Because Toly was a man of high personal standards, he performed every task he was given with quiet efficiency – but that was only when he was given a task. Oleg had a pair of great big idiots he favored above everyone, mean-looking, with broken noses and scars on their knuckles. Loud and boisterous, so it became obvious to anyone within range that they were Russian. Oleg wanted to be flashy – but unlike his cousin, who chose to be so through expensive clothes, and cars, and jewelry, Oleg had to resort to public intimidation and violence.
So Toly sat back, and kept his mouth shut, and watched as, day by day, Oleg grew more reckless. He snapped a hooker’s neck one night, and sent his favorite thugs to dump her. She was the subject of the next day’s citywide news, found hanging out of a rusty shopping cart at the landfill, not at all hidden, and loaded with DNA. By some miracle, Oleg and his goons weren’t in the system, and the poor girl joined the others just like her in the Cold Case files.
A few weeks after that, one of Oleg’s runners got picked up in an undercover drug bust, and it was a tense wait to see if he’d squeal. He must have, because a pair of detectives turned up at the laundromat, and Oleg spent four months’ earnings paying them off.
That was another point of contention on Toly’s part: the earnings themselves. Because Oleg couldn’t bear to part with so much as a gram of coke, the bratva had gone into the car and jewelry businesses. They had a chop shop, and a slew of pickpockets and fast-talkers who liberated passersby, bored, horny housewives, and nearsighted pawn shop owners of anything shiny. They turned around and sold it behind the Rat Trap, or at an underground auction that met once a month, a dangerous affair given the attendance of all the major crime families in the city, from the yakuza to the Italian mafia.
Within six months of his arrival in America, it had become abundantly clear to Toly that it was only a matter of time before all of them wound up in prison. Not a matter ofif, butwhen, with Oleg growing hungrier and more unhinged all the time.
Toly had stomached all sorts of depravity and crime with the Kozlov bratva…but he wasn’t prepared to go to jail. Gang members got shivved and kicked to death in jail. If you weren’t mean enough, or big enough…well, it was best left unsaid. Even thinking of it left him staring at the ceiling at night, unable to sleep.
It took six months, and one phone call back home to Misha, who said he wasn’t permitted to come home, to realize that he needed to get out of the bratva.
The event that turned out to be the final straw was his own fault.
Oleg loved guns. He fancied himself a collector, everything from old Colt single-actions, to a Korean War M1, to all the modern, matte American goodies on offer at every pawn shop. It wasn’t hard to find a dealer in the city, someone with a car that rode low in the rear end, a dark alley, a lifted trunk, flipped back blanket. But everyone knew that if you wanted toreallygo shopping, you went to the Lean Dogs. And the Lean Dogs showed up at one month’s underground auction positively stupid with guns. Table after table laden with AKs and ARs, with Remingtons and Winchesters. .22s, .38s, .40s, .45s. A gorgeous Browning rifle that Toly had eyed longingly. There was also, surprisingly, a whole mess of Skorpions, which had drawn Oleg’s attention straight away.
Toly had eased up behind his Pakhan to listen to the two Lean Dogs, one grey and grizzled, one young and puppy-dog cute, work their potential bidder.
“We’ve got a guy in London who collects them,” the young one said, eyes light, voice eager. “He ships ‘em over in the drawers of writing desks – he makes furniture in his spare time, if you can believe it.” He chuckled. “Me? I like a good ol’ reliable Smith & Wesson, but our guy loves his Russian guns for some reason. These just came in last night. You’re only the third person to touch them since they were made.”
Oleg oohed and ahhed over them a while, and then was outbid by a flash dude in a deep blue suit, rings winking on each finger.
Oleg was furious.
Toly, stupidly, suggested he go straight to the Dogs and buy direct, rather than leave it to chance at an auction.
“Because I can’t afford it, you fucker!” Followed by a smack to the back of the head that Toly accepted with balled fists and gritted teeth.
Two days later, Toly was picking up smokes and a sandwich at his favorite bodega when he turned and knocked shoulders with someone about his own size.
“Whoa! Sorry, dude, my bad,” the other guy said, and Toly stepped back, blinked, and realized it was the young Dog from the auction, wearing his cut and everything.
“You,” Toly said.
The boy frowned, but in an amenable sort of way. “Uh…do I know you? You look familiar.”
Toly checked over his shoulder, saw that they stood too close to the line at the register, then tipped his head and stepped down an aisle.
Trusting as a real dog, the boy followed, hands in his pockets, not even a little prepared to defend himself should Toly wish him harm. It was that trust that pinged an alarm in the back of Toly’s mind, made him feel guilty in a way he didn’t understand.
When they stood in front of the ice cream case, he turned, shifted his bag over his wrist, and pushed up his sleeve to flash the Old English-script K tattooed on the inside of his forearm. Naïve though he looked, the Dog recognized the Kozlov insignia. His brows shot up.
“Hey, weren’t you–”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Weren’t you at the auction the other night? With the Kozlov guy.”
“My Pakhan.”
“Your…” The kid’s brows lifted another fraction. “Okay, yeah. Your Pac Man.”
Toly sighed. “My boss,” he clarified. “He’s interested in your Skorpions.”
“Yeah.” The boy chuckled. “He was, like, excited about them, yeah?”
“He lost at auction, but he still wants some. Do you have more in stock?”
