There were very few men who would be able to question my intentions like this and live to tell the tale. Anatoly Danilov was one of them. Some would call him a friend, and others would call him my private killer on a short leash. The truth was somewhere in between. We had been through a lot of shit together. He had been there when I had taken over, and he was the one person I could trust with my life.
And most importantly, the man stuck to the thieves’ code. He had honor. True honor—not the kind motivated by money or power.
I pushed away from the desk. “Make certain that the boys know that she is not to be touched. Or I will deal with them personally.”
Anatoly chuckled. “I’m sure that was clear the first hundred times you said that, Pakhan.”
A mirthless chuckle escaped my lips. “It never hurts to make sure that orders are clear.”
“Koneshno,” he replied.
Despite his size, Anatoly was a year younger than I was. I had given him a life he wouldn’t have had otherwise in Russia. I’d brought him off the streets of St. Petersburg and elevated him here in the States. He was the brigadier of brigadiers. A man who took care of the finer details, which left me to handle the broader strokes of the Bratva’s businesses: imports, exports, new business deals, and strategic marriages.
Even my own.
Speaking of. It was time to turn my attentions elsewhere now that Sveta was safely under my roof. “Come, we have to go to the docks.”
Anatoly and I walked out of the home and to the waiting car, where I slid into the leather seat with Anatoly flanking my right. Some Pakhans relied completely on their guards and associates to protect them. And I knew that Anatoly would give his life for mine.
Me? I preferred a more equal approach at times. I would do everything in my power to keep Anatoly alive. He would never let me, of course, as his job was to keep me protected.
While Anatoly was very handy with knives, I had my own already strapped to various parts of my body, skilled in both hand-to-hand combat and weapons training. I had been raised on the ruthless streets of post-Soviet new Russia, where violence was the only language that people understood.
It was a life that no one in America could ever understand. I had killed my first man when I was a teenager with nothing more than my bare hands and a few seconds’ worth of time. And he had done his best to kill me.
The car pulled out of the drive and into LA traffic, a city that had become my second home. While I preferred the allure of my homeland, there were far more opportunities in LA. Here, I was the boss and could control my shipments without the interference of the Russian government.
Also here were the Marchetti and Krasnaya Bratvas, two of my rivals that I couldn’t very well just let rule LA without my interference.
And interfere they did.
“Shipments will come easier now that Krasnaya and Marchetti are in disarray,” I remarked, stretching my legs.
“There will be trades up for grabs now,” Anatoly replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “It might not hurt to expand and line our pockets with more money.”
I frowned, thinking about the fall of the Krasnaya Bratva to the Marchetti Mafia.
Stanislav had grown old, and in his advanced age, he had grown complacent. That had been his downfall.
There was a moment that I thought Roman Marchetti would step in and do exactly what I was planning to do. But then he’d started a war, all for a woman, and nearly set all of Los Angeles on fire with that.
Fucking idiot.
There was no one who could make me step away from my destiny, no one that could make me want to give up my Bratva and the power I was going to get from marrying Stanislav’s daughter.
Still, I had to thank Roman for doing what he did. After all, he had rid the world of Stanislav Orlov. Hard to believe that the man had done all that work, lost all those men—his own twin brother among them—all for a woman.
Well, no matter.
Once I put the ring on Sveta’s finger, even Stanislav’s staunchest supporters would have no choice but to follow my lead.
I just needed to jump on my plan before anyone else found Sveta and did exactly what I was planning to do. I doubted that with the chaos Roman had left in LA, anyone would have thought to take the only surviving member who could hold the key to folding the Krasnaya Bratva into their organization.
But then again, until just a few weeks ago, nobody even knew that Sveta Orlov existed.
Stanislav was an old-school man who had dodged the KGB. It didn’t surprise me he could keep such things secret.
And now he was dead. And in a few more days, my plans would be complete. I would let everyone know that I had married her. Then, I would be stepping into the old man’s shoes and combining the two Bratvas together. Krasnaya and Belaya—red and white—old foes back in Russia, brought under a single roof.
It was almost poetic.
“You know,” Anatoly remarked as the car weaved its way to the docks. “There is a good chance that both sides will just end up killing each other the moment you announce the wedding.”
“The Krasnaya Bratva is on shaky legs at best,” I told him, watching as the city passed. “And without a leader, they will be looking for some order, someone to build them back up to their former glory.”
“Tell me how you are going to keep your wife from killing you,” Anatoly smirked. “Because she doesn’t seem to be a fan of yours right now.”
I hid my smile. Sveta wasn’t a fan of me at all. But that didn’t matter.
In time she would come to realize that marrying me was the right thing to do in her situation. The only thing she could do.
I would be her provider, and once I planted my child in her belly, her role would be complete. Sure, she would stand by my arm on occasions when she needed to and play the part of the obedient wife. But I would ultimately cast her aside.
“She looked older than I thought,” Anatoly continued as the car passed through the gates to the dock on the far side of town. “I thought she was supposed to be young.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I bit out, straightening my cuffs and wiping my hands on my pants.
I didn’t even fucking care what she looked like as long as she got pregnant. Sveta had been hidden in Ukraine if stories were to be believed, and that country was going to hell in a handbasket. It didn’t surprise me that she would look older. War did that to people.
And at any rate, her father would have married her off anyway, using her as a pawn to make him a successful business match to bring in more money and alliances.
In this world, marriages weren’t built on love but on mutual interest. The wives needed not be willing. They just needed to be fertile.
My marriage to Sveta would be no different.
The car slowed to a stop and Anatoly climbed out first, holding the door so I could step out into the late afternoon myself, buttoning my suit coat as I did so. The smell was ripe with the sea and fish, the sounds of seagulls crying in the distance grating on my nerves.
I needed a drink and a few hours in bed, but business couldn’t wait. “We need to look into alternate supply routes,” I finally said to Anatoly. “Give them something to work for.”
“Who?”
I looked over at Anatoly. “The Krasnaya brigadiers—Poroshenko and the rest of them—when they come to join us.”
If they didn’t, well, they wouldn’t walk the earth much longer. Like I said: join or die. The simplest choices were the best choices.
Anatoly just shook his head and walked off to find those that were supervising the shipment’s arrivals.
He thought my plan was shit, but it was so much more than that. My plan was going to work, and in a few more days, there would be no going back. In a few more days, I would have claimed Sveta, put my child in her belly, and the name Krasnaya Bratva would never be uttered from anyone’s lips ever again.
All without a single shot fired.