Maksim: A Dark Mafia Romance (Akimov Bratva), Nicole Fox [love letters to the dead txt] 📗

respectively, I believe our best approach is a cautious one,” Ravil says. “Your methods … some of the Bratva don’t agree with them. They think you choose the scorched earth option too often. They think we should be more diplomatic and use threats as a first resort rather than outright brutality.”

I throw the folder into the back seat. “And what do you think?”

“I know you,” he says, picking his words carefully. “We grew up together. You’re my brother in every way except blood and we wouldn’t be where we are without you. I’ll follow you into the deepest bowels of hell. But this involves a lot of moving pieces, a lot of assumptions, and innocent people. I don’t think it’s the prudent choice.”

“None of the Balduccis are innocent,” I say. “And we’re talking about brutality. I didn’t ask about your opinion on the Gianluigi situation.”

Ravil pulls the car into the cemetery’s parking lot. He parks under a willow tree. In front of us, the headstones are scattered over a small hill like feathers cast off from a bird. He unbuckles his seat belt slowly, keeping his gaze forward.

“It seems to me,” he says. “That you’re quick to pull the trigger when a threat would work. We’re powerful enough that, as long as people know we consider their actions to be disrespectful, they’ll back off. I don’t consider violence to be the best response to everything.”

He grabs the door handle.

“No,” I say, undoing my seat belt and snatching the flowers from the back seat. “I consider your actions to be disrespectful. You can stay here.”

I open my door, stepping out, before turning back around.

“You’re right about one thing, though,” I say, turning to him. “We wouldn’t be where we are without me. We wouldn’t be this powerful. Brutality is the reason people will bend to our will. Don’t question my authority on this again.”

A grim pain flickers across his face followed by a quiet acceptance. “Of course, Maksim.”

I leave him, and all of the heavy history between us.

I built this Bratva from nothing. Many men have tried to take it from me. They have resorted to poison, hidden blades, and black-clothed assassins wielding silencers in the night. Not one has gotten to me yet.

But they have gotten close. So very, very close.

And when they did, they took something precious from me.

The headstone cost nearly ten thousand dollars. The sculptor made the granite angel with the soft angles of my dead wife’s face. The flowers engraved into the face of the headstone are chamomile—the national flower of Russia.

I spared no expense, because I wanted all who come here to see her headstone and know that what was taken from me was more than a wife—she was a monument to my success. She was the jewel in my crown.

“Hey, Nat,” I say, kneeling down at the gravesite. I trace her name with a fingertip. Natalie Akimov. I let my hand trail back down to her last day—November 10, 2018.

When I heard about her murder, I was standing in front of my hotel. I’d just welcomed a famous basketball player to the master suite. I stepped out, nearly reaching my car before I noticed Ravil, standing slightly to the right of the car’s trunk. He was wearing a gray suit and was staring straight through me. His face was ashen and his body trembling with a weakness I’d never seen in him before.

Everything that happened afterwards felt like a nightmare.

He stepped up to me. His hand rested on my arm. The words came out slow and lethargic. For all his stalling and his euphemisms, the meaning was the same: My wife was dead.

When I finally managed to get my mind around that—not that a man ever really can—I accepted that truth. I asked him how it happened. He was hesitant. It came out even slower than his condolences, another form of Chinese water torture. It was a car bomb. They couldn’t confirm it was the Balduccis, but the Balducci predilection for that method was well-known. He didn’t mention that it was my car. He didn’t mention that I was likely the real target. He didn’t need to say that I was the reason Natalie was torn to pieces.

The Balduccis saw something that I prized above all else, and they turned her into a crime scene. Gianluigi took what was mine.

And when I finish what I have started, he’s going to know exactly what that feels like, tenfold.

I prop the roses I brought against the arm of the granite angel. One of the petals falls off, fluttering down to rest in the angel’s palm.

As I walk away from the headstone, I keep my gaze steady and try to breathe. As soon as I get back into the car, Ravil will keep talking about shit I no longer care about, as if talking ever helped anybody. I don’t need more talk. I just need some goddamn silence.

I see his silhouette in the car. He turns, sees me coming, reaches to twist the key in the ignition.

And the moment he does, the car explodes.

A shock wave slams into me, knocking me off my feet, as a sound tears into my ears. Dirt erupts around me in ten-foot plumes. I lift my head, temples throbbing with what must be a concussion, to see hellfire rising up around the car. It’s a charred mess. The front half of the vehicle is completely gone.

Ravil.

I run to the car, straight to the driver’s side. Most of the door is disintegrated. I reach inside, the flames licking at my skin, but the heat is too intense. I jerk back, the flesh on my arms singed. When I look again, I see that there is little left of him.

My friend is dead.

I push the thought back and remain standing beside the car, the heat stinging my skin. I should walk away, call someone to pick me up before I’m spotted, but I wasn’t around when Natalie was killed. I need to