Page 61 of Darkest Sin

When the bartender still doesn’t give me an answer, I pull out a hundred dollar bill and slide it across the bar. “Tell me where he is. I’m not going to shoot him. I swear.”

“That’s an easy promise to make and an easy one to break.”

“What is going on here?” a new man asks.

Looking over my shoulder, I see that Cillian has come from a back office and is glaring right at me. Not a good way to start this but it will have to do.

“I’m trying to get him to leave, boss,” the bartender says, even though he grabs the hundred dollar bill and stashes it away.

“I’m here to talk to you,” I say to Cillian. He has two men behind him. Both with guns. “I’m not here to fight. I put myself at risk coming here.”

Cillian eyes me over before he nods for me to follow him. We settle into his back office.

“What do you want?” he asks. His two men join us, shutting the door behind me, enclosing me in. If they wanted to, they could kill me.

I pull out my gun and they all tense before I put it on the desk. “I’m not here to fight. I’m here to discuss a business proposition with you.”

He scoffs. “I don’t work with Russian scum like you.”

“And normally, I would never work with Irish crude like you. But I think we have a common enemy. Nico Bernardi.”

Cillian’s eyes light up and he can’t hide it. “What about him?”

“He’s been going after your drug shipments. That’s what I’ve heard.”

“You’ve heard right.”

“Well, Nico has been going after my gun shipments. I say we work together. We’d be a powerful force. We could take him down.”

He wipes his hand across his nose. It’s a little white. Cillian must sample his merchandise before he sells it. “I heard that you tried to make a deal with him and he turned you down.”

“He did. I won’t deny it. I’m a man who will strive for peace first. But if you don’t want peace with me, then you’ve made an enemy of me. And Nico has made an enemy of me. So let’s work together.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“We would have double the men. Double the efforts to protect our merchandise. We could catch Nico and kill him. Or throw him into jail. Whichever you prefer.”

Cillian chuckles as he lights up a cigarette. “I know you, Mikhail. You’re a man who likes to kill. You won’t be satisfied if Nico is in jail.”

I wink. “I thought I would offer it to you, just in case.”

“You really want to work together, huh?”

“I really do. And once we deal with Nico, you could help me with another problem. Denis Petrov. He needs to go.”

“He’s one of your own, isn’t he?”

“Just because we’re all Bratva doesn’t mean we all work together. And if there’s anyone you need help in getting rid of, I can help you there. We’ll help each other.”

This goes against everything I believe in. The Mikhail of just a few months ago would have shoved a hot poker in his eye for even thinking of working with the Irish.

But I’m a married man now and I have to think of Natalya’s safety. If Nico were to kill me, then that would put her at risk. Denis could take her back and marry her to whoever he chose.

“You really think we can help each other?” Cillian asks.

“I really do.”

He thinks on it for a moment before he extends his hand. “Then you have yourself a deal.”