I narrowed my eyes.
He smiled, all shark teeth and menace, excited by the prospect of a job, especially one like Mikhail. Massive risk. Massive rewards. Ludi would love to pop a Russian boss, then go buy himself a trophy along with my cologne.
I slung a hand over Lana’s waist, trailed it over her back, and stopped at the back of her neck so there would be no confusion who this fine pussy belonged to. “Sources tell me the Russians are in New York, ready to move in tonight. We don’t have a lot of time, but we have some time. Mikhail warned me of his operation.
If I know Mikhail, and I do know him, before he issues the final go-ahead, he expects me to show face. This tells me he’s willing to negotiate. He seems to have an interest in the Italian deal we closed, so I have something he wants.”
Ludi cleared his throat, “Sokol says it’s a multibillion kind of deal.”
“It is.”
“Do we not need billions?”
I loved money. I loved deals that brought money. My parents, poor immigrants, lived in basements and cleaned people’s houses. I grew up living well below the poverty line. Now, my family had never been wealthier, and we were in a position to help communities who accepted dirty money. I couldn’t donate money if I was poor.
I couldn’t help anyone if I wasn’t in a position of power. Lana needed help, and I couldn’t lose the power or the money, but something had to give, and I knew what. I just needed Mikhail to agree.
“We could live without the billions.” Fuck, it pained me to say it. Sokol and I had been working on this for over three years.Getting inside the Italians’ circles wasn’t easy. Building trust with men like me who all had trust issues was hard work. I’d give it up. I would.
Ludi glanced at the girl. I’d bought her for those billions.
“If you give me the order, it can all end easily.”
Lana watched him.
I gauged her expression and felt she’d mourn Mikhail and could possibly resent my order.
“It would never end,” she said.
“She’s right. If we start this, it would never end and the cartels would let us kill each other, doing the job for them. We bring in the Russians, keep the Italians, and I get married.”
“I love your optimism. Utopian shit, really.” Ludi stood and cracked his neck. “You’ll see me in the club, somewhere in the shadows, hoping for an order, crying a little if I don’t get one now.” Before he left, he slapped my shoulder. “Gonna have a chat with my sister.”
I grunted.
Ludi’s departure left me with my men. I counted no fewer than fifty-three between the kitchen and the backyard, plus at least a dozen we kept outside. I passed Lana my phone. “Call your uncle. Tell him we’re coming. Be sure to use ‘we’ and hang up before he replies. Then order pizza for everyone. I’m hungry.”
For pussy, blood, and money, but pizza would do.
9
The number of cars and the lines of people standing before Club Cage made me regret I hadn’t brought earplugs. The elite, meaning rich boys and girls, came here with their parents’ money and left forgetting how much of it went up their noses or down their mouths in the form of a pill.
Once, I’d asked Mikhail if he’d consider leaving the street biz and moving in with me completely into money laundering and manipulating the stock market, but he was more old school than I.
The pounding inside my head started immediately as I entered the place. Strobe lights, loud music, sweating youth bouncing everywhere as Mikhail’s men escorted us through the narrow dark hallway that ran along the dance floor, behind the bar and to the stairs.
Seeing Lana’s eyes were everywhere except in front of her made me take her hand before she started climbing to the VIP room. She’d ascended the steps like a blind woman climbed her husband’s dick. She knew where she was going and needed no guidance.
Yeah, during the weekends, the girl lived in this place. A dark mood overcame me as if a black sack had dropped over my head. What had happened up here with her and Mikhail’s men? Mikhail couldn’t have guarded her virginity, though she was a virgin when she came to me. Which just meant she’d done all the other things. A while back, Neven had told me, virgins didn’t take the dick, but they knew how to get around a man’s body.
The lineup of Russians greeting her made my palm itch. I fisted my hand so I didn’t take out my Sig and go on a murderous rampage. Lana pulled me toward the VIP bar, and I let her, while counting all Mikhail’s men and then the civilians, particularly girls with barely any clothes on. Beautiful girls in the company of beautiful boys. Some, I was certain, came from homes with influential parents, precisely why I’d picked the club as the meeting place.
With this many people, and with the club fronting drug sales, Mikhail would have to be stupid to start shit here and get this place locked down.
Lana sat at the bar, and I leaned my elbow against it. She passed me a shooter, and I sniffed out vodka. We clicked our glasses together and poured it down our throats.
“Don’t have too many,” I said.
