“Neither am I.” He said.
Chapter Forty
Rodion
Alessia dozed off in thecar, and I took her to bed. She always had a way of keeping me off balance. I bent business plans around the chaos she dumped on my plate. With her, the world outside dissolved to nothing but us. But once I stepped back into my office, the stress of the untouched business came crashing in.
I dropped into my chair with a sigh. The work was stacked. A flight to Florida was waiting, along with the task of driving Dmitri out of the business there. Shipments piled up, one already rerouted in New York. Matvet used to cover the cracks, but now he was laid up in a clinic, caught between painkillers and rehab.
We never spoke about his accident. He tried to mention Dmitri, and I shut down the topic.
Earlier, Pavel had emailed the files of the last man on the list of seven men that Dmitri had been after. He was the only survivorof Luigi’s cleaning spree. We kept him hidden, bait for Dmitri to emerge from the shadows. But the deeper we dug about the man, the more he stank. He wasn’t just a survivor; he had ties to my father’s old rival, a man the Bratva had marked for death years ago. That meant he wasn’t just a witness. He was an enemy.
I left the office and headed for the clinic. The hallway was silent, stripped bare after the murder earlier. Most of the relatives had left. There would be war brewing from this, but I didn’t give a damn.
When I stepped inside the clinic, the bed where I last left Matvet was empty. My jaw locked tight. I pulled out my phone and dialed the doctor.
“Did you discharge Matvet?”
“No, boss. We moved him to his quarters,” she replied.
“Why the fuck wasn’t I informed?”
“You weren’t around. He requested it himself, saying we needed to keep beds open in case your relatives came in for treatment.”
I hung up and headed for Matvet’s quarters. The two guards at the door stepped aside on my arrival. It was dead hush inside. At this hour, he should be asleep.
As I turned to leave, a door creaked and Matvet hobbled out, leaning on two walking sticks. He still had a thick white bandage around his leg.
“Boss,” he said.
I stared at him, one brow lifted. “You look like standing another second would snap you in half.”
He chuckled and eased into the sofa. I waited till he settled, then dropped onto the seat across from him.
“Is this some kind of dramatized retirement I wasn’t made aware of?” I asked.
He pointed at the cast on his leg. “Tell the doctor to take this shit off. She doesn’t believe me when I say I’m fine.”
I stared at the leg longer. The bone was clearly broken, and he still needed time to heal. If he pushed it now, he would make things worse, and I wasn’t about to deal with that kind of setback.
“How’s the catch?” he asked.
“Haven’t caught him yet.” He nodded once, knowing the answer. I leaned forward. “So, how did you get that clip?”
“Dmitri gave it.”
That name scraped against my skull every time I heard it. “How?”
“That night I was attacked,” he said. “Renat’s men outnumbered me. Some were ours, while others were purchased from outside. Before I blacked out, a man on a bike appeared. He fought them off until they scattered.”
All this didn’t add up. If it had been Dmitri, he wouldn’t have saved Matvet. He would have turned the knife deeper because Matvet was my right-hand man, the one I trusted. Losing him would’ve sent me a message clearer than words.
Matvet continued. “He gave me an old phone with the recording.”
I shifted. “And how did you know it was Dmitri?”
He let out a quick chuckle. “Dmitri was the only one who ever called me Matteo.” He wasn’t wrong. Back when I trained with Dmitri, Matvet was always lurking around, never on good terms with Dmitri. “He wanted you to have it.”