Bend For Him (Volkov Crime Family 1)

“Gents,” I said.

“You brought the girl,” Hedeon said.

I nodded and gestured at her. “I thought she should be here for this, since she was there for the ambush.”

He flinched, but only slightly. “All right then.”

Robin looked around. “We’re meeting in an abandoned elementary school cafeteria?”

I nodded. “Got a problem?”

“Nope. Just bizarre.”

I gestured at the table. She sat down. I took the seat across from her.

The guy on my left was stocky, built like a bulldog, with spiky brown hair and a tight black button-down. He scowled at me, though Enrico always scowled.

“You’re late,” he said with a grunt. “We’ve been sitting in this rat-infested shithole, waiting for the last ten minutes.”

“Traffic,” I said.

“Don’t be smart,” Enrico said.

“Gentlemen,” Hedeon said. “Enough of that. We’re here to discuss the events of last night.”

“Pavel’s dead,” Aldman said. He was muscular, pale, with a thick beard and blue eyes. “Last night was an epic, incredible fuck-up. A failure of immense proportions.”

“We get it,” Enrico said. “And we aren’t surprised. Leo’s been a little too loose with the rules. For example, this fucking girl, in this fucking place.”

Hedeon scowled. “Enrico, enough.”

Enrico grunted and snapped his jaw shut. I could see his fingers turn white.

He didn’t like me much. He was one of the original guys in the crew, and he’d been against new members from the start.

“This isn’t about the girl.” Hedeon stared around the table. “She didn’t cause this. In fact, according to Leo, she tried to stop it.”

“Pavel wouldn’t listen,” I said.

“I find that hard to believe.” Enrico sneered at me.

“If I have to speak to you one more time, Enrico, I will tell you to leave.”

Enrico grunted and shut his mouth.

“What happened out there?” I asked, ignoring Enrico. He just wanted to bait me into some bullshit fight and I didn’t have the time or energy for his petty political squabbles. “You sent me there with no information and no time to plan. You’ve got to admit, Hedeon, that’s a little suspect.”

The third man spoke up, his eyes narrowed. He was broad and intense with dark eyes and dark hair. He wore a slim suit and leaned forward on his elbows.

“Are you suggesting Hedeon set you up?” Reid asked.

“I’m not, but I’m suggesting someone did.”

Hedeon rubbed his temples. “The information was reliable.”

“And yet a bunch of guys with fucking assault rifles tried to gun us down. And succeeded in killing Pavel.”

“I’m aware.” Hedeon leaned toward me. “And yet I still trust my source.”

“Why aren’t we thinking about the girl as a possible leak?” Aldman asked. “She’s from their family. So what if they tried to kill her? Could’ve been a ruse from the start.”

“I didn’t leak anything,” Robin said.

Enrico made a face. “Don’t talk, little bit—”

He didn’t finish that. I grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into the top of the table.

He gasped and groaned, throwing himself backwards and falling off the table. He landed on his ass, rolled to the side, and jumped to his feet. His eyes were raging and blood leaked from his nose.

I looked up at him, not bothering to stand. “Talk to her like that again.”

“Sit down, Enrico,” Hedeon said. “On the other side of the table, please.”

Enrico looked at him. “You saw what he just did. You can’t just—”

“Sit the fuck down,” Hedeon said and slammed his hands on the tabletop.

The room went still. Even Robin seemed to sense something was off with that gesture.

Hedeon never lost his cool. I’d never seen him angry, not once in all the time we’d worked together. He was the most reliable man I had ever met, and an outburst like that was more than a little disconcerting.

“Yeah, fine,” Enrico said. “But this isn’t over.”

“Never is,” I said.

Enrico walked around the table, glared at Robin, and sat at the far end.

“Unfortunately, Leo has a point,” Reid said. “Your information was bad, whether you want to admit it or not. We need to know where it came from.”

“The source is reliable.” Hedeon frowned at them. “He’s given me good information in the past. Some very, very good information.”

“But you have an insider,” I said. “Someone that might be playing both sides.”

“Yes, that’s a possibility.” He didn’t look like he thought so, though.

“Stop playing these spy games, Hedeon. We deal with all this secrecy because your methods have been successful so far. But this is a big deal, one of the original members is dead. We can’t just ignore this.” Reid looked angry, almost barely restrained.

“I’ve been getting information from Rolan Volkov.”

Robin sucked in a breath. Her eyes were wide and her face turned a paler shade of white.

“He’s a minor cousin, yeah?” Aldman shook his head. “Why the hell would he turn?”

“He’s been unhappy in the family for a long time,” Hedeon said. “I’ve been working him as an asset for years. And just these last few months, he’s been giving me information. This is the first time it’s proven unreliable.”