Eileen
“I really don’t like this,” Ian whispers.
We’re surveilling the Donovan mansion from across the street, discreetly parked between two neighbors’ cars. The lights are off, and we sit in complete darkness, monitoring Kuznetsov’s security movements.
“I know Mr. Karpov reluctantly agreed to this, but I still don’t like it,” Ian insists.
“And you have every reason not to. Nevertheless, I have to do this, Ian. Before all hell breaks loose, before Anton and Andrei bring out the big guns, I have to at least try to talk to Ciara, to see if there’s a way we can stop Sergei from the inside.”
“We haven’t exhausted our other options yet.”
“Come on, Ian. We both know that every day that goes by that Ciara is out of my reach translates into one day closer to doomsday,” I reply. “If something happens to her, the Donovan boys won’t give a shit about the Kuznetsov’s firepower. I know those men better than Sergei. This could escalate within hours into something unstoppable. Any other options won’t be on the table anymore, and Anton knows it. That’s why he agreed to this. Reluctantly, but he still agreed.”
He sighs deeply. “Alright. Fair enough. She’s still your family, and I know Mr. Karpov would do the same to reach his brother if they were in your situation. I can get you through the service door, but you will have no protection in there.”
“Do we know if there are any Donovan men left in there?”
“Only Kuznetsov soldiers for the time being. I photographed and documented each of them. We’ve yet to find Paddy, by the way. Still in the wind.”
“What about his family?”
“They claim they don’t know anything. They’re either lying to protect him, or they honestly don’t know where he is.”
I look toward the house, noticing two guards stationed outside the gates. “Do we have a location for Ciara within the mansion?”
“Yes,” Ian replies as he hands me a pair of military-grade binoculars. “First floor, west corner.”
“Ah. That’s Dad’s study,” I mutter as I look through the binoculars and spot movement in that window. Judging by the size of the shadow, it’s definitely Ciara. “I wonder if she’s alone.”
“Here’s the panic button,” Ian says, slipping the small device into my jacket pocket. “All you need to do is press it, and in less than ninety seconds, police will be knocking down the front door. We’re prepared to make quite a scene in order to get you out.”
I give him a warm smile. “I know that house inside out. Every nook, every cranny, every secret passage.”
“Secret passage?” he sounds surprised. “There was nothing noteworthy on the blueprints when I checked them. It took some arm-twisting even to get my hands on those.”
“That’s why they’re secret.” I wink at him. “Dad, bless his soul, was just as paranoid as Grandpa and all the other Donovan men before him. Paddy is the only person outside the Donovan family who knows about the passages and the tunnels. Get me through the side door, and I’ll be able to access those from the inside.”
“You can’t do it in reverse?”
I shake my head. “They’re meant for escaping, not for infiltrating the mansion. There are key code panels only accessible from the inside.”
“And you know the codes.”
“Of course.”
“That means so does Ciara.”
I give Ian a sad look. “Yeah, but she hasn’t used them so far.”
“Perhaps she told Sergei about them, too.”
“She wouldn’t. She’d want to keep at least one means of escape to herself if she needed to.”
“God, I hope you’re right.” He exhales sharply. “Come on, let’s go. They’re changing shifts now. This is our window of opportunity.”
Sure enough, we see two other men in black suits approaching from the other end of the street.
Quietly, Ian and I get out of the car and bolt across the road, sneaking past the parked SUVs and through one of the neighbor’s poorly secured front yards to make it to the service alley. About thirty yards ahead, I see the secondary gate, a Kuznetsov guard casually strolls away from it.
“He’s on his phone,” Ian whispers. “Go now. I’ll wait here.”
“Okay.” I give Ian a wink and run up the alley, light on my feet.
Carefully, I lift the metallic latch and slip through the gate. I hear footsteps approaching. The guard must be coming back. Dad gave me a skeleton key that opens every door when I turned eighteen, and judging by the worn look on the lock in front of me, Sergei hasn’t gotten around to changing any of them.
Good.
I turn the key and breathe a quick sigh of relief before disappearing inside.
I look around. I hear more footsteps, but they’re distant, guards likely patrolling the hallways and the living room at the front of the house. The windows on that side are huge, making that part of the perimeter more exposed.
It gives me the opportunity to sneak into one of the staff’s quarters at the back of the mansion. Paddy’s room, to be specific. A chest of drawers and an armchair sit against the western wall. I carefully pull the furniture aside by a few feet, mindful of my condition. Once I’m done, I find myself smiling as I stare at the small wooden door I just uncovered.
“Come to Mama,” I whisper as I press my code into the tiny keypad mounted where the lock and the doorknob should be. There’s a click, followed by the door opening.
I go in.
It’s damp and dark, but I use the flashlight on my phone to move around after I close the door behind me. I hope and pray that none of the guards will go into Paddy’s room anytime soon.
I pause in the narrow corridor. Ahead, two sets of staircases give me two different options. One leads to the east wing of the mansion, the other to the west. Ciara was last seen in Dad’s study.
West it is.
Quiet as a mouse in the walls, I follow the secret path until I reach the door I’m looking for. I stand outside of it and listen for a while. I can hear Ciara’s voice. It sounds like she’s on the phone with someone. My heart feels like it’s damn near about to leap out of my chest.
“How much longer do I have to stay here, Sergei? People are getting suspicious,” she says, then pauses. “That’s not going to work. The only reason why you have any of my family’s support is, because they don’t know what a two-faced bastard you really are. If they don’t see me at all, they’re going to worry. You don’t want the MacDonalds to worry, Sergei, trust me.”
She pauses again, then begins sobbing. I can only imagine what horrible things he must’ve responded with.
“Okay, okay. Just… please, let me out, even if it’s just for something simple. I’ll be good, I promise. You saw me at the funeral. I didn’t say a word. I played my part.”
After a few seconds, Ciara hangs up, slamming the phone against the desk. I recognize that sound. Dad used to pound that desk, too, whenever he was angry. It breaks me to hear Ciara like this, but hopefully, it means she’ll listen to me, if only for a hot second.
I gently knock on the secret door. Silence
I knock again and I can hear her gasp.
I knock a third time. Rushed footsteps coming toward the door.
“Eileen?” she calls out.
“Keep your voice down,” I hiss.
“Shit, sorry. Hold on.”
I patiently wait as she punches her code into a similar security pad on the other side of the door. When it opens, tendrils of dust flutter between us for a brief moment. My eyes squint against the warm light in Dad’s study.
Ciara looks at me with wide eyes, her skin pale. “What in God’s green earth are you doing here?”
“Obviously trying to save your ass,” I reply. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I can’t.”
I give her a confused look. “Why not?”
“He’s got access to everything, Eileen. I won’t last a day outside these walls.”
“We can protect you.”
She shakes her head. “No, you can’t. And I think you already know that. If I leave now, the whole thing’s going to blow up, and none of us will be safe again. Eileen, he’s amassing power within the Bratva. Anton won’t be able to protect me. Right now, he can still protect you, because you’re his wife. But I willingly, consciously, and stupidly signed all of my financial and legal power over to him.”
“Oh, Ciara…” I exhale sharply, squatting down in the doorway. I remain in the passageway, just in case I have to disappear quickly. Ciara kneels in front of me, and I take a good look at her. Puffy eyes. Slightly cracked lips. Her hair hasn’t been washed in days. “What the hell happened? How did we get to this point?”
“He… I don’t know, Eileen. I thought he was decent enough. I have no idea how he coerced Dad to sign those fiduciary papers.”
“Dad didn’t sign those. It’s not his signature.”
She scoffs and stares at her hands. “I suspected that much. I guess I wasn’t ready to admit it.”
“It will take some time to prove it, time we don’t have right now. What is going on in the house? Where is Paddy?”
“Paddy is most likely on the run. Sergei was going to terminate him and put one of his men in charge of Donovan security,” she replies. “But he’s not going to be able to do that now that Paddy is in the wind. There are still loyalists among the Donovan boys, and Sergei knows he can’t get them to submit without Paddy’s body.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He held a gun to my head.” She begins to cry. “To sign the fiduciary papers. I didn’t want to. Even when I saw what I thought was Dad’s signature, I still didn’t believe it was real. Dad didn’t trust him.”
I nod slowly. “What can I do to help you, Ciara?”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “You warned me, but I was too busy being angry with you. I was so hell-bent on making you miserable. I’ve always been a terrible sister, haven’t I?”
“Captivity seems to be a good time for introspection,” I mumble.
“And then some. I’ve had plenty of solitude. Hours and hours to sit on everything and retrace my steps, figure out where I fucked up. And I fucked up so many times, Eileen. Will you ever forgive me?”
“Stop talking like you’re dying, and tell me how I can help.”
She gasps and looks at me as if she’s seeing me for the first time. “Are you insane? You shouldn’t be here. Where’s Anton?”
“On the edge of his seat, waiting for a positive conclusion to this stunt that I convinced him to let me pull. I need you to focus. Tell me how to take Sergei down.”
Ciara takes a moment to think about it, her gaze darting all over the room. “Okay. I don’t have access to his quarters. He’s taken over Dad’s bedroom.”
“I’m guessing it’s where he keeps sensitive information?”
“Yes. He made me give him the security code for Dad’s vault,” she says. “I can try to get in there, but I don’t know when or how. Or if I can still use the same code. He could’ve changed it.”
I shake my head. “I doubt it. He didn’t change the locks on the access doors. He’s clearly cocky as hell. It might work to our advantage.”
“I promise I’ll try. If I can get into the vault, I’ll use the tunnels myself. I’ll escape. But I can’t walk out of here empty-handed.”
“Okay. Tell me whom he’s been meeting with lately.”
“All the big families in the Bratva. He keeps trying to bend the Fedorovs in his favor, but I hear Ivan rejected three of his offers. Sergei seems desperate to get Fedorov support,” she says, then gives me a wry smile. “I guess it was a good thing to marry a Karpov, after all. That Fedorov blood of yours seems to be working in your favor.”
“And yours, too. Every second that Sergei doesn’t spend at the head of the Bratva is a second I can use to destroy that cocksucker.”
“Oh, shit,” she gasps, eyes widening as she suddenly seems to remember something. “Paul Mattis came in really late last night. I was in my room. I wasn’t allowed to come out, but I could hear them arguing. Paul said something about Homeland Security having eyes on the Kuznetsovs. I heard them say the words ‘national security.’ That could be something, right?”
“I’ll definitely pass that on to Anton.”
We both hear footsteps approaching.
“Shit,” she whispers. “Go, now.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be okay; I promise.”
“Ciara…”
“No, Eileen. I love you, but I can’t go with you yet. I owe it to you and Dad to at least try to fix this, ideally without getting myself killed in the process. I’ll be in touch, one way or another. Just go before that goon sees you. He checks up on me every ten minutes or so.”
I give her a nod as I squeeze her hand, then let her close and lock the door as I carefully make my way back to Paddy’s room. She was genuine. I felt it. I felt her fear; I felt her regrets. For a moment, it was like I had my sister back.
We still have a long way back to a proper reconciliation, but first, I need to remove that wretched stain that is Sergei Kuznetsov from our family.
I find Ian waiting for me, hiding in the shadows. We hurry back to the car and quietly leave the area as I tell him everything I learned. Ian listens intently, one eye on the rearview mirror at all times, making sure we aren’t being followed by anyone.
Sadly, the farther we get from the Donovan mansion, the safer I feel.
“I’ve got a few contacts within the NSA,” he says as we leave my old neighborhood altogether. “I can reach out and see if they have any information where Sergei is concerned.”
“You think maybe we can get some dirt on him?”
“At least something to present at the next Bratva council, for sure. Or, even better, perhaps we can supplement whatever the NSA is cooking up against him with information and leads of our own. If Ciara can get into his vault, we could lock it in completely.”
Hopefully, before the bloodshed begins. I think we are all aware that the doomsday clock is ticking now that Kuznetsov has control over my family. The Irish will probably try to fight back, but Sergei is quite notorious for his way of handling rebellions of any kind. I’ve heard stories from Ian and Anton—stories that make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Tommy Benedetto!” I exclaim as I walk into my husband’s home office to find Tommy by the window, nursing a double scotch. “What brings you here?”
“A buddy of mine from the NSA texted me,” he says.
I’m momentarily speechless as Anton gets up and takes me in his arms, planting a firm kiss on my lips. “I’m glad you made it out of there in one piece.”
“I asked you to trust me, and I’m glad you did,” I reply, then look at Tommy. “What’s your deal with the NSA?”
“Ian doesn’t know that my contacts in the NSA rank higher than his,” Tommy chuckles. “I’m here to help.”
“How so?”
Anton motions for me to take a seat on the sofa. He joins me, his knee glued to mine. I welcome the comfort of his presence and his touch. After the day I’ve had, being close to my husband is pretty much like hugging the sun.
“Well, my buddy confirmed that they’re looking into the entire Kuznetsov family. The circumstances of their deaths—”
“Whoa, whose deaths?” I interrupt.
“Two of Sergei’s siblings. Possibly three. They’re trying to open a line of comms with the Russian Secret Service, but it’s murky waters. It’s been hard to get reliable intel across these days,” he says.
Anton frowns. “I thought Sergei’s older brother passed away and that the others went back to Russia.”
“Who’d wanna leave the cornucopia that is the Chicago Bratva to go back to Moscow where the market isn’t as profitable?”
“I figured they were oligarchs. That social class does well over there.”
“Sergei isn’t as good at managing his family’s finances as most are led to believe, and his daddy wasn’t any better,” Tommy replies. “There’s a reason why they were never able to dethrone the Karpovs. Come on, man, how come I know more about the Kuznetsovs than you?”
Anton chuckles. “You’ll have to forgive me. Your NSA friend is clearly better informed. So tell me, what are we dealing with, exactly?”
“Sergei’s brother, Anatoly, was fished out of the river about four months ago. Another sibling, Jakub, is off the radar completely. The NSA is currently trying to track him down. They’re close to establishing a partnership with the Russians on this, provided they extradite Sergei.”
“As long as he’s out of the Bratva here, I’m good with that,” Anton decrees, and I nod in agreement. Anything is better than nothing at this point.
“Therefore, whatever you have on Sergei and his family, anything at all, any kind of dirt, send it my way and I’ll pass it on. There won’t be miracles overnight, but if they can share information with the Russians, they might be able to pick up a paper trail, something to help them nail the bastard down.”
“What about you and your family?” I ask. “Rumor has it that Sergei is planning to make his takeover of the Bratva official. He’ll want your support.”
Tommy shakes his head slowly, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Let me tell you something, Eileen. What Sergei is doing now is pretty old-school—resorting to physical aggression, vandalism, destroying your buildings—it’s all just enough to get a reaction out of you. If you give him that reaction, the Benedettos will have no choice but to support whoever leads the Bratva, whether it’s Anton today or Sergei tomorrow.
“But if you play it cool, if you keep yourselves away from him and figure out a legal way to burn his ass, you do it. Because then, the other families will have no choice except to support you,” he adds.
“How so?”
“Do you remember the Trattoria Rosa dinner from 1985?” Anton asks me.
I nod once. “Some kind of edict was signed then, right?”
“A peace treaty, to be specific, between the great families of Chicago,” he says. “The three big ones of the Bratva—us, the Fedorovs, and the Abramovics, along with the three big ones of the Camorra—Benedetto, Mancini, and Angeli.”
“It included the three heads of the Irish, as well, which means your father,” Tommy tells me. “Three from the Colombians, three from the Mexicans, three from the Japanese Yakuza, and three from the Triads. A total of twenty-one signatures from the twenty-one most powerful men in Chicago’s mob world.”
“A peace treaty. Okay, yeah, I remember Dad mentioning something about that.”
“A peace treaty that became law. Written, and, funnily enough, notarized, solely for the families’ peace of mind,” Anton adds. “It means nothing to actual law enforcement, but it means everything to us. And according to that peace treaty, if all attempts at peace have failed, and if a member of the aforementioned families has died as a direct result of violence perpetrated by a member of another family, then all the families—”
“Are obligated to stand with the aggrieved,” I finish the statement for him. “Which means that unless Sergei makes a direct attempt at my life, or at the life of any other Karpov, then the other families cannot support our claim against him.”
“Furthermore, the treaty extends to the leadership of each of the organizations,” Tommy adds. “If the Karpovs are chosen to lead the Bratva, we support them against any other family within the Bratva. If the Kuznetsovs take over and are recognized as the new leaders, we’ll have no choice but to support them.”
“Oh, that is so twisted.”
Anton offers me a bitter smile. “It’s the way of our world. And it’s not about what’s wrong or right either, it’s about who holds the power. If Sergei gets a violent reaction out of me now, it will lead to war within the Bratva. I cannot win that war without the other families’ support, and that will give Sergei the power he needs to take over my seat. If that happens, we’re fucked in every possible way except the good way. I cannot allow that to happen, not to me, not to my brother, and certainly not to you.”
“He’s got a hold on one of the three big Irish families, too, but he doesn’t have the full support of the others,” Tommy reminds me. “That’s why he’s flinging turds at Anton, trying to get a reaction out of him.”
I take a deep breath, my mind wandering through every possible scenario. “The Donovans, the O’Reilly’s, and the MacDonalds are still one unit over the Irish organization. You’re right about one thing. Sergei hasn’t swayed any of them yet, not fully, anyway. My voice may not count in a vote since I’m married to a Karpov now, but I could make a few phone calls, nonetheless. Ask Sean O’Reilly to come by the house for a cup of tea or Edwin MacDonald for a slice of steak and kidney pie.”
“As long as you stay here,” Anton says. “It has become imperative.”
“Ah, back in my cage, then,” I chuckle softly.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, I get it,” I tell him. “Given the circumstances, I honestly get it. I will limit my outings as much as possible, and I will always have Ian, at least, accompanying me if I have to go out.”
Tommy nods in agreement. “I’ll liaise with the NSA in the meantime. I’m telling you, if we can gather enough evidence against Sergei and slap the other families over the face with it, you’ll keep your seat at the head of the table. Kuznetsov may be a ruthless fucker, but he’s not suicidal. He’ll have no choice but to flee before the Feds get him.”
“Or before some envoy straight out of Moscow gets him.” Anton’s eyes twinkle with newfound enthusiasm.
I’ve got a feeling he just stumbled into a new and exciting idea. Whatever it is, I fully support him. My moral code will have to take a nap for a while, I suppose.
This has become a game of survival, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let Sergei destroy our lives.
