Page 118 of Nothing More

“I wasn’t involved in any of those decisions.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly – orders had come from Knoxville, and they hadn’t voted on a course of action, for once. More and more, he noticed, votes were eschewed in favor of Ghost Teague’s commands. But he felt disloyal for shifting blame to his club, when he’d been the one to suggest the mafia swap in the first place; he'd approached the Italians, and Topino had gone to the Russians, and Toly had been the mastermind.

“And I wasn’t involved in mailing anything to your model,” Misha countered. “Organizations have ways of doing things that individuals don’t always approve of. No?”

“What are you saying?”

Misha sighed again; tapped his ring against the side of his glass, and went for the cigar again. Filled the air with thick, boiling smoke, and looked regretful. “If you were anyone else, I wouldn’t tell you this.”

He was bullshitting, acting – he had to be, despite his dislike for games. If he wasn’t, if he was being honest, then he still held a shred of respect, and even trust, for Toly. And Toly’s traitorous ego was flattered by it, despite his best efforts.

“The night you killed the Butcher” – his gaze skipped briefly to the door, as though checking for listeners, and that had to be part of the act, too, didn’t it? – “the plan changed at the last minute. Once you had already left to do the job. Andrei came to me, he wanted me personally to collect the body. He’d been offered money for it – a lot of money. The man was dead, and he knew you’d been careful – no fingerprints, no camera footage, no witnesses – and so he decided money was worth more than knowing where the body was. I didn’t dump it, that night, but handed it off to some men at the docks.”

Some last shred of logic told him to sit still and keep silent…but curiosity, and the adrenaline flooding his system, won out. “Who? What men?”

Misha shook his head. “I never knew. They had a black van, and wore hats. They took the body, and gave me a bag of cash.”

“And you never told me.”

“You didn’t need to know,” he said, simply. “It affected nothing.”

“Until now.”

A nod. “Yes.” His gaze landed on Toly’s face, considering a moment. His tone grew softer, more confidential. “I was surprised, you know,” he said, like an admission, “that Andrei sent me here. That he named me Pakhan in America.”

It shouldn’t have, but it felt good, in an unexpected way, to sit here and talk with him, as if no time had passed. No one else in this city had shared his experiences in Moscow – no one but Misha, to whom Toly said, “You were always his favorite.”

Snort. “No, that was you.”

Toly blinked; he felt slapped. “No.”

“Yes,” Misha insisted. “His little one, raised up like a son. You didn’t expect him to tell you to your face, did you? Compliments make men weak, he thinks. But you were his knife in the dark; his angel of death. His favorite. I was simply the one who was always there. The one who always told him ‘yes, sir,’ and kept the others in line. I was never supposed to be a leader.” Beneath the disbelief, Toly detected a thread of hurt; a bitterness that he’d been sent across the world away from the man he’d served so faithfully for so long. It was a promotion, yes, but the sort that proved Andrei didn’t need you around anymore. Toly had felt the same way when he’d been sent to serve Oleg.

Still reeling from the thought that he’d been the favorite, Toly drained off his glass and said, “Oleg was a disaster, and he knew he could trust you completely.”

“Yes, there was that.”

Misha stood, collected their glasses, and went to the sideboard. Again, that shred of caution in the back of Toly’s mind told him to turn his head, keep eyes on the man; to not offer a chance for him to stab him in the back. But he wasn’t actually worried that would happen. Not now.

Misha returned, a second, larger drink landing on the blotter before Toly. “I wasn’t happy, at first,” he said, resuming his seat. “Oleg had done such a bad job that there was no power here. The Kozlov bratva wasn’t respected in New York.

“But then I learned something. Andrei took me aside, and he told me that the Butcher’s son was all grown up, now, and that he was entering the family business. He’d found out who was involved the night his father died, and he wanted revenge.”

Toly shrugged, even as cold tingles walked up the back of his neck. He remembered that abandoned building, the plastic sheeting tacked to the ceiling, rolled across the floor. “So? Kill him, just as we killed his father.”

Misha’s mouth twitched, the tiniest of winces. “It wasn’t that simple. He had money. Some sort of backer. He was careful, unlike his father. It was easier to get me out of the country – and a chance for me to turn things around here, besides.”

Toly took another glance around the handsome room. “Which you’ve done.”

Misha dismissed the statement with a wave. “Look, Toly, I won’t lie: I’d love nothing more than to knock the Lean Dogs off the board.”

The second drink went down colder, smoother, even more welcome. Eased some of the tightness in his jaw and left him more honest and talkative than he should have been. “So would a lot of people, I think.”

“Yes. But in this case, I’ve not made a move yet.” He swiveled his chair around, and Toly noticed a small, black-fronted mini fridge tucked beneath the marble countertop that ran along the wall behind the desk. From it, Misha drew a small baggie that he turned and dropped onto the desk beside Toly’s drink.

Toly started to reach for it, and then stopped himself when he saw what lay within. A finger. Long, narrow, feminine. Like the one that had arrived at Raven’s office, it bore a ring, but rather than the rock of Mrs. Newsome’s stolen property, this was a narrow silver band with a heart stamped into the back of it.

“That arrived last week,” Misha said. “Here. At this address.” Which meant the sender knew where Misha lived and conducted bratva business. “I’m sure you know who it belongs to.”

“Antonina Ostrowski.”