“Not now, baby. In fifteen minutes.” With a heavy heart and heavier balls, I walk outside to the front porch.
5
Last year, one of the bartenders walked into my office with a phone recording of one of my men speaking to an outsider out back behind the dumpster. The recording didn’t clearly identify any one man of mine, though I tagged three and had them followed, their apartments, cars, and lives searched by cops on my payroll so it wouldn’t look like I was on to them.
I couldn’t find the mole.
A month later, the feds hit me hard. Froze assets, accounts, everything, and I had to go back to Mexico, pick up a shovel, and dig up some of my money underground. Ask me how I felt inside cartel territory digging up money. Pissed.
One of my own betrayed me. And since those closest to me often made poor choices that had negative impacts on our organization, I made a move and snatched Nikola’s cousin. An outsider, but not quite, since I’d known her for most of my life. A woman my men both feared and desired.
She picked out the mole for me, and recently, I reshuffled my ranks. I have to shuffle again, and so during the fifteen minutesmy wife is taking to sign our very important paper, I call some of the guys guarding the house.
I whistle, and they all turn. With their military haircuts, they’re all looking alike. “Why does everyone have the same cut? Is it a trend I missed?”
Men laugh. Palms run through hair.
“Getting ready for the summer,” Viktor says and jogs toward me.
He’ll do. Stopping before me, he smiles, and I tilt my head. I haven’t noticed this before, but he’s a great-looking kid, almost sweet and warm, kind of like my wife. Definitely easy on the eyes and loyal to me and the money I pay him.
He sends all the money back to Russia so his seven sisters who married deadbeat alcoholics can feed their… “How many nephews and nieces you have?”
He chuckles. There’s dimples on this dude’s cheeks. He’s like a cute poodle or something. I pat his head. “Never mind. Don’t answer. You ever met Ivana, Nikola’s cousin who came to work for me for a while?”
For a second, he freezes and stares at me, then blinks, recovering. I notice the slight blush over his cheeks.
“Answer me.”
He nods. “I haven’t met her in person, no.”
“What do you think about her?”
The kid—maybe later twenties to my forties—laughs. “I have many thoughts about her.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “Good. You’re gonna approach her with those thoughts and make friends, keep an eye on her after she makes her exit. Keep this between you and me.”
Viktor swallows but nods. “Okay, Boss. It’s done.”
He turns to leave, but I have another job for him. “One more thing.”
He watches me expectantly, and I continue. “Pick out the ugliest bastard of the bunch you trust and someone who wants to live and has things to live for, like a steady girlfriend or, better yet, kids to feed. Anyone come to mind?”
He looks up as he searches his brain for that one person. I don’t do this thinking-brain searching thing, but I know the movement when I see it in others. “Rosti.”
I nod. “That’s the man. Put him on my wife.” Viktor scratches his head. He wants to ask questions, but doesn’t dare offend. “What is it?” I ask.
“What doesput him on my wifemean exactly?”
“Guard her. Bodyguard. You understand?” I can’t say my wife has thoughts of running. That would make me appear weak, and I can’t stand the look of doubt the kid is giving me, but I will swallow pride for this because it has to be done.
She needs a team of guards, and since she won’t be happy with a whole entourage, a bodyguard will have do. One man I can squeeze by her protests I’m sure will come until I get her used to the guy. I’ll add on another later.
I walk back into the house. The first thing I notice is that the suitcase isn’t where I left it. She fucking dragged it somewhere, and I bet she tried to get into the spare rooms, which are locked because I prepared for this kind of shit. I had a feeling a woman like her wouldn’t want to sleep with me on the first night and would definitely not walk into my bedroom.
So I locked up everything besides the common area and our room.
A glance at the kitchen bar and the pink pen in the same position as I left it this morning tells me she hasn’t signed the paper, so I walk down the hallway, reach the room at the end, grab the handle, twist, and hit my forehead on the door. Locked. Instead of rubbing my forehead or at least backing off like a normal person would, I hit my head on the wood again.
