Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva), Nicole Fox [life changing books txt] 📗

gangs working for us—I call them my distribution team, these low-level thugs whose allegiances I buy with a healthy supply of artillery and pharmaceuticals.

I will supply. I will demand repayment. I let them make money off my organization and they get to live and fight their little battles against one another. So long as there is no question who’s the boss, we all coexist nicely.

But somehow, I’ve developed a weak link in my operation. A breach that’s allowed the Whelans to walk in and set up their own operation, competition I can’t tolerate. That means, whether or not they want it, we’re at war with the Whelans. Fortunately, I’m prepared.

Though, now there’s someone more than me to consider. I tap a button on my keyboard, and the live feed of my daughter’s bedroom pops onto the screen.

Moya doch. My daughter.

For a minute, I watch her because she’s beautiful and perfect. Because she reminds me of her mother so much I can’t bear to look away.

Once, Natasha was joyous. I see pieces of her in Tiana. The same laugh. The same button nose. The same eyes. So much Natasha, I ache for what once was. An ignorant bliss, if nothing else.

Even the way Tiana sleeps with her hands under her cheek and chin tilted down to her chest is like her mother. Some things a man never forgets. Especially when he has a living, breathing reminder.

Another unforgivable distraction. I click away from the quiet scene in Tiana’s room and back to the guesthouse. The billiard room is once again suitable for gamesmanship in the literal sense. The pool cues are hanging on the wall. In the opposite corner, the pinball machine blinks and dings and, in the center of the room, the pool table is pristine and balanced. There’s no evidence that an hour ago, Whelan’s soldier was lying in a pool of his own blood while Dmitri practiced his punting skills on the bastard’s head.

Instead of praising them for doing the job I pay them to do, I open a folder I’ve been meaning to read through. Perhaps some dry tasks for my more legitimate business ventures will clear my head.

The question is one I have confronted often in my rise to becoming the city’s foremost financier and developer of luxury real estate: to buy or not to buy? Not quite Shakespearean, but a tragedy for the company in question if I choose not to invest the three million dollars it needs. To me, three million dollars is nothing but a pittance. And this is a company that could be saved and become profitable.

I built this business on the back of the legitimate companies run in my name, all fronts and all operations where I can run some soiled dollars through and make them sparkle with cleanliness. My father sent me to college to learn how to make this a profitable venture for us all, how to increase the wealth and power until it was time for me to take over.

I smile now. Those days when I was young, before I knew the price that came with power; those early years with my father, sitting on his lap when he ran the day-to-day operations; listening to him speak with such pride and authority; watching his men—they are my men now—defer to him in all matters, business, and personal.

I am my father’s son, and I will continue to elevate us to greatness.

And I will leave all the treasures I’ve collected to moya doch. She will be a princess, a duchess of the greatest Bratva and the greatest business empire in the western United States.

But if it was that easy, my stomach wouldn’t be rumbling. My guts wouldn’t be tearing themselves out.

With the Whelans, there’s little possibility they could infiltrate my compound, and even less chance they could get to me, but any chance is a danger I should not ignore. What if one day, I don’t come home? Need burns in me to make sure Tiana is cared for, to make sure she knows this all belongs to her by birthright. More than that, I need to make she knows her father loves her very much.

I pull out a pen and paper. A note like this shouldn’t be something tapped into a keyboard, vomited onto a printer tray. These are my words, my feelings, my requests for my daughter and she should read them in my own hand, from my own thoughts and heart.

My darling Tiana …

I imagine her at twenty years old, reading my words as she sits in my chair, with Charlotte by her side, guiding her.

I stop and look up. Despite my best efforts, she has intruded into my thoughts yet again. Most unwelcome.

Not an hour or so ago, I resolved to end Charlotte if necessary. Now I’m imagining her leading my daughter through life in my absence. I would smile at the absurdity of it, but this absurdity could end up risking everything I’ve worked for, sacrificed, and bled to protect. My interest cannot be allowed to turn to obsession, my attraction to fixation.

I return to the note and finish writing. When I am done, I slide my letter to Tiana into an envelope and seal it the old way, with hot wax and an impression of the ring I wear on my pinkie, emblazoned with the family Z and a smaller K on top. Hopefully, before she comes of age to read the letter, Tiana will have time to grow into her responsibilities and reach an understanding that the old ways are meaningful and shouldn’t be discounted. It is a lesson I will teach her myself with whatever time I have left.

Not that I’m scared of the Whelans. I just believe in preparation for any circumstance.

From the corner of my eye, I catch a movement on the monitor. Charlotte. She is in the billiard room. Her face is pinched as she goes into the hallway, looks left and right, then comes back inside, her finger tapping