CHAPTER TWO
Dmitri
The security feeds cast blue light across my desk, twelve screens showing every corner of Nexus. Main floor packed with bodies grinding to bass that vibrates through the building's bones. VIP section glittering with champagne and secrets. The hidden stairwell to the third floor is empty, as it should be.
I don't watch the screens for pleasure. I watch because in my world, the moment you stop paying attention is the moment someone puts a bullet in your skull.
Igor stands across from me, his face carved from years of Bratva service. Ex-military. Loyal to a fault. The only man besides my father I trust with information that could destroy us.
"Show me." I don't look up from the report in my hands. Numbers. Shipments. Distribution routes we've controlled for six years.
He slides a phone across my desk. Photographs. Plastic bags stamped with our signature mark. Τhe double-headed eagle that tells every dealer in Chicago this product belongs to the Baganov Bratva.
Except these bags aren't ours.
"Found them in Pilsen," Igor says. "Three street corners. Same stamp, same packaging. Product's shit quality. Cutting it with something that's already killed two users."
My jaw tightens. "Someone's counterfeiting our brand."
"Making us look sloppy. Making us look weak."
I set down the report and finally meet his eyes. Pale blue, almost colorless—people say we look related. We're not. Just two men shaped by the same brutal world.
"The Sartori alliance finalizes next month." I keep my voice level, controlled. The way my father taught me. Never let them see the rage building in your chest. "We're expanding into territories we've wanted for years. Distribution doubles. Revenue triples. And now some mudak thinks he can use our name to sell poison?"
Igor nods slowly. "Bad timing."
"There's no such thing as coincidence in our business." I push back from my desk and stand, moving to the window that overlooks the dance floor below. Bodies writhing. Lights pulsing. None of them knowing that above their heads, men discuss who lives and who dies.
"Find them."
"Already have feelers out. Might take a few days?—"
"You have forty-eight hours." I turn to face him. "Bring them to the warehouse on Ashland. I want to have a conversation."
Igor's mouth twitches. He knows what my conversations look like. The ones that happen in soundproofed rooms with plastic on the floor.
I crack my knuckles. "The Sartoris are watching how we handle our territory before they commit fully. Pietro Sartori didn't become Don by partnering with men who let rats steal from them."
The alliance has been months in the making. Careful negotiations. Mutual respect. The Sartoris control the docks and construction. We control the product and the clubs. Together, we'll own Chicago in ways neither family could alone.
I won't let some street-level counterfeiter destroy what I've built.
"There's something else," Igor says.
I wait.
"The facial recognition flagged someone interesting downstairs." He pulls up a feed on his phone, angles it toward me. "Arrived twenty minutes ago."
The air leaves my lungs.
Dark hair over bare shoulders. A black dress that should be illegal. Lips painted red, curved in a smile as she leans toward her blonde friend at the bar.
Vittoria Sartori.
One month since I saw her across the room at a gala. I kissed her hand like some old-world fool and watched her flee like I'd burned her.
I've thought about her every day since. Tracked her movements through our intelligence networks. Learned she barely leaves the Sartori compound, but tonight she’s ventured to my club of all places.
