspected he was difficult to live with before he was locked up, which would make sense because he was my father’s brother. Maybe they were bothabusive assholes.
“Are you saying he’s up for parole?” I asked.
Lev nodded. “Yeah. In three months.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I didn’t have anything else to say about it at the moment, but I would try to learn more about Yuri’s murder case before he was released, even if I had to go to the prison and demand he tell me himself.
I turned to Maxim. “You find out anything about the license plate on the van?”
No one else looked confused about what I was talking about, so I assumed Maxim had already filled them in on what happened to Sarah in the grocery store parking lot last night and that she was staying with me.
Nikolay woulddefinitelycorner me to ask about what was going on soon.
“It was a dead end. The license plate on the van was stolen. So, there’s no proving who the men in the ski masks were, but I checked in with my sources close to Baldoni.”
Intelligence was important for both Maxim and Nikolay to do their jobs within the Bratva. They went about gathering information in different ways. Nikolay was a computer whiz, a hacker. Maxim was more focused on people, developing a network of those who could give him information without directly being a part of the Italian mafia. This included waitresses, bartenders, homeless people, and hookers.
“What have you heard?” I asked.
“It seems that Baldoni is mobilizing his men, preparing them for something big.”
“Perhaps a hostile takeover of Brooklyn,” I suggested.
“That’s my thought. I think they are getting ready to make a move when you go to prison, something they must think is guaranteed since they threatened the star witness to get her to say she saw you do it.”
“Is she going to do it?” Nikolay asked. “Is she going to testify the way they want her to?”
I pushed my plate away and sighed. “Not if I have anything to do with it,” I said. I was not going to prison forsomething that I didn’t do. But more importantly, I wasn’t going to let Sarah lie under oath and potentially risk her own freedom.