She nods, rattles off a few delivery options, and once we settle on one, she slips out of the gym into the main living space of my West Loop penthouse.
I purchased the entire building outright and converted it into luxury lofts—sleek, industrial-modern spaces featuring exposed brick and matte-black steel. It keeps the cash flowing, and I kept the top floor for myself, complete with a private elevator.
I’m the Barkov family’s eyes and ears in the U.S.—effectively the head of the family, while Lars rarely sets foot here.
Balancing that with professional hockey? Exhausting.
Two lives. Two masks. One is always threatening to bleed into the other.
Lars got me on skates shortly after we moved in with him. Encouraged me, pushed me to be good.
I was eight, clumsy, stubborn, and obsessed.
He probably never thought I’d go pro. But here I am: signed with the NHL at eighteen and simultaneously the youngest crime-family leader in the world.
A happy accident for him: someone he trusts in the U.S., expanding the empire.
I sit on the weight bench and make the call. Lars answers on the first ring.
“Moy syn,” he answers in Russian, the language we use for official family business on these burner phones. My son, the term of endearment he uses, even though I have never returned it by calling him Papa.
“Sir,” I say. “How is today?”
“Today is another day I am alive.”
This is code. It means he can talk freely. If he’d answered, “The weather is sour and so am I,” I’d have known he needed to talk once he got somewhere safe.
“Great,” I say. “What’s up?”
“The eldest Campisi is becoming a nuisance,” he says. “He has been shaking down some of our Chicago weapons deliveries. He takes a few items from each shipment, calling itCampisi Tax.”
“That little shit,” I say. Vincenzo Campisi is older than I am, I think, but, from all accounts, he acts like a petulant teenage bully.
While Don Campisi is elegant and controlled, his eldest son is a powder keg waiting to blow. He causes an awful lot of trouble, but he’s also untouchable as the son of crime family royalty. Lying even a finger on him would likely cause a war between our families. “I’ll look into it.”
“Quietly,” he reminds me.
“Of course,” I say. “I’ve heard that Vincenzo is desperate for Don Campisi’s attention. It would be great if he would garner it via activities that don’t impact our work.”
“Indeed,” Lars agrees. “But I need to know if Vincenzo is doing this at his father’s behest, or on his own as a stunt. The kid can be handled, I believe, but if this is the Don’s doing, then we have a new layer of complications to consider.”
“Got it,” I say. “Anything else?”
“There are three other children, as you know. Two more sons and a daughter.”
“Are any of them a threat?”
“That I leave to you to find out,” he says.
I was aware of the sons, but I hadn’t heard much about the daughter. In fact, so little that I’d forgotten she existed.
Interesting. I’ll have to look into her. Perhaps she can be leveraged if things go sideways.
“Chest’ i vernost’,” he says. “Be well, my son.”
“Chest’ i vernost’,” I repeat as I hang up.
Honor and loyalty.
