Thirty-Eight
Kirill
“Peter’s on,”Kolya told me. We were on the rooftop of the building where Lucy and I had our first breakthrough date.
“Fuck it, let’s do this,” I told De Lucci. The rooftop was the only acceptable location where the bosses from different organizations agreed to talk without fear of being recorded.
“Is Moretti on?” I asked Kolya.
“He just signed in.” Moretti and his wife returned to Chicago after Lucy came out of the coma. After all, both the Chicago Italian mob and the New York Russian mafia declared war on the Moscow mob. The ports were still closed to shipments coming from Peter, and he was feeling the pressure.
The elevator door dinged open and fucking Trevor Hayes walked in.
“What the fuck is he doing here?”
De Lucci raised a brow. “We need quick intel to double-check what Peter tells us, especially since none of us here is good at this shit and you still have to replace your engineer.”
“Fine.” I nodded to Kolya to let the communication through.
When Peter’s face came on, he immediately said, “This has gone on long enough. What do you want from me to open the ports?”
“You tell me, Peter. You’re the one who killed one of my most experienced deep fake engineers.”
“I had to find out if the video someone sent me was fake.”
“What video?”
“Sending it to all of you now.”
The drop was immediate and started to play. What the fuck? Someone else was there at Viktor’s traffic stop.
“You have no idea who sent this?” I demanded.
“Nyet. Someone is messing with us, but that video clearly shows Lucy shooting Viktor in self-defense.”
“As if self-defense mattered to you,” I sneered.
“I had my hacker go through Viktor’s communications.” His face turned red with fury. “He didn’t accidentally kill Davenport like you and he told me. My brother did it deliberately.”
“Tying him down and overdosing him with heroin would do that,” I told him. “Didn’t I warn you Viktor was deliberately fucking up your operations here? But would you believe me, hmm?”
“He was after control of your bratva and mine,” he said.
“Oh, but wasn’t that the reason you sent him here? To undermine me? That’s why you brushed off my warnings in the first place. You double-crossed me.”
“Hear me now: I did not go after your wife, and I promise I never will. And I will swear on my children’s lives, I did not hurt Anya either. She is a child of the bratva. Both you and she lied to me, but I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have done the same if I were given such an opportunity…but my blood betraying me? I cannot forgive that.”
“So what now?”
“Clean slate?”
I chuckled darkly. “You owe me an engineer.”
“And I will never come after your bratva anymore or your wife.”
I glanced at De Lucci. He shrugged. “He wasn’t the one who hurt Lucy, and that’s all I care about. The men who did it are dead, and so is your?—”
I narrowed my eyes at him. If he saidmistress, my fist was going to break his jaw.
