start with who you are and what you need?” I asked, flipping my binder open. I ran my pen down the page until I got to the name I was searching for.
Alex Delacourt, Prez of the Dark Knights Motorcycle Club. He ran the New York Charter, and from the information laid out in front of me, he was currently in a turf war with another rival MC—the Scavengers.
After dropping Tatiana off at the café for her trial shift, I’d headed straight for my meetings with the prospective clients Aleksandr had mentioned. It was a good distraction, something I desperately needed at this point.
Last night had been tortuous for a number of reasons. Walking away from a naked and willing Tatiana had to be just about the hardest thing I’d ever had to fucking do. Every part of my body literally screamed for her. I craved her soft, smooth skin, the taste of her pussy, the feel of her wrapped around my cock, squeezing it with an almost painful pleasure. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy, though.
Tatiana was prepared to give me her body but not her heart. Her soul. Parts of her would never be enough for me. I wanted every single fucking inch. I wanted her laughs. Her smiles. Her sassy as fuck attitude. I wanted to be the one she could rely on, trust again.
I still wasn’t sure how I was going to make that happen yet. So far, my only plan was to just be there. To constantly smother her with my presence and prove to her I wasn’t going anywhere. That I planned to be right there, at her side for as long as it took for me to gain her trust again. Or die trying.
Alex took a drag of the cigar at his lips, blowing out a ring of smoke. He was wearing his cut: a black, leather motorcycle vest and a pair of ripped denim jeans. He was on the older side. Late forties, with short chestnut hair and dark grey eyes.
“Your little clipboard there doesn’t tell you everything you already need to know, sport?” he asked, giving me a condescending look.
I had every bit of information there was available on him and his MC, from both public and private sources. But I wanted something more than I could find online or from word of mouth. We didn’t work with people we didn’t know or trust. Doing that shit got you killed, or worse, caught and thrown in jail. It was imperative I find out exactly what kind of man Alex was, whether he was the trustworthy type. The type who would keep his mouth shut and not rat out where he got his supplies from if he ever got caught by the cops.
I levelled my gaze on him, staring him down. He thought because he was older than me, that it gave him the right to speak to me like I was a child. To not give me the respect I was due. The respect my position demanded.
He cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter and avoiding my eyes. I’d been told that people found me intimidating, especially when I was glaring at them for stepping out of line.
“I’m Alex Delacourt, and I’m the President of the Dark Knights Charter here in NYC.”
“Very good,” I nodded. “And what kind of ordnance are you looking for?”
“AK-47s, MP4s, some single-shot handguns, combat knives and bowie knives.”
I wrote them down next to his name as he spoke, doing a mental tally of the inventory I knew we had available already.
“We’re in the middle of a turf war at the moment and I want them for—”
I raised a hand in the air, silencing him. “I don’t need to know what you want them for. I just need to know how many and when you need them by.”
“I’ll need a case of each by the end of the week.”
It was definitely doable. We had everything he was asking for and I could easily organise delivery. The question remained though: was he the type of man we wanted to do business with?
“Deposit for such an order would be fifty grand.”
“Deposit?” he frowned. “I never needed to pay a deposit when I worked with Valentino.”
“Valentino took risks. That’s why his ass is sitting in federal prison right now. The Bratva do not take risks. If you want to work with us, it will be on our terms, our rules. You can take it or leave it.”
His lips pursed in obvious distaste. He was used to being the man in charge, dictating his own rules. Not having them forced upon him. Especially by someone who was his junior. Men like him hated listening to anyone younger than them.
“Fine. You have a deal. I can wire you the money.”
I shook my head. “Cash only. We don’t leave a paper trail.”
Annoyance flared in his eyes and he grumbled under his breath, “Valentino always did wire transfers.”
I made a quick note and then shut my binder, putting the lid back on my pen. I took a deep breath, tapping my fingers together as I studied him closely. My gut was telling me that he couldn’t be trusted. Based on this one, small interaction, I could tell he acted impulsively, that he let his emotions get the better of him. Coupled with the fact that he didn’t like being told what to do—and he had a problem taking orders from anyone younger than himself—and it meant working with him was a recipe for disaster.
I could only imagine what would happen if Lukyan tried telling him what to do.
He was the worst type of client.
“I’m going to be frank with you, Mr Delacourt. The Bratva will not be doing business with you.”
He blinked, waiting for me to elaborate. When I didn’t, his confusion turned to anger. “Is this a joke? Because if it is, it isn’t funny.”
“I don’t joke.”
He abruptly got to his feet, his chair crashing to the ground. “Who the fuck do you think you are, boy?” he hissed. He pressed his hands flat against the surface of the table and leant forward, trying to intimidate me by getting in my personal space. “Now you listen to me, you little shit. If you think—”
I jumped up and smashed his face down onto the table, my fingers gripping the back of his neck tightly. He struggled, grunting with excretion, but the grip I had on his nape made it impossible for him to escape.
“Now you listen to me,” I whispered darkly in his ear, “I don’t take kindly to threats, or being treated with disrespect.” I pulled out a knife and held it right in front of his eye. He stiffened, going deadly still. “I want you to pick your next words very carefully, Mr Delacourt, because what you say next will determine whether or not you walk out of here alive.”
He swallowed nervously, his gaze locked on the knife millimeters away from piercing his eye. If he so much as flinched, he’d lose it.
“I apologise.”
“For?” I pressed. Apologises didn’t mean a damn thing unless you knew what you were apologising for.
“For talking to you like shit, okay?! Let me go.”
I held him for a few seconds longer, just so that he understood I wasn’t letting him go because he demanded it. That I was doing it because I chose to.
My grip loosened and he flung himself back, putting distance between us. I saw the exact moment that he decided to make a move flash across his face, his hand moving to his waist.
“Do it and I’ll kill you before you even get the chance to pull that gun,” I warned, my muscles tensing in preparation.
His hand hovered in the air right next to his hip, his fingers moving back and forth slightly like he was just itching to pick it up. We stood there, staring at each other like we were in an old-fashioned western duel, just waiting to see who would make the first move. It would take him half a second to clasp his gun. Another two seconds to pull it out and aim it at me. Plenty of time for me to kill him before he got a shot off.
Alex growled in frustration, all but slamming his foot as he stood down. I kept my guard up, watching him closely.
“You’ve made a big mistake, boy,” he sneered. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with. You’ll never get work in this city again. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Really?” I drawled. “I guess New York will now be the safest city in the world then, won’t it? Since there’ll be no more guns coming in at all.”
He frowned.
“You look confused. Allow me to elaborate.” I threw my knife, the blade sinking deep into his thigh.
He screamed, dropping to the ground and clutching his thigh, blood seeping through his fingers. “What the fuck?!” He reached for his gun and I rushed forward, kicking it out of his hand.
I flattened him on his back with a boot to the chest. “Valentino’s operation has crumbled, and now we’ve laid claim to his territory. Do you know what happens when you interfere in Bratva business?” I applied more pressure, grinding my foot deep into his sternum. He choked, gasping for air, his hands clutching at me with desperation. “You die.” I whipped out my gun and pressed it into his forehead, pulling the hammer back.
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” he rasped, his pupils swallowed by fear. “Please.”
A word like that from a man like him would have been extremely difficult to utter.
I had two options before me. Kill him, or show mercy. Usually, mercy was something I did not possess. But in situations like this, I thought five moves ahead. Killing him now with no one to witness it, or understand the reason as to why, would only cause more problems for us. We had a lot of shit to worry about. We didn’t need to add another enemy onto our list.
I leant forward until we were face to face, making him look at me dead in the eyes. “Understand something, Mr Delacourt. No matter how big or tough you think you are, you are nothing compared to the Bratva. Our reach is infinite. We have people everywhere, some even within your own organisation. You get in our way and you and everyone in your little club will be killed in the most horrific way imaginable. And I have a very vivid imagination. Do I make myself clear?”
“Y-yes,” he groaned.
“Excellent.” It was so much easier when they understood the gravity of the situation.
I stood to my full height, finally taking my foot off his chest. He gulped in a huge breath of air and curled up on his side, moaning in pain. “It is a shame we could not do business. One of the few things we do not tolerate is disrespect, and you had that in abundance. Perhaps you can use this as a lesson for next time.”
“How are things going?” I asked Aleksandr through the phone as I sped through the streets of downtown New York.
He grunted, the typical response my brother gave for pretty much everything. “The same. There’s still no word on Father or Dominik. It’s like they literally just disappeared into thin air. Any luck on your side?”
“None.” I switched lanes and took a right turn, my hands gliding over the wheel. “None of my facial recognition programs have picked up anything. Thousands of possibilities, but that’s about it.”
“Do you think it’s possible they’ve left the country?”
“No. I’ve got all our contacts in the airports on high alert for him, and he doesn’t own a private plane. He could try to hire one but I have that flagged. If anyone tries to charter a plane matching his description, I’ll be notified.”
“Then where the fuck is he?” Aleksandr growled. Something clattered over the phone, most likely my brother kicking or hitting something out of sheer frustration. Then a light, feminine voice started yelling at him in Spanish. Drea.
‘Eja de romper mierda. Acabo de limpiar el piso, imbécil!’ Stop breaking shit! I just cleaned the floor, asshole!
‘Es mi casa maldita, yo romperé todo lo que quiero romper!“ It’s my goddamn house. I’ll break anything I want to break! He yelled back in Spanish.
‘¿Quieres dormir fuera?! Di un puto mundo más.’ You want to sleep outside?! Say one more fucking word.
My brother grumbled under his breath, “You can’t make me sleep outside, crazy woman.”
‘¿Que ha sido eso?!“ What was that?!
“Nothing!” he growled.
‘Eso es lo que pense.“ That’s what I fucking thought.
I laughed, the entire conversation amusing the absolute fuck out of me. “She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”
“You don’t even know the half of it, mladshiy brat, little brother.”
“You sound happy though. Apart from all the screaming, that is.”
“I am happy. Well, as happy as I can be, given everything that’s been going on lately. How did the meetings with prospective clients go?”
I gave him a run down on everything. I’d only had time to meet with two of them so far. Alex Delacourt and Max Ines. Alex was not someone we would ever work with, now or in the future, but Max was. He was respectful, didn’t try to step out of place or dictate to me how things should be done and didn’t seem like the type that would ever rat out his suppliers.
“Alright, so we’ll organise an order for Max and Alex is out. What about the other three?”
I drove into the underground parking lot of the apartment complex and parked the car, but I kept the engine running. “I haven’t had a chance to sit down with them yet, but I’ll do it some time over the next few days.”
“Hustle on that. I need you back here in three days.”
“What for?”
“You really need me to remind you?”
I frowned. What could he be talking about? Then it hit me.
“Oh.” Guilt smothered me.
“Don’t feel guilty,” he said instantly. My brother knew me too well. “There’s been so much shit going on lately. I’m not surprised you forgot. You only need to be here for the night, then you can go back to Tatiana the following morning.”
“Of course I’ll be there.”
Even though he told me not to feel guilty, I still did. What kind of son forgot his own mother’s birthday? It had become a family tradition to spend her birthday together. We all sat around eating junk food and watching all of her favourite TV shows. It would be the first time in seven years my father was not there. The tradition didn’t start until after he got back from his killing spree.
“I know you’ll be nervous to leave Tatiana—”
“No, no, it’s fine,” I cut in. “Things have progressed and we actually have a plan set in motion to catch Franco and some of his men. It’s not set to go down for another week, so I have time. There’s nothing Tatiana can do until then, so timing wise, it’s actually kind of perfect. She’ll just be preparing for classes and working at the café. Nothing too dangerous that requires a bodyguard.”
“I’m sorry, I thought I just heard you say she’s working at a café?”
“I did. That’s what I said.”
“Tatiana?”
“Yes.”
“Tatiana Andreeva?”
“Is there another Tatiana you know that I’m not aware of? Yes, fucking Tatiana Andreeva.”
A beat of silence…then full on laughter. “You’re joking.”
“Shut the fuck up before I fly down there and knock your teeth out,” I growled. “She’s going at it on her own and that deserves some fucking respect. I’m proud of her and—”
“Calm down, calm down. I’m sorry for offending your woman. It was a knee-jerk reaction. Picturing her in a café making coffee and serving people? Come on, I’m sure even you laughed at that image.”
“No, I fucking didn’t.”
Liar.
“Uh-huh. Okay.” He fucking knew I was full of shit.
“Was there anything else you wanted? Or has your mission been accomplished now that you’ve pissed me off?”
“Mission accomplished. I’ll see you in three days.”
“Actually, before you go, is Drea there?”
“Why?” he asked suspiciously.
“I just need to ask her something. Girl advice, you know?”
I knew my brother well enough to know he was narrowing his eyes.
“Just put her on the fucking phone, Zander.”
“Fine. Malyshka! Here, Nikolai wants to talk to you.”
Rustling came through the phone, then I heard her voice.
“Hey. What’s going on?”
“Do you want to chuck me on speaker so Aleksandr can hear me too?”
“Okay. There you go. What’s up?”
“Aleksandr called you a crazy woman and said you couldn’t make him sleep outside.”
“Hey!” Aleksandr shouted.
“Oh, really?” Drea drawled. “What else did he say?”
“Shut your mouth, Nikolai!” he yelled, his voice slowly getting softer and softer with each word, like the phone was moving further away from him. “Drea, you get back here and give me that phone!”
I laughed and hung up. That’s what you get for making fun of my woman.
Drea was definitely a “no nonsense” kind of woman. The type that didn’t put up with any crap from her partner, even if he was five times the size of her.
I hoped she did make his ass sleep outside. Ahhh, what a sight that would be.
I turned off the engine and got out of the car, stretching my body with a groan. The day had been a long and tedious one, and it was only 2 p.m. It was partly my fault, though. I had tried to cram so much into such a short amount of time that I’d been moving non stop since I woke up that morning. But I was determined to succeed and finish the plan I’d come up with late last night, and nothing was going to fucking stop me.
I opened the trunk and stared inside, hands on my hips. I only had an hour before I had to go and pick up Tatiana. How the fuck am I going to do this?
