Page 49 of Beautiful Broken Obsession

“Fuck all, enough with this stratagems bullshit. You’re sending me to New York with Gregori’s family on my own. I should know every fucking thing happening.”

I begin. “As our uncle, Gregori’s offer to solidify family power by a marriage between us makes sense.”

“To a fucking cousin, we aren’t hillbillies, for fuck’s sake! And why the fuck are entertaining solidifying power by marriage when we are the more powerful?” Nikita stands to pour himself another drink as a maid comes scurrying in to clean his mess.

Laughing, Aleksander shakes his head. “She’s the adopted daughter of our cousin. They got her out of an orphanage in Mexico, you know that. God knows they never let the poor girl or anyone else forget it. It’s hardly inbreeding. Your children won’t come out with a tail.”

“Fuck you then, you marry her.” Throwing back the vodka, Nikita growls.

“If you throw that fucking glass, I’ll make you pick up every shard with your pretty face,” I warn him.

He grits his teeth. “The girl is too young. She’s also short, fat, and completely unremarkable. I want to pick my own bride.”

“Every women you have brought home has been unacceptable. They are bottle blondes with fake big tits, fake teeth, fake hair, fake everything. Your child would be more likely to come out with a tail from a woman whose body is made up of seventy-five percent plastic.” I roll my eyes.

“I know Grigori asked for it to be Aleksander. I’m aware I’m just thederzhatel obshchaka.Yes, I can do it there, but we’ll have to encrypt then encrypt times three, and even then there is no guarantee it will protect what I’ve done and need to do. Why are you sending me instead?”

I know he thinks he’s just thederzhatel obshchaka—the bookkeeper. I’ve tried making him understand the bookkeeper position in our organization is almost more important than my role, to no avail. He collects and launders our money so we appear clean and keeps track of every penny made and where it goes.

“Aleksander is not simply my number two, we are joined in our thoughts and intentions. Everyone knows I cannot do what I do without him. While he will never inherit—unless Celia gives me nothing but girls—Aleksander is fine with that. We know that—no one else does. Every once in a while when he’s drunk, he mumbles shit about forever being second to me. To see who we catch with the fly on the hook. It’s how we came to lose Ilya and Dima.”

Aleksander is up, refilling his vodka. “A few times Ivan and Artem have joked Grigori would love to have me, only it never came to anything. They never pressed it.”

“We know the reason Grigori stopped trafficking two years ago wasn’t so he could work with us as he said. It was because he kept losing shipments to the point they were able to connect several to him and he had the Feds, Interpol and about six different local governments on his ass. I said the reason we wouldn’t work with him was because he wasn’t giving concessions the way any other group we worked with did. Then we all just breathed a sigh of relief when he refused. You know how Grigori has been bitching loudly over the last year how unfair it was our grandfather gave Father Chicago and Philadelphia, and Grigori got New York?” I ask Nikita.

“Yeah, which doesn’t make any fucking sense. New York was by far the bigger money-maker. It’s the reason Grandfather gave Father two cities instead of the one. Grigori keeps saying it was because Father had so many children when it was bullshit. Until you began taking over, we made half of what Grigori and his sons make in New York. Now because of you, we make more here in Chicago alone than New York.” Nikita nods as he puts down his glass and finally begins paying attention.

“Exactly, his argument didn’t make sense, so I dug deep to find Grigori’s hemorrhaging money not just personally but professionally.”

“No surprise there. He’s always lived beyond his means even while Grandfather was alive. Once Grandfather died in the hit with Father, the leash was off,” Nikita mumbles.

I nod. “One of the benefits to getting out of trafficking was the ramp up on the borders. We were already losing more merchandise than we got in and the Feds were all over it. Grigori waiting as long as he did left him bare to the Feds and they are closing in. The money he’s paying isn’t enough to keep him safe and now he’s so broke he can’t even pay anymore. It’s why Ivan is taking over in name and you’re marrying his daughter.”

His confusion is clear. Aleksander sighs. “We think if I were the one to go they would turn me into one of them by foul means. Grigori offering me his granddaughter and me going out to New York makes no fucking sense. Marrying her and her coming to Chicago would, but it’s not the deal. So the thought is they would kill me to take away Milos’s second and his strength. If you go—”

“I’m bait? Are you fucking kidding me?” Nikita looks to me then Aleksander again.

From the open-line speaker Vasily begins laughing. “I told you two you should have told him sooner.”

“Fuck you,” I toss out at Vasily as I consider hanging up on his ass.

My other brothers Maxim and Damien can clearly be heard arguing that one of them should be the one to go. Vasily ispakhanof our Philadelphia operation, Maxim is his second—two spies—and Damien is their bookkeeper. While we didn’t like our family was divided by several states, we were united in that we spoke every week on a call such as this, and Vasily and I were in contact on an almost daily basis. Also in turns they would come to Chicago to stay in our family home to see our mother.

“Enough, you two women. This is the plan, we stick to it. With Nikita the youngest of us all, they will think he will be the easiest to break.” Vasily sighs.

“While not realizing it would be easier to break concrete with a spoon.” Aleksander swallows the last of his vodka.

Nikita preens at the compliment. While he didn’t have to kill or torture, he took a sometimes stomach-inducing pleasure in it that used to worry me and Aleksander. Until Nikita explained he felt bad he was the paper pusher. All he wanted was to feel as though he was pulling his weight, and yeah, he looked at it as a way of letting go of stress and anger.

Setting his empty glass of vodka on the table beside him, Aleksander shrugs. “I’m willing to go. But we think it would be better if it were you. We don’t think they’ll kill you or anyone but Milos or me—maybe Vasily since they’re going to try and take all of what we control. It would need to be done in tandem. If Milos or Vasily was killed, then we would know immediately something was wrong and our guard would go up. Once we send you in place of me, we’ll gain a greater picture of what their intentions are.”

“I have eyes on them. While I would rather wait until all this shit is settled before marrying Celia—I don’t need her as a target—this could take months, and I’m not willing to wait.” I check my watch again.

Glass explodes beside me without warning. I look up to find Aleksander grinning. “We can’t have that. You’ve waited four long years to take your bride in hand. If it goes any longer I will cut my own throat from putting up with your mournful stares out the window.”

“Or catching you listening to her recordings.” Nikita sighs. “I feel like I know her voice better than my own. It’s a nice voice though.”

“Fuck off,” I mutter.

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