“Yeah. Yesterday, the operation attack came out of nowhere. Athena and I were at the warehouse because I was showing her some security footage. I’ll get to that in a second…” I add when I see Kirill’s expression knot tighter. “The attack group was small, but big enough to do enough damage that we lost two men. And many were injured, including myself.”
“Where did you get shot?” Matvei asks.
I pull up the side of my shirt to show them the bandage. “Athena pulled the bullet out for me. It’s taped together pretty tight. Feels ok.”
“Athena helped? Does she have experience?” Kirill asks.
“No, poor girl was in total shock. Her hands were shaking, and she looked green in the face. But she did a good job.”
“Alright, get to the rest of the story then. Operation attacks… we can deal with that. Nothing new. You being married?” Vilen says impatiently.
“Ricardo Mendelez was someone who worked at the warehouse until recently,” I start.
“I’ve heard that name. I’m pretty sure I had a conversation with him while there once or twice. But ok, what does he have to do with it?” Matvei says.
“Ricardo is Athena’s father. We caught him on camera stealing from one of our shipments after it had been packed. It would have been a fucking nightmare if the order had arrived short on the other side, but lucky Antonio was on the ball, as usual, and fixed it before it became a bigger problem. However, I had to deal with Ricardo.”
“Of course,” Matvei nods.
“I went to his residence myself. I was going to take the guy out, make an example of him. But the rat of a man…” I scoff, shaking my head when I remember how Athena looked so shocked that night. “Right in the middle of our interactions, his daughter arrives at his place to cook him dinner. She walks into the situation, me with my gun pointed at the guy, the guy begging for his life. And you know what that asshole does? He grabs her, manages to grab his own gun, and points it at his daughter’s head. Not mine. His own daughter.”
There are a few groans of disapproval from around the room.
“It could have been an act?” Matvei challenges.
“Sure, at the time I had no way of knowing. But I’d say I am pretty good at reading people, and that girl went straight into shock. Her father was heartlessly using her as a shield; there was no way I was going to shoot the guy in front of his daughter…” I sigh, pushing my hand through my hair.
“Ok, so you were a bit stuck.”
“Yeah. And even more pissed off with Ricardo for doing that to his own family. I made a quick decision to get her out of there. My concern was that a larger mafia group was controlling him, and they would take advantage of my reluctance to hurt the girl once they found out. So, I decided it was better to take her with me and figure out the rest later. I told him his debt to me was clear if I could have her. A fair deal. He wouldn’t be able to come after her again or send anyone else after her. She would be, in all contractual senses,mine.”
“So, you married her,” Matvei nods, understanding how things played out.
“Yeah. To keep her safe. She’s innocent in all this. What he did has nothing to do with her. I saw it the first day I met her and every day since has only stood to reconfirm that for me.” I speak firmly, making sure my brothers know she is in no way to blame for her father’s actions. I will protect her from everyone, including them.
“And Ricardo?” Kirill asks. “Where’s the old man?”
“Still playing around the city as if nothing happened. Saw him gambling in a shit hole bar the other day, not a fucking care in the world about where his daughter is. Thething is, I took Athena there because she was still in denial and constantly fighting with me to defend her father, saying it was a misunderstanding. But between seeing him there and seeing the video footage of him stealing from the warehouse, and, of course, what happened that night I took her… it all came together and broke her denial down. It actually sort of broke her down, and it was difficult to watch, but I think she sees the truth now.”
The guys mutter a bit, and a few more questions go back and forth until Vilen asks, “Did you do a history check on her father?”
“I did,” I nod. “We ran a facial recognition scan over our internal security footage, and every video with his face in it was reviewed. The guy has been stealing for a while. He’s been messing with the warehouse, taking things, not only products… equipment, machine parts, anything he could sell for a buck.”
“Shit. A sneaky fucker, hey. The guy’s got balls,” Vilan says with distaste.
“What are you going to do about him?” Matvei asks.
“Honestly, I don’t know yet. It was only just coming together now. I was more focused on getting Athena to see the truth before I made any decisions. But I’m going to have to deal with the guy.”
“And do you think he has anything to do with the warehouse attack?” Vilan asks.
I shake my head. “He’s not that smart. And I had one of my guys tailing him for the past week. He’s talking to scum, hanging out with scum. I haven’t connected him to any of the bigger families. Not yet anyway.”
“Keep watching him. You never know,” Matvei says.
“For sure.”
We hear laughter from the kitchen.
