Chapter Twenty
Dmitri
Alina’s was busy today, but she still found time to bring lunch into the private room where I sat with some of my most loyal men and tried to figure out a solution to our shipping problem.
Aside from my potential conviction, Henry Moss’s death was a real pain in my ass. I was depending on using his debt to me to compel him to transport my weapons from Detroit to New York City. The weapons were ready to be moved, and it wouldn’t be long before our suppliers grew impatient and started looking for someone else to sell to.
We had an arrangement that was dependent on my ability to get the weapons to the city and give them a percentage of the profit from selling them.
I would have preferred to wait to deal with this business after I figured out who the traitor was among my people, but I didn’t have the luxury of that kind of time. So, I was limiting information about my activities to only my closest men. My spies and brigadiers. And, of course, my treasurer and close advisor, Ivan.
At my table, I sat between Maxim and Lev. Ivan was at the table beside us with a brigadier named Abram. Abram headed my most efficient brigade. His crew was in charge of protection racketeering for several businesses in Brooklyn, and they were damn good at collecting money for services we never truly had to provide, considering that we already had control of the neighborhood.
That was part of the reason I tolerated his sister being here. Gina was probably hanging around in hopes of seeing Nikolay. I knew they’d broken up once again, which typical for them, but I also knew my best friend was likely to fall back into bed with her. She was like an addiction he just couldn’t quit.
Frankly, I didn’t see the appeal. Everything about Gina was fake, from the pout on her lips to her overinflated tits. She was bossy and entitled in a way that only a woman who had been spoiled her whole life could be.
I was sure she only wanted Nikolay because of his position in the Bratva. Women like her didn’t care about the men they were with. They cared about how they could benefit from the man they latched onto.
She’d even tried to get into my bed once, but I didn’t respond to her flirtation. She wasn’t my type at all. I preferred my women to have integrity and a more natural beauty.
Like Sarah.
At the thought of her, I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall next to the door. Nikolay called me thirty minutes ago to tell me about what happened at the gym, and I immediately ordered him to bring Alexis and Sarah here. I also had him arrange for the man who attempted to kidnap Alexis to be taken to a safehouse. I wanted to have a conversation with the bastard later and find out who he was working for.
For now, I was anxious for Sarah and Alexis to walk through that door. Nikolay assured me they were safe and uninjured, but I needed to see them both with my own two eyes before I could relax.
“The problem is we need someone to ship the weapons that we can control,” Maxim said, and I tried to force myself to focus on the conversation. “We can’t allow anyone to haveleverage over us, but I can’t see how we avoid it when working with someone providing transportation of illegal goods.”
I nodded. He was right. That was the reason Henry would have been perfect. Wehad the leverage in that situation because of his debt to the Bratva. Now, we had nothing but problems to solve.
“I’ve looked into acquiring trucks of our own,” Maxim continued, “but we need the legitimacy of an established shipping company to move product over state lines without attracting unwanted attention from authorities.”
All eyes at the table turned to me as my men waited for me to pull a solution out of my ass. I didn’t have one, but I would have kept the conversation going if the door didn’t open right at that moment.
The attention shifted from me to the three people who walked into the room. Nikolay led the way with Sarah and Alexis right behind him.
Alexis was in her mother’s arms, clinging to her neck as she took in her surroundings. The tip of her nose was red, and her eyes were red, as if she’d been recently crying.
Rage erupted inside me at the sight. I shifted my attention to Sarah. She didn’t look like she’d been reduced to tears, but there was something almost fragile about her. She was shaken by what happened at the gym.
Of course, she was. They both were.
I shared a quick look with Nikolay, and his curt nod told me that the man who caused all the trouble was secured at the safe house.
Good. I’d deal with him later.
This afternoon, Sarah and Alexis had my attention. In fact, I’d just walked away from a table of my top men discussing a serious problem without a second thought. I could feel them still watching me, probably shocked.
I always put business first. It was what my old man taught me, and despite my loathing of the man, some lessons stuck with me.
I couldn’t blame my men for being surprised as I led Sarah and Alexis away from everyone else. There was an entrance to the kitchen in this private room, and I pushed through the swinging door, my hand on the small of Sarah’s back to guide her along.
She stuck with me without questioning it, and something inside me settled. She was putting trust in me.
Alina was in the kitchen, along with two cooks. One stood at a grill, and the other was in front of three deep fryers. Alina was taking a sheet of cinnamon buns out of the oven. She looked over at us with a raised eyebrow.
“The kitchen is no place for a child,” she said, but she smiled when her eyes shifted to Alexis.