Chapter 19

Nikolai

"You know about the trafficking, too?" I stared intently at him to take in his reaction. Other than clenching his jaw in a way that made his vicious scar turn white, he didn't give much away.
"Of course, I know," he gritted out. "He mentioned it to me months ago, and I told him it was a terrible idea. I told him people are too unpredictable. Drugs, weapons, information; those can all be handled with a certain degree of control.” Drago's tense explanation indicated he was against it for logistical reasons, but his revolted expression conveyed his opinion of human trafficking.
“What’s going on, Drago? Why are you bringing this up now?”
Drago shot me a thoughtful look, as though still considering my trustworthiness, then sighed. "Your father has made a move that is so irresponsible, I'm going to be untangling us from it for months,” Drago said, frustration and disbelief evident in his tone. He paused and gave me an intense stare. “I think you understand what it means that I’m sharing this with you?”
I nodded my head soberly. It meant Drago was planning to take my dad out. “What has that fucking psychopath done this time?" I asked in resignation. It’s not like I had to hide my disgust from Drago anymore.
"He thinks he is untouchable. Mikhail owes him from when they were in Ukraine, so he feels like he can do whatever he wants,” Drago bit out, taking periodic scans of the area to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Mikhail was the boss in Moscow. I had a feeling his charity toward my father was only going to extend so far, but my father had gotten away with a lot of shit under Mikhail’s watch.
"Your father started this trafficking shit against the suggestion of the New York syndicate. And Mikhail and the Moscow syndicate.” My brows shot up at that. My father had done things without permission, requiring him to make restitution to Moscow, but he’d never ignored a direct order. “He thought if he could use it to dominate the other crime organizations in Chicago, he could take over all their business. He thinks he can use this to explain to Mikhail why he disregarded a direct order.” Drago stopped talking, and his jaw tightened noticeably. His scar bleaching white under the pressure. "So, he abducted Emilia Rossi to be trafficked."
My jaw dropped. "Are you fucking kidding me? Why?"
Emilia Rossi was the daughter of Antonio Rossi. He was head of the Italian mob, and his organization stretched across the entire Midwest. Taking the Rossi girl was basically the same as declaring war. My father had to have known this.
"Look, Nikolai, your father has been using cocaine for decades." This was not news to me. “He wasn’t completely rational in the first place, but now I think it's starting to eat away at his frontal lobe. His decisions are becoming increasingly impulsive, ego-driven, and illogical. He is using low level soldiers to follow through with his orders because he knows his lieutenants disagree or disapprove of his decisions—this Rossi thing being the latest. He’s drunk with the perception of his own power,” Drago continued, openly displaying his contempt for my father. I didn’t think Drago had ever really liked my father. “I’m not the only one who’s starting to become uncomfortable with the direction he is pursuing." Drago looked at me meaningfully but neglected to mention who he was talking about. I was sure he thought I would prefer not to know at the present time, and he was right.
“Your father pulled this move with the Rossi girl last night, so I have to get control of things rapidly. I don’t think I need to spell out to you that you and Katya are going to be at risk until we can contain the situation and return the girl.” Katya’s father, Sergei, was my father’s right-hand man.
I frowned, and Drago answered the question before I asked it. “Sergei is with your father on all of this, so he’ll have to go, too.” I nodded at Drago’s casual mention of Sergei’s death. Katya’s dad was a dick—almost as bad as mine.
I frowned at Drago. “Why are you giving up so much information?” I asked in a tone that fell somewhere between curiosity and suspicion. “You could have told me about the threat of the Italians without mentioning your opinions about my dad.”
"Because, Nikolai, I have plans for your father, and I'm going to need men I can trust.” Drago shot me a cold smile. “I never really cared for your father, but I’m loyal. I believe in hierarchy, so I waited. Waited for him to fuck up, which I knew he would.” Drago shook his head, as if still unable to comprehend the extent to which my dad had fucked up.
He gestured his chin in my direction. “You. I always saw potential in you. You think you've been playing it cool with him, telling him you want to finish school before you join us, but I see your face when you look at him. You're disgusted by him. You and I, we think alike.”
Now this was irony. Drago was fucking ruthless. He was a former Russian soldier, trained to deliver pain on the human body in unspeakable ways. I'd seen him threaten, torture, and murder more than one man. The fact that Drago was disgusted by my father’s behavior was saying something. It was strange to think of ethics in relation to the Bratva, but my father’s actions had moved past morally reprehensible into dangerously unstable and bad for the organization. While a bad character may be tolerated, breaking ranks and acting recklessly would not be.
Drago looked at his watch and pinned me down with his icy stare. “I need you to keep your eyes and ears open, Nikolai. I think your father knows I don’t approve of what’s going on with the Rossi girl; that’s why he didn’t tell me or the other men. He’s going to be paranoid, so I need you to keep your eye on him and tell us anything you might pick up.” Drago rubbed his hand down his face, the lines around his eyes appearing more prominent, even though he wasn’t even thirty years old. “I know you’re technically still a kid, Kolya, but the organization needs you. Pay attention to what your father is up to, and for fuck’s sake, watch your back.”
With his words of warning still hanging in the air, he turned and walked back to his black Mercedes parked a few rows away.
I leaned against my car and absorbed this unexpected turn of events. If nothing else, this fucking mess definitely took my mind off of Hannah.