I lean back in my seat, taking a deep breath when my phone stops ringing. It rings again almost immediately.
“Fuck.” I drag a hand down my face and check who it is, declining the call when I see Daniil’s name. Whatever bullshit he wants to pile on can wait until tomorrow.
I don’t even close my eyes before the stupid thing starts ringing again.
“Da?”I answer with a snarl. “What’s so important that you won’t let me have a moment of peace?”
“I need you for a meeting tonight,” he rushes out, sounding almost panicked.
“You need me, huh? Well, too bad I don’t give a shit.”
I’m already pulling my phone away, intent on hanging up when he blurts, “I’m meeting with Semyon.” I pause, hesitating for a moment before I press the phone back to my ear. “If I meet him alone, odds are at least one of us isn’t going to walk out of that room. I need a mediator.”
“A babysitter, you mean.”
Daniil and Semyon get along about as well as oil and water, but their paths don’t cross often enough for me to worry about it. I respected lawyer shouldn’t take notice of a mere foot soldier, and a soldier shouldn’t have any need for an attorney unless he’s in trouble.
Lucky for us all, Semyon—who I have the unfortunate designation of calling my brother—has always had a lucky habit of wiggling his way out of situations before he needs to worry about it.
“You two have no reason to be in a room together. Whatever he’s done, just ignore him. It’ll go away soon enough.”
“I’d love to, but he’s crossed a line I can’t ignore.” Daniil sighs. He sounds frustrated, and it piques my curiosity. Semyon has largely been quiet for the past few months, but when he does cause a mess, I’m typically one of the first to know about it.
“What’d he fuck up this time?”
“Apparently he’s been running his mouth again.”
“That’s nothing new. Why do you care?”
Semyon’s the type of person who thinks more highly of himself than anyone else ever will. He’ll talk a big game, cause a mess, and he won’t care when I’m left cleaning it all up afterward. If it weren’t for me, he would have ended up in prison ages ago.
There’s a beat of silence. Long enough that I have to check to make sure the call hasn’t dropped.
“He was talking about Blair. And from what I was told, it sounds like he was planning on taking her out.”
My heart stutters in my chest as my blood burns to a boil.
“He can’t. Even Maksim wouldn’t let someone kill your wife.” I’m trying to reassure myself just as much as I am him. He might be erratic and unreliable, but even Maksim knows that when you start killing your men’s families, they don’t stay loyal for long.
It’s part of the reason I didn’t fight Daniil when I found out he was planning to propose. At least their marriage gave Blair some sort of protection when Maksim decided that she was a liability.
In his eyes, once a rat, always a rat. It doesn’t matter to him if Blair was only acting as an informant because I strong-armed her into it. Maksim doesn’t give a shit if she was giving us information about the cops’ plans, or that she was only ever helping me clean up Pavel’s sloppy mistakes. He’ll always view her as a risk to his entire operation, one who will turn around and tell law enforcement everything she’s learned over the years whenever she wants to.
“Well, he made it sound like he was given a thumbs up from someone higher up the food chain.”
“That’d be a slippery fucking slope. Who the hell told you that?”
“Does it matter who?” he snaps. “I can’t let him talk like that, man, and he agreed to a proper sit-down.” He sounds desperate, almost pleading. My jaw aches from how hard I’m grinding my teeth.
Semyon’s bark has almost always been worse than his bite. He’s always been the type of person who’ll do anything if he thinks it’ll give him a leg up in this life, but doesn’t have the smarts to be trusted with anything serious. Still, I can’t help but ask myself if this is different.
Maksim wouldn’t give Semyon the okay foranyassassination, much less for someone associated with the Bratva, but Pavel? He’s short-sighted enough that he wouldn’t wait for permission. Especially if he thinks it would impress his father.
I don’t know if killing Blair would be enough for that, but Maksim wouldn’t lift a finger to stop it. If Semyon’s serious, then the only recourse would be to meet him face-to-face and either talk him down or end his ambitions in a more permanent manner.
Daniil can talk his way out of a paper bag with most people, but my shit-for-brains little brother? He’s too stubborn to listen to anything that anyone has to say. He’ll probably just go into the meeting with guns blazing because he thinks that’s what’ll get him ahead.
“Please, Andrei. I need you there.” I’ve known Daniil most of my life, and I don’t remember the last time I heard him sayplease. “You’re the only one who has a chance of talking him out of this bullshit.”