Page 14 of Scarlet Promise (Yegorov Bratva #4)

Chapter Ten

ILYA

In a different world, I’d be speaking to my closest advisor in my ranks. In a different world, I’d be speaking to Demyan, or even Pavel.

But not now.

I could, I suppose, still speak to Pavel, but I understand loyalty. While he’s always been loyal to me, someone I consider a friend, I won’t put him at risk.

Like Demyan, I keep the buddy side of things to a level that’s nothing like friendship; no drinks out, no sharing of personal lives or discussion of personal issues. This keeps the lines of communication crisp and easy to see.

I won’t make him muddy our relationship. I won’t test his bonds or make him choose.

Rightly, he’d choose Demyan.

Because right now, it would have to be a choice.

In a different world, I’d make Denis my second and put my trust in him.

To a point, I do trust him. To a point, I trust those men remaining.

To a point.

But beyond that, I can’t. I won’t let myself.

Not until they prove it. And that will take some doing.

The ones who’ve remained with me seem loyal, willing to lay their lot with me and within the confines of the bratva they know. Some are even eager to find out how it will all change. They can see the upside of staying. The holes that lay in the ranks.

Holes that they could fill as they move up, giving them more power and responsibility than they’ve ever had before.

That’s the win-win I hold on to.

Along with a big fistful of reservations.

Denis is out working. I let him choose the men he trusts, and they’re making sure our shipments arrive and leave, that payments come through on time. Then there are new deals and shifts in the status quo here and there that we’re putting on stasis for now.

Some we may lose, and some we’ll keep. I’m okay with that. The strategic side of deal-making and moving the pieces on the bratva board is the side I know. I do it for Demyan—did it for Demyan—and I understand that pauses work.

Things are made stronger in the bratva’s standing because of it.

So in that regard, I’m not worried.

What I’m worried about is failing the mission at hand: finding Melor.

If I can find him, then I can work on Simonov. That’s a more complicated thing, Simonov. Part of the issue is that, like any smart play, Simonov—who has nothing against me on a personal level—is just conducting business.

Don’t get me wrong. I want him dead. But I understand the play.

Melor offered him a quick way of forming an alliance with the Belov Bratva, so he took the gamble. And lost. Now we’re enemies. He could offer me anything, and I wouldn’t be swayed.

The only saving grace in this, for him at least, is he didn’t touch Alina as far as I know.

That was Melor.

And touching her more than sealed his fate.

My stomach churns at the thought of her and those bruises. The gold rims of her blue irises seemed to flare bright when she saw me in that cabin. And?—

“Ilya, it’s done.” Denis limps in, a black cane with a gold tip in one hand. He shrugs. “I’m not bringing a crutch out on the field. This is less handy, but it looks better.” He grins. “And I hear looks are everything.”

I smile at his joke. “How many are jumping ship?”

“A few. We’ll know more in a few days. It’ll be a few, but less than I thought. Seems some are eager to see what a relationship will be like with the new pakhan.” He eases down onto the sofa, pulls out his phone, starts to scroll, but pauses to type. Then he looks up. “Family shit.”

He puts the phone away. “For some of the few, I ended the deals and withdrew from the possibility of alliance.”

He looks me in the eye.

I nod. “Why?”

“Because they pissed me off,” he says in Russian. “I don’t like being pissed off.”

I wait, but he doesn’t elaborate. I toy with pursuing it, but in the end, I don’t. They either did or said something to make him hesitate, so he showed them the door.

He wants to succeed, and he not only took a bullet for the bratva, but he stayed to help me and the men. I trust a man like that.

If he wanted me out, he’d have done it there and then, as the hero status would’ve been something he could have built on. Then he could have ousted Melor, or at the very least, worked with him.

In fact, it’s something he could still do.

He doesn’t, so I let it slide.

“Send me the reports,” I tell him.

“We’re effectively shuttered and running at bare minimum to keep things rolling. Next move?” he asks with a small nod.

I pour two drinks and hand him a vodka. “Find Melor. Put every man I have on that.”

“Which isn’t many.”

“Well,” I say, “we better get on it, then.”

Denis downs his drink and stands. “I’ll see what favors I can call in. And there are rumors as to why your wife isn’t here. My advice? Get her back.”

The next few days are boring, frustrating, and met with dead-ends.

Speaking with Alina at night or when I can snatch the time leaves me aching, yearning for more.

And it’s getting harder with each call not to ask her to break free of her brother’s watchful eye and safety manacles, not to deepen the rift, and come back here. To me.

It’s harder still because she wants to.

I have to tell her to cool down, stay calm. That we’ll work something out.

Like now.

“Please, Ilya, I want to come back. Albert misses you.”

I grit my teeth. “Not until we have Melor taken care of?—”

“That might never happen.” Her frustration is an echo of mine. “This is about Demyan, isn’t it?”

“He needs to calm down, too, but not completely. You’re safe with him.”

“And I’m safe with you ,” she insists.

In the background, Sasha demands more ice cream. It makes me smile and hurts my heart, all at the same time.

“Demyan won’t ever learn if we keep giving in.”

“Demyan’s stubborn, but Alina, malyshka , I won’t have you choose. That isn’t fair.”

“He’s my brother, and he’ll come around.”

Right now? I’m not so sure. Demyan’s a ticking bomb, and he needs to cool, not heat. He needs to grow used to all of this.

Or maybe it’s true. Maybe he doesn’t see me as worthy. And if that’s so, perhaps our friendship won’t survive intact. If I can prove I’m worthy, though, then I can save his relationship with Alina.

I’m not giving up on her.

I never will.

Not now that I know what it is to have her, hold her, taste her, love her.

“He will,” I say with less conviction than she did, “but it takes time. And it’ll take me getting Melor.”

“And your bratva?” she says. “What of that?”

I laugh. “I wasn’t aware you were so enthusiastic about being a bratva wife.”

“ Your wife,” she says softly, making my heart suddenly sing. “And what if the lawyers check up? They’re going to have to, because otherwise, what’s the point of that clause in the will? You need me.”

She’s right, on so many levels. They will. At some point. My grandfather strikes me as the type to do that. To check up from beyond the grave to make sure his rule is followed to the letter.

“We’ll talk soon,” I say. “Goodbye, malyshka .”

I hang up.

I do need her.

For my heart and my soul.

But first, I need Melor.

Thing is, no one’s come to me with information. Just dead ends. No one’s seen him, and not even Oleg has heard a whisper.

Melor’s vanished. Like he’s made of air. Or never existed.

It’s hard to go that deep underground without major help, and the help would have to come from an individual, not a bratva or mafia. Because someone, somewhere, within those organizations will know something. And people talk.

Unless he’s done it alone.

If so, there must be a paper trail. There’s got to be something.

Maybe Santo could help… But the moment the idea comes to me, I dismiss it.

I already owe him. And adding another favor on top of the first with my insult to him wedged in the middle isn’t smart. It’s asking for trouble.

There’s a knock on my door, and I look up to see the young soldier, Elisei. He looks hesitant but staunchly determined at the same time.

“Can we speak, sir?”

“My door’s open.” I gesture him inside.

He studies the bookshelf for a moment, and I’m curious about the hesitation. This is a guy with ambitions, something to prove, so whatever’s causing this is big or complicated. At least to him.

“Sir. I may be out of line, but…I feel someone’s still in your bratva who might not be as loyal as they claim.

” He stops, considers his words. “Or perhaps that’s not right.

Perhaps it’s more they know more than they’re letting on.

Things are in transition, so sometimes knowledge can be seen as betrayal. ”

“If it’s someone who knows where Melor is, then that’s a betrayal,” I say.

He swallows. “I can see that, but while I’m not comfortable naming names, I’d suggest you don’t sit back on this. I’d look into it.”

“Are you sure, Elisei?”

“If this person is a traitor? There are different ways of looking at it, like having information you’re not sure what to do with, and keeping it back out of malice or to help the enemy. I don’t know that. But I do know there is someone you might want to investigate further.”

He goes silent.

Then he adds, “I also don’t want to be seen as a mole or a rat to the other men, or to you. So I felt, after much thought, that I should let you know that you may want to look into things and come up with your own conclusions.”

I nod. “And if this person was out to cause trouble?”

“Then I’d have no hesitation in letting you know. My ultimate loyalty is to you and the bratva and the opportunities here.”

He’s smart, and he’s not shielding his ambitions.

“Thanks for coming forward. I’ll look into it.”

When he’s gone, I sit back and go through the list of men still in the bratva, including those high up. But there are fewer of them than there are of the men, and there aren’t that many of them, either. I don’t think it’s anyone high up. The risk to those guys hiding something is too great.

If anyone, it’d be someone with more to gain. Someone in the lower ranks.

Someone who was friendly with Melor.