Feeling my heart fucking swell, I took Kisa in my arms and pulled her to my chest. Kisa tried to pull away. “Luka, your suit.”
I kept her close. “I couldn’t give a fuck about my suit. I do give a shit about my wife, my pregnant wife, being upset.” Kisa melted into my chest, and her arms wrapped around my waist.
I kissed her on her head and said, “I can tell you right now, solnyshko. Nothing, not even hell itself, will take me from you.” I kissed her again and added, “All of this, I’m doing it so our life can be good. And I’m doing this for Zaal, so he can find his sister and get someone from his family back in his life.” Bringing Kisa back so I could see her face, I said, “And I’m doing this so that when I inherit the role of Pakhan we are strong, and we have the right people around us. My life is you. My entire life is you and our baby. And I’m going to do everything I can to make this Bratva, this family, the best thing I’ve ever done.” Kisa nodded. “Solnyshko, no one will touch me tonight. Our byki will be there in force, and even if they weren’t, I can handle myself.”
Kisa inhaled, then looked up at me through her fucking doe eyes, her mouth spreading into a huge smile. The air was knocked out of my lungs at how fucking beautiful she was. Edging closer, she re-straightened the lapels on my suit and moved aside to stand behind me. My reflection stared back at me. I was dressed head to toe in a black suit, my white shirt and red tie perfectly in place thanks to my wife.
Kisa disappeared. When she reappeared, she was holding out my cashmere long coat. She held it out and slipped it on my shoulders, and when it was on she slipped something heavy in each pocket.
I kept her eyes trapped in the reflection of the mirror and reached into my pocket. I smirked and pulled out my bladed knuckle-dusters. I raised my eyebrows at my wife and she shrugged. “Take them for me, baby. I’ve seen what you can do with those things. It would make me feel better if I knew you had them at the ready.”
Laughing, I turned to my wife and crashed my lips to hers. Pulling back, fighting my cock hardening in my pants, I said, “When I’m back, you’re mine.”
Kisa brushed my hair back from my forehead and whispered into my ear, “I’m always yours.”
My lips found hers again. Groaning, I carefully pushed Kisa back against the wall, capturing her moan in my mouth. My hands reached down and lifted up her dress, just as a voice called from downstairs, “Mr. Tolstoi, Mr. Kostava is here.”
As I sagged against Kisa’s shoulder, she pushed me back. My jaw had clenched at being interrupted when my wife laughed and kissed me on the cheek. She had moved toward the bedroom when I ordered roughly, “Be ready for me when I get back!”
Kisa’s face flushed red, and she said, “Always, lyubov moya.”
I raced down the stairs and out into the cold night air. The driver held open the back door of the limo, and when I slipped in Zaal was already sitting opposite me, dressed in a monkey suit like me, his long hair tied back in a bun. The brother had been a nuclear bomb since we heard his sister had been taken.
As the car began to roll away, I asked, “You ready for this?”
Zaal exhaled and replied, “It is who I am. I am the Kostava Lideri. It is time my people had their dignity restored.”
The isolated warehouse at the Brooklyn docks was surrounded by our byki, hidden away in the shadows. Zaal and I got out of the car, Mikhail, my head byki, and Otto, Zaal’s, falling into step at our sides.
We approached the rear of the metal building; the area around us was derelict and run-down, a wasteland of dirt and filth.
As we reached the doors, a small man came running from the old wooden entrance. Avto. The old man scurried forward, holding his flat cap in his hands. Part of me wanted to allow Zaal to take the lead, but whether Zaal like it or not, he was part of the Bratva now. The people inside, and any man who followed Zaal’s leadership, had to know that the knyaz and Pakhan would be in every part of their lives.
“Avto,” I greeted. Avto’s eyes left Zaal and focused on me. “Knyaz,” he replied coldly, then focused back on Zaal.
“Lideri”—Avto swallowed, and shook his head—“I’m sorry, but as you stand here, you look just like your father.” Avto had spoken in Georgian.
Zaal tensed but then asked, “Are they all here?”
Avto nodded his head. “Yes, Lideri. Just under two hundred men.”
I nodded my head and said to Zaal, “That shows loyalty.” Avto swallowed when I too spoke in Georgian. I glared at the little man, and in that same Georgian I said, “Lead the way.”
Avto turned and hurried toward the entrance. As we walked through the doors and down a dusty hallway, I said, “Remember the housing offer. We will need your men close. It will give you time and a chance to see who is most loyal. Who to bring into your inner circle.”
Zaal nodded his head, then smirked my way. “You are sounding very much like Kirill, Luka. If I had closed my eyes, I think you could have fooled me into thinking he was beside me.”
I smiled and hit Zaal on the back. Holding out his hand, he stopped me and, only to me, said, “I was trained for the role, just as you were. I will never break my loyalty to the Bratva. I love my Talia too much to ever do that—”
“But?” I interrupted.
Zaal shook his head, smiling again. “But I am the Kostava Lideri. I will lead my people. Just as you will lead yours. And we make the decisions for our people together.”
Narrowing my eyes, I held out my hand. Zaal immediately shook it, and we commenced walking. We had only moved a few steps before I said, “You just sounded very much like Anri. If I had closed my eyes, you could’ve fooled me into thinking he was back beside me.”
Zaal sighed, but I saw the flash of pain in his eyes. “He was my brother. My twin. As much as I, he was meant for this moment.”
We walked together in silence. We stopped as Avto slipped through the archway into the main body of the warehouse. Zaal squared his shoulders, and with a firm nod to me and the byki he entered the warehouse.
I followed close behind Zaal. I watched with assessing eyes as his people came into view. Many older men stood in the abandoned space, but there were also a lot of younger men, young strong men who had been brought up well by their fathers. In seconds Zaal rounded the corner; their faces expressed their shock at seeing their Lideri. I stopped, Mikhail standing beside me, and let Zaal take the floor. He walked past his people, his huge frame towering above them.
My gaze wandered to Avto, who was standing back, watching Zaal take his place at the front of the crowd. Avto’s eyes were filled with tears, and even though he hated me, I felt sorry for the man. From what I could gather, Zoya, Zaal’s sister, was important to Avto. His entire life had been pledged to her protection.
A protection that had now failed.
The men all stared at Zaal. Many of the men bowing their heads in a show of respect. Zaal took a deep breath and, raising his head high, said, “Thank you for attending this meeting tonight.” He spoke in Georgian, and the people all began to smile. Finally, they knew their Lideri had returned.
Murmurs swept the group, many of the men expressing their happiness at him being alive.
Zaal held up his hand, and the men stopped talking. “As you can see, I, Zaal Kostava, of the Kostava Clan, am alive. Levan Jakhua took my twin brother and me captive years ago. I am sorry to say that Anri did not survive.” The men all bowed their heads in disappointment and respect for Anri’s memory.
“In fact,” Zaal continued, “up until this week I believed I was the only survivor of my family. I now know that is not true. My sister, Zoya, will be known to many of you. Many of you will have helped her escape with Avto as a child, and I know many of you have followed her to New York to continue her protection. For that you have my utmost gratitude.”
Zaal ran a hand down his face. “Many of you already know that Zoya has been taken, and as yet we have no leads as to who did this. We do, however, know there are Georgians in this city that shouldn’t be
here. Right now, we suspect they have my sister, and we must get her back.”
The men began murmuring to one another, stirred by Zaal’s words. My brother glanced back at me, and I nodded my head. Mikhail talked into the communication device on his suit, preparing the byki to move in if anything went down.
“I am the Kostava Lideri. I intend to lead you once again. If you pledge your loyalty to me, there is housing waiting for you and jobs for you to take up immediately. You will no longer have to live in hiding. And you will all become rich men.”
Smiles broke out on the men’s faces, but Zaal held up his hand. “What many of you do not know, however, is that I am engaged to be married.” Zaal paused at mention of his engagement. I watched Avto, who was fiddling with this caps. I straightened, pushing my hands into my pockets, slipping the cold steel of my knuckle-dusters over my fingers. I braced, ready for trouble, should trouble arise.
“I am engaged to a female called Talia Tolstaia.” Zaal spoke my sister’s name proudly. I smiled, knowing that the brother would put her before anyone else. This time, no smiles greeted his words. Instead the men began to look at one another, many showing anger on their faces.
“Talia is the daughter of Ivan Tolstoi, granddaughter of Matvei Tolstoi, of the Russian Bratva kings. They are our long-standing enemy. I understand that many of you will not understand how I could marry the granddaughter of the man our people were conditioned to hate. But know this: the Tolstois saved me from Jakhua.” Zaal looked to me and flicked his chin. I walked forward, pulling the attention of the crowd. With my head held high, I stood by Zaal’s side.
“This is Luka Tolstoi. He is the knyaz of the Bratva, and the brother of my fiancée.” Zaal dropped his hand,and added. “He too is now my brother.” My hands curled in my pockets as some of the men shook their heads.
“Luka Tolstoi saved my life, and thus I have pledged my loyalty to the Bratva. If you pledge to me, know that you also will be pledging yourselves to the Bratva. It is they who are providing the housing at Brighton Beach, and it is they who will help us find Zoya, and bring our dis, our taken sister, safely back home.”
Zaal stepped forward. With arms folded, he said, “If you cannot join me and make peace with the fact that our grudge against the Bratva has ended, then you are not welcome here. If you cannot live under my new ways, then you can leave, right now.”
The room was silent as the men looked to one another. One by one the men knelt, showing their allegiance to Zaal. When all the men, bar two, had expressed their loyalty, Zaal stepped forward. Otto rushed forward and took the men by the arms, lining them up against the wall.
They held their heads high as Zaal stopped before them. “You will not pledge?” Zaal asked. As he finished, one of the two older men spat at his feet.
“You disgrace your father’s name marrying that Russian whore! It is because of them that your family was killed. The Bravta cast us aside and let Jakhua destroy us.” He leaned forward. “You will never be the Lideri your father was.”
Blood boiled in my veins as that fucker called Talia a whore, but just as I fought to rein in my anger Zaal lunged forward, snapping each of the men’s necks in seconds. The dead bodies fell to the floor. Breathing hard, Zaal faced the gathering. “Anyone else feel this way? Does anyone else dare to call my Talia a whore!”
The men stayed bowed on the floor, none of them moving. My muscles jumped at seeing Zaal kill the men. My instinct to shed blood was hard to taper down.
I worked on breathing, releasing the knuckle-dusters from my hands. Zaal walked back through his men. Avto rushed forward, and with Zaal standing at the front each of the men, one by one, came forward and kissed Zaal’s hand to pledge his loyalty.
When the last man had bowed at Zaal’s feet, Zaal ordered them to gather around closely. I moved beside him. Zaal’s body was still tense when he said, “You will have two days to gather your things and move to Brighton Beach. Avto will be given the assignment of houses and place you in your positions of work.” The men all nodded.
“Then our priority will be finding my sister. Starting with any information we can find about the Georgians that have recently moved into town.”
Zaal had opened his mouth to speak again when a male, about thirty years old, raised his hand. “Lideri,” he said timidly, “I currently work here on the docks. My father, who has not long passed, placed us here years ago to watch out for any signs of our enemies. The Jakhuas.”
“And?” Zaal pushed.
“I saw Jakhua when he came back last year. He stayed in a house not too far from the docks. I didn’t see you, Lideri, but I saw him. My cousin”—he pointed to a man across the room—“my cousin works at the airfield, refueling the planes. He was there weeks ago when a private plane landed.”
I focused on the cousin and asked, “Who was in it?”
I’d spoken to him in Georgian, and stepping forward the male said, “There was a woman that dressed in all black, with what looked like a private protection of men, dressed in black, too.” He shook his head. “But there was also someone else. A hugely built man that was dressed all in black, a hood covering his head. But it was strange. He looked like he was their captive. The men were pushing him by his arms, his wrists cuffed behind his back.”
The male shook his head and raised his hand to his throat. “I saw a quick glimpse of his face when he passed. He didn’t look Georgian.” The male pointed at me. “He looked more Russian, like the knyaz. But what was strange was that he had a metal collar around his neck. He had a number of scars that were slashed down and across his face. He was the scariest motherfucker I’ve ever seen in my life.” The male looked to his cousin, then back to us. “His sweatshirt was open, and across his chest he had a tattoo. It was a number, one nine … something else. It just all seemed really weird.”
My eyes snapped to Zaal, but Zaal was already watching me. I knew what he was thinking. Who the hell was the male? If he had a tattoo, he was a slave to someone. He was one of us. Ice filled my veins when Kisa’s words from earlier circled my head: I have this awful feeling that there is more still to come. Nothing about this entire situation feels right. Right now I was having the same damn feeling.
Zaal looked to the male who’d first spoken, and said, “Why did you mention Jakhua to me?”
The male’s eyes widened, but he explained, “My cousin, before he worked at the airfield, worked with me at the docks. He recognized the woman from the plane, as the woman that would frequently visit Jakhua at the docks.”
Zaal’s hands balled at his sides. Seeing the brother about to lose it, I flicked my chin to Avto and said, “Take the men away. Have them moved to Brighton Beach as soon as possible.”
The men looked confused but left the room following behind Avto. When the door shut, Zaal threw his head back and screamed out. I stood beside him, waiting for him to calm down. Instead he paced.
“A female that knew Jakhua!” he spat, his voice low and rough. “The Pakhan was right. Jakhuas had someone coming for me, and instead they have taken Zoya. They’ve taken my fucking sister!” Zaal panted, and his hands ripped open his jacket and he threw it to the floor. He loosened his tie and, turning to the nearest wall, sent his hand plowing through the wood.
“Even from death that cunt is destroying my family!” He stopped, then faced me. “And the slave with a tattooed number across his chest? Who the hell is that? Did Jakhua have more than me? Or does he belong to this female that dresses in black?”
I shrugged. “Jakhua only had you that I knew of. But I didn’t know you even existed until months after I was freed. It makes sense that there’s more of us still out there in the world.”
“And he has Zoya? A trained killer like you and me has my sister!”
Walking forward, I took Zaal by his arms. He stopped, and I said, “We have a lead. We have a description. We have a link to Jakhua. That’s something. We take this information. We take my men and your men, and we get our ears to the ground.”
/>
Zaal’s face contorted, and he said, “She is my little sister. All the blood I have left. Blood I thought I had lost forever.”
“I know,” I said, and stepped away. “So use that fuel to find this bitch that’s taken her from you. Use that anger and fury to tear these newcomers apart.”
A cold, dark look spread across Zaal’s face, and he held out his hand. “We take them down,” he said. “When we find them, it is you and I against them, killing them in the only way we know how.”
My blood spiked with fire, and slapping my palm against Zaal’s I nodded my head. “We’ll slaughter, we’ll maim—”
“And we’ll fucking kill,” Zaal added with a cold smile.
We shook our hands, cementing the deal.
Then we got to work.
16
VALENTIN
I blinked, and blinked again, as Mistress’s face snapped away from glaring at Zoya and focused back on mine. Her look at my kotyonok sent a wave of possessiveness flooding through my body. I moved directly in her path, blocking Zoya from sight.
Mistress’s dark eyes blazed with anger, and her gaze dropped to my neck. Her lips twitched and she lifted her hand to the Wraiths standing behind. “Take him and his whore to the van.”
Fear for Zoya took hold as a Wraith reached forward for her and gripped her by the arm. Raising my hand, I balled it into a fist and hit the Wraith’s arm. He bit out in pain and withdrew his arm just as Mistress stepped forward with a Taser and slammed it into my neck.