3
Gavriil
My footsteps echothrough the hallway as I stride toward the meeting room on the second floor of my residence, my jaw clenched tight.
Secrets rarely stay buried in our world, but I had hoped Dominik’s betrayal would last longer than this.
The news has already traveled farther than it should have. It’d be a damn miracle if the Bratva Council was clueless to this embarrassment, but I’m certainly not holding my breath. I’ll handle them when the time comes.
I smooth my expression before entering the meeting room where several of my senior men sit around the long conference table in tense silence. I take my seat at the head of the table and calmly fold my hands in front of me.
“Give me an update,” I say in Russian. People can’t keep their mouth shut around this city, so I’m sure each faction has picked up on something.
Timur, one of my enforcers, sits up straighter. “We spoke to a trusted contact. He told us that he overheard a conversation between two men about the state of the Bratva. They see Dmitri Ivanov’s move to Vegas, the Volkovs' greediness, and our infighting as a chance to overtake all Russian territory in New York.”
Frustration ignites in my chest at the other families for choosing this moment to cause problems, but the steady expression on my face doesn’t change. Emotion is an uncontrolled reaction, and I will have all things undermycontrol. That’s how we fix this fucking mess.
“Anything else?” I question him.
Timur nods. “Everyone thought of you and Dominik as strong leaders. A team. Since Dominik was seen as the one who handled most of the Bratva business, you now look…weak without him, all because he betrayed you.”
Do they think I didn’t notice that our men looked to him before me?
I did, and I hated it.
My brother was born for business and war strategy. He’s smart but ruthless when needed, and he can better predict what’s going to happen next than most people.
But I don’t need him to crush our enemies under my boot.
“Well, they’re mistaken,” I reply, my voice unwavering. “And if anyone tries to test us, we will retaliate and put them in their place.”
“Sir, I think a coordinated attack is already being planned,” Matvei says from the left side of the table. He flips open a folder in front of him before passing a few photos down the table toward me.
I gather the images in front of me and start to slowly flip through them, my gaze falling upon various vans and luxury butplain-looking cars with tinted windows in areas that I recognize. Areas that aren’t even that far away from my estate.
“Are these stills from our security cameras?” I ask Matvei as I continue inspecting the photos. The vehicles don’t look familiar, but I believe that’s the point. They’re plain enough that most people would overlook them.
But we don’t overlook anything.
“They are,” Matvei replies. “We’ve been reviewing footage throughout last night. Within a span of eight hours, those four vehicles were driven and parked throughout our territory. Just sitting there and waiting hours before eventually leaving.”
They were doing recon, seeing if they could find anything interesting to report back to their bosses. Hopefully, they just wasted their time, but the fact that they’re moving so damn quickly makes me uneasy. Word did spread fucking fast.
“There’s something that concerns me,” Leon speaks up across the table from Matvei. “I don’t believe those vehicles are from the same organization.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask him as I spread the photos out in front of me.
“Because organizations typically use a fleet of similar vehicles. They buy them from the same seller or dealership like we do to help us identify which ones are ours and which are not,” Leon explains before leaning forward and tapping one photo. “White van. Older model. Expensive make.”
My gaze follows his finger as he gestures to the next photo.
“Black van. Newer model. Another expensive make.”
“They’re all different in some way,” I murmur under my breath as my eyes sweep over each vehicle parked in different areas of our territory. “But they arrived around the same time. You believe that multiple mob families just happened to send vehicles to do recon at the same time?”
“It might not have been a coincidence,” Timur replies, his words making the air weigh down on us that much more.
“A collaboration,” I state as the damning picture begins to become clearer and clearer.
