1
MAKSIM
Irested my elbow on my desk, chin in hand, and sighed as I read on my computer.
“This had better go as planned,” I muttered to myself.
Keeping tabs on all the business endeavors that fell under the Volkov empire was not a simple task. My brothers and cousins and I oversaw millions of dollars’ worth of activity.
Our sources of revenue mostly fell on the “wrong” side of the law, and as such, they required more checks and balances. Not only to keep things on the down low and avoid being caught, but also to track whether anyone was messing with us. Alongside my three brothers and two cousins, we counted on a diversity of commerce to ensure we stayed the wealthiest Bratva on the west side of the country.
Although we worked as a team and everyone pulled their weight, I wanted to double-check the details on the next shipment coming tomorrow. I typically oversaw the arms distribution that we were involved in. All the illegal firearms. Black-market weapons.
After all the headaches we went through recently when Elena, my new sister-in-law, unearthed all the interference with our Volkov accounts, we were all more on edge, more prepared for the shitty news that someone was fucking with us and our businesses.
No, not justsomeone.I narrowed my eyes, seething at the discovery all over again.
Fucking Uncle Gregori.
Until Elena had been given to my older brother, Adrik, the interim Pakhan and boss while our father slowly died, we’d all assumed Uncle Gregori was dead. As in decades ago, he’d perished under the fire from the bombhehad set. It was all thanks to Elena that we knew he was alive and that he had been creating a shadowy network all this time.
Because he was out there, and because Elena’s father had funneled money to him fromouraccounts that the Morovov Financials firm was supposed to manage as our bankers, we expected trouble.
That was why, regardless of the long day I’d already put in, I was here in my office. Rereading emails. Double-checking the routes. And even skimming over what Elena had sent me from her “department” that ensured no lies about insufficient funds would pop up.
If Uncle Gregori—or anyone else on the face of this earth—wanted to sabotage us again, they’d need to try a lot harder to trickme.
The Garcia Cartel would be sending us a large load of weapons to distribute. They’d been allies and business “partners” with our Bratva since the time my father, Dmitri, had sought newbusiness projects some twenty years ago. Miguel Garcia passed away a decade ago, but the alliance was solid.
They'd better hope it is.
We’d all assumed that John Morovov was a dependable provider for us, too, delivering on the role of covering up our money trails. And look where that had gotten us.
Receiving a bad rep about being weak right when we found out Father is dying.
I shook my head, annoyed all over again by how Morovov had fucked with us.
At least Adrik got Elena out of that, though.
My brother and his new wife were now expecting their firstborn, and that was something we’d all celebrate. A continuation of our legacy.
Right now, I had to do my part in making sure our legacy survived. And that meant making sure this massive arms shipment wasn’t screwed up.
Lev, my youngest cousin, was the control freak. If he were in charge of this part of it all, he’d be stressing the fuck out. Me? I just liked to know what problems I might be facing so I could solve them as soon as possible. It was what Adrik counted on me for.
And I’d never let him—or the family—down.
“Are you still here?” Alexei, my older cousin, asked as he knocked and entered my office.
While I didn’t live as close to the Volkov estate as the others, we were all in and out of each other’s homes as we saw fit. He strolled in, raising both brows at finding me at the computer.
“Yeah. I told you I wanted to check some things. I was too busy earlier to get to it.”
We never reported to each other, not officially. Now that my father was in a coma and dying, Adrikwasin charge for now. We did answer to him, but we still co-existed as a brotherhood at the top of the organization.
“Busy?” He dropped into a chair and snorted. “You call chasing down a couple of fucking rats and liars something to keep youbusy?”
I shrugged at his reference to what he and I had been dealing with for the better part of the afternoon and evening. Some greedy assholes had tried to go rogue with some of our drugs, and it had taken more time and effort to catch them—and punish them—than I thought it might. “All in a day’s work,” I joked dryly, skimming over another email that Dean, one of our runners, had sent to me about the shipment tomorrow.
