Page 3 of The Bratva's Innocent Sold Bride
It was disguised as a regular shipment, and while I normally didn’t go to the predawn deliveries at my restaurant, no one would have blinked, because they all wanted to keeptheir jobs. I was going to make sure the guns were offloaded in the small alley behind the place, where there were specifically no security cameras, before the early bird kitchen workers even showed up.
But I wasn’t alone, and nothing pisses me off more than a three-on-one fight before I’ve had coffee. After a scuffle that involved a golf club I happened to have in the back seat of my car, the first two got away with the crates of weapons already in their car. I was currently having my people trace it, not that I expected much. The third one put up an admirable fight before losing that tooth and running off.
I was pissed off enough to consider shooting him, but this was the kind of area that didn’t often have early morning shootings, or any shootings, and at that point, my employees were turning up to find their shipment of the day’s food all over the ground. They were already rattled, having to clean up a body would have made the bulk of them quit.
There was nothing to do except try to track them and figure out who they were working for, so I went to a nearby coffee shop to get my caffeine fix. I needed that dark brew to help calm me down. It was barely seven AM, and I’d already been in a fight, gotten an important shipment stolen, probably had a mole in my organization, and—
My cousin Lev called me, and thinking something was wrong, I picked up right away. He was laughing. “Welcome to Silicon Valley.”
“How did you hear about it already?” I grumbled.
“We use the same surveillance team, remember? Sorry about those guns, though.”
Lev had moved up to San Francisco a couple of years back, after he married the love of his life, Jenna. He was solely incharge of the Northern California piece of the Fokin empire, and he was the one who encouraged me to give the wealthy area of Silicon Valley a shot once I decided to stay in the US for a while. With most of my other cousins down in LA, it seemed like a great idea at the time. So far, I had a small but loyal team with me, except for that damn mole I had to find and take care of.
“I’m sorry it’s bothering you,” I said.
Though we were family and Lev wouldn’t begrudge me any of his resources, just as I wouldn’t if he were in Moscow, I wanted to get my own network set up so I didn’t have to rely on him or have his people spread too thin. When I told him this, he laughed again.
“If they’re stealing from you, they’re stealing from me, Mat,” he said.
“If you get a clue who’s running things, let me know,” I said. “I know this isn’t just low-level gang shit; this is organized.”
He could tell how pissed off I was, but he didn’t know the half of it, and I wasn’t about to tell him, either.
“Does the name Anatoli Ovinko ring a bell?” he asked.
It didn’t, but we decided maybe it should. It was the only new player his intel could come up with, but other than a name, he had nothing. No description, no ties, no one who would admit to working with him in the past. It was like he was created just to make my life hell, and at the moment, I really didn’t have time for it.
Lev promised to look into it further, and I sent the name to my own contacts to see if they could find anything out. I also sent a message to my second in command, Garik, to start looking for a mole.
Garik was one of the men who followed me from Russia when I decided to carve out some territory here in America. We grew up together, not really related by blood, but his mother was married to one of my uncles’ wives' brothers. The extended family was as good as blood in our big Russian brood, and we spent our childhoods scrapping and following my father and uncles around, learning everything we needed to survive.
He would have taken a bullet for me, as I would for him. He’d find a mole if we had one and make sure that person regretted ever going against me.
There was someone else who was going to regret going against me, and the main source of my foul mood. Losing the guns was an annoyance; this was bad enough to make me crush the empty paper coffee cup as anger about it rushed back to the forefront of my mind.
Just last night, I found out that the new company I partnered with was a bust, and my investment was gone. Just like my other family members in the Bratva, I liked a mix of legitimate businesses along with my shady dealings. I was new to this country and even newer to this town, so when I got word that Gordon Taurus was starting something new, why wouldn’t I accept the invitation to jump on board?
It was top secret, with only three investors. He didn’t need more than that with the vast amounts he convinced us to pony up. Now it was done, the money was gone like it never existed, and my bank account was missing too many zeros. I had no idea how the other two were taking it, probably having something stronger than coffee for breakfast. They’d be upset, but they’d shake it off. That was business, right?
Wrong. This wasn’t bad luck or an accident. This was a set-up and a rip-off, and it was huge. When I should have beensleeping in preparation for the early gun shipment, I was delving into my investment partner’s background and finding out the kind of things that took a whole lot of digging and knowing the right people.
Everyone in America, and the world, saw Gordon Taurus as the self-effacing tech billionaire who started charities and had a perfect, upstanding daughter, but the man was a criminal, through and through.
I knew how easy it was to keep that kind of thing hidden, so maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that the new company was a cash grab and a setup, doomed to fail once the checks were cashed. What shocked me was that Gordon dared to try it with someone like me.
Except nobody knew who I was here. Not yet, anyway. The fact that I was feared and revered in Moscow meant nothing in California. Everything was going great back home, but it was cold comfort. I decided to stay here and expand my empire, and that was what I meant to do. Getting ripped off twice in twenty-four hours wasn’t an auspicious start.
That just meant I had to bring the hammer down harder than usual, and I wasn’t known to be light-handed when it came to doling out punishments. Someone like Gordon would need a special touch. Since he was so high profile, I couldn’t make him disappear or beat the hell out of him until he coughed up what he stole from me.
I had to hit him where it hurt, without touching him at all, and after all my research, I had a pretty good idea where to start. One thing I was sure of was where he lived, so I headed out there to pay him a visit. Then I could confirm whether or not Gordon Taurus was actually a devoted father or if that was also part of his ruse.
Then I’d put my plan into action.
Chapter 3 - CJ
I was buzzing all afternoon and went shopping for a few new work outfits. Not that it would matter what I was wearing, crammed into a cubicle with fifty other people, all with their noses glued to a screen and not caring at all what the newbie was wearing. But I was determined to stick to a budget and only use my own paycheck once they started, so I had to get it out of my system.
