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P iotr
“ T his asshole has nothing more to tell us,” Leo Volante sneers as he wipes his bloody hands on a towel.
A feral grin spreads across his younger brother Matteo’s face. “Maybe not, but why stop the fun now?”
“Because it’s three a.m. and I need some sleep.”
“Sleep?” Matteo laughs mockingly. “You’re getting old, like Antonio.”
Their brother, who is head of their family, left us over an hour ago. Three years older than me at thirty-one, Antonio Volante is far from past his prime.
“Fuck you!” Leo’s response holds no malice.
Matteo sucks in air over his teeth. “I don’t know, fratello , you sound tired.”
“I’m tired of your shit, little brother.”
Leo takes every opportunity to remind his younger brothers of the hierarchy within their family. It’s not done viciously. If anything, he’s at his most amiable when he spars with them. He’s their superior, but he’s also their older brother and he’d do anything to protect them. I admire that.
Working with Matteo and Leo tonight has been illuminating.
As we tortured the man who’s currently chained to the wall behind us for information, they moved around each other in a well-rehearsed dance.
They communicated without words, each seeming to know instinctively what the other was thinking.
Their closeness makes them a force to be reckoned with, a fact I hadn’t fully appreciated until now.
As an only child, raised by my uncle rather than my deadbeat father, I’ve never experienced a fraternal bond like theirs. I guess the closest I’ve ever come to it is with my oldest friend, Sev Baranov. I trust him more than anyone else, but even then I’m not sure I’d die for him.
“What do you think, Reznov?” Matteo asks me.
Pulled from my thoughts, I shrug. “It’s your women who were hurt tonight.”
Grigori Balogh, the lowlife we’ve been questioning for the past two hours, might not have been directly involved in the plot to abduct Emilia Volante tonight, but he helped the men who intended to harm her.
The pretty new bride of Alessandro, the third brother in the notorious mafia family, was almost taken tonight.
The Volantes’ younger sister, Olivia, was hurt during the botched kidnapping and her brothers have taken their rage out on our Hungarian captive.
Though I hate to see innocent women getting hurt, I don’t feel as strongly as Leo and Matteo do about what happened.
I have no investment in the welfare of these women.
Emilia is another man’s wife and Olivia may be a stunning beauty, but she’s too vain to interest me.
I’ve had dealings with Balogh before, but I only came along for the ride because the attempt to snatch Emilia happened at a hotel owned by the Reznov Bratva.
By sheer luck, I was the one who prevented the lovely Mrs. Volante from being taken.
I shot the asshole who was trying to drag her out through the service entrance.
“Exactly.” Matteo’s eyes glisten with something dark, a primal urge to obliterate his enemy. “It was our women, and he hasn’t even begun to pay for what happened to Livvy and Emilia.”
The viciousness in his tone surprises me.
While I had no doubts about Leo’s ruthlessness, Matteo possesses an effortless charm that masks his savage streak.
I wondered if it even existed. The moment we got Grigori Balogh back to this dank little room at one of my warehouses, I saw why Matteo’s name inspires fear.
A spluttering sound from across the room draws my attention. It seems our prisoner, who passed out a half hour ago, is awake once more.
“Piotr,” he croaks as if he has the right to use my name.
“What?”
“I have something for you.” Pain thickens his accent.
“Oh, yeah?” Though I can’t imagine what this bottom feeder would have for me, I move across the small cell so I can hear him better. “What is it?”
“For your ears only.”
His voice is weak, but his eyes convey determination to make me listen to him. I lean a little closer, unafraid he’ll lash out. Even if he wasn’t chained to the wall like a dog and hovering inches from death, he couldn’t overpower me.
“Tell me, then.”
His gaze flickers over my shoulder to where Leo and Matteo are watching from the other side of the room. “Get rid of them first.”
I shake my head. “This is their show, not mine.”
“You’ll want this.” He’s insistent. I must admit, I’m intrigued to find out what he wishes to tell me.
I meant what I said, though. We may be using my warehouse for this, but the Volantes are in charge of what happens here.
It’s their right to punish those who threaten their women.
If the roles were reversed, I’d insist on the same. Not that I have a woman to avenge.
Turning my back on Balogh to emphasize just how insignificant a threat he poses to me, I approach the Volante brothers.
“You think he might have something useful for you?” Leo asks.
I shrug. “I can’t imagine what, but he seems certain he does.”
Matteo rolls his head from one side to the other, stretching the muscles in his neck. A cracking sound confirms he’s tense. He hasn’t worked out all of his aggression yet.
“But it’s your call,” I tell them.
Leo scratches the back of his head. “If he’s got something you can use, you should hear him out.”
“What the fuck, Leo?” Matteo is more hotheaded than I thought. He really wants to end Balogh.
“We owe Piotr for helping us tonight,” Leo reasons. “If he hadn’t found the girls…”
A shudder ripples across Leo’s broad shoulders. Despite his reputation for callousness, he obviously cares for the women in his life. He stares pointedly at Matteo until the younger man exhales sharply.
“Yeah, okay, we do owe you.” Matteo pulls me into a hug that has my spine stiffening. These Italians are demonstrative with their feelings. It’s unsettling. “If he’s playing you, make sure he suffers.”
It’s not like I’d do anything else. “Of course.”
As the Volante brothers leave, I turn to look at the shell of a man I’m now alone with.
If I’m honest, I think he’s suffered enough.
He was only a bit player in the plot to kidnap Emilia.
I may dish out violence regularly, but I like to think I’m fair about it.
The punishment should fit the crime. I’d have chopped off his fingers and left it at that.
“Okay, Grigori, I’m listening. Persuade me you have something worth sparing your miserable life for.”
“There are photos,” he wheezes.
That’s not what I expected. “Photos of what?”
“The Volante bitch.”
“Emilia?”
He shakes his head, then sucks in a shuddering breath. “No, the princess.”
“Olivia?”
“ Igen .” He slips into his native language.
“What sort of photos?”
The leer on his bruised and battered face is answer enough.
“You have these in your possession?” I ask.
He nods weakly. “Joey Gallo left them in my safekeeping.”
“Gallo?” I spit the name. The man is total scum. Or should I say, he was. Gallo disappeared a few months ago and rumor has it Leo Volante took him out. “Why did he have photos of Olivia?”
Balogh coughs violently, blood and saliva spitting from his mouth. “I don’t know. He didn’t give me his life story. He just asked me to hide them.”
That sounds about right. Balogh is a man who’ll do anything for anyone as long as the price is right, but you’d have to be mad to share more with him than necessary.
“Okay, so where are these photos?”
“Let me out of here. I’ll take you to them.”
“What makes you think I want these photos enough to let you out?”
“Trust me.” He draws in a pained breath. “They’re pure gold. Antonio Volante’s looking for them. He would do anything to stop them from getting out.”
Hmm. Now I am intrigued. When he said there were photos, I thought Balogh meant they depicted something racy that would cause the Volantes embarrassment, but now I wonder if they’re more damning.
If that’s the case, they might provide useful leverage in the future.
The Volantes are allies of ours. We’ve been doing business with them for a long time and my uncle has a particular fondness for Antonio’s mother, Ava.
Things are good between us. But you never know when a touch of blackmail may be required to keep the relationship working to our benefit.
“Okay, Balogh, here is the deal. You tell me where the photos are and I’ll go get them. If they’re worth something to me, I’ll let you walk out of here.” I look at his broken body, littered with wounds that are enough to injure, but not kill. “Well, crawl maybe.”
His low whine tells me the offer isn’t what he hoped for.
“It’s the best you’ll get from me, Balogh,” I warn.
He weighs this for a moment before accepting he’s out of options. “There’s a safe in my office at the club. It’s behind the painting. Code is 29-09-51.”
Committing that to memory, I turn and leave without another word. I have no desire to spend any more time than I have to with this mudak . One of my uncle’s brigadiers, a man who’ll be invaluable to me when I take over the organization, is standing outside the door.
“Keep an eye on things here, Josef.” Now that I know where the photos are, I could simply kill Balogh, but I made a deal and I don’t break my word lightly. “Don’t let him die before I return.”
“Sure, Piotr.”
I pass a few of my men who gathered here when news got around that the Volantes and I brought a prisoner here.
They no doubt hoped for a piece of the action, but Leo and Matteo deprived them of their opportunity to get their hands dirty.
Something I’ll say for the brothers is that they don’t shy away from doing what has to be done.