Two

Andrei

The restaurant is alive. The wait staff gracefully whisks through the tables to the kitchen. Diners laugh and shovel food into their mouths between sips of expensive wine. As opening weekends go, this seems to be a success. I step out of the back office, tugging on my sleeve beneath my suit jacket.

A quick glance around the dining room and I find the reporter from the Sun Times. She’s at a table with three other people, so I’ll leave her alone. An honest review is what I’m after anyway. Getting in the way of her meal might work against me.

“Andrei, don’t forget your father,” Niko, one of my most trusted men, tells me.

“I’m headed there now.” I readjust my jacket before I make my way through the dining room to where he’s enjoying his meal.

I stop a waitress, a little blonde thing with a round ass and generous tits. “Bring another bottle of wine to my father’s table, and make sure he doesn’t wait for anything. No delays. Understood?”

She bats her false eyelashes at me. “Of course, Mr. Pedro.”

I step into the back room where my father sits with my cousin, Aslav. They’ve already enjoyed several appetizers; the empty platters are scattered around the table.

“Andrei.” My father’s lips spread into a grin. He’s been well fed, and the liquor has been pouring. He’s in a good mood.

“Father.” I shake his hand then turn to my cousin who is wiping his mouth with the white linen napkin. “Aslav.” I take the seat beside my father, pushing the place setting away from me.

“Everything so far is delicious.” Aslav pats his belly.

“Good to hear.” The blonde waitress stops at the table with my drink—a shot of vodka with carbonated water. Good girl, I didn’t even have to ask for it.

“Profits look good?” Money is my father, Benito Pedro’s, best friend.

I nod, assuring him the investment he made in the restaurant was a solid decision. “Once the reviews come out, we’ll have a steady stream of customers. I already have the next two months’ weekends booked for reservations,” I explain.

“Good. Good.” He nods. “We’ll wait a few months and then we can talk about other options.”

Laundering, he means.

“Six months at least,” I say. In that time, I should be able to show him the profits that can be made with some legitimacy. Tainting the business with the Pedro money won’t benefit us, but it will take time to show him. My father is the head of our family, and it’s been generations since we took a legitimate path. He’s still married to the old ways, and it will take time.

“It would be nice if Igor were here, to see what you’ve done.” My father gestures toward the crowded dining room. We’re in a sectioned-off area of the restaurant but we can still see the majority of the restaurant.

“It would,” I agree, averting my gaze to the floral centerpiece on the table. My older brother would have stopped me from even attempting this venture. Being the oldest, and next in line to take over our family line, he would have convinced my father what a foolish investment it was. Igor was powerful, strong, but he lacked vision that would move this family outside of the past.

Sadness flashes in my father’s eyes at the mention of my older brother. Igor’s been gone for two years, but in some ways my father mourns his death as though it happened yesterday.

“We see how well this place is doing, so, Aslav. Tell me. How are you doing?” My father tears a piece of bread and chews on it. Business is a good cover for grief.

“Everything looks good on my end, Uncle.” Aslav runs his fingertips along the edge of his glass. “Profits will be up this month.”

“Good, good.”

I pluck the sliver of lime from the brim of my glass and drop it inside, swishing around the drink. This isn’t the place for a business meeting, not with so many reporters in the restaurant. But telling Benito Pedro what he can and can’t do isn’t my place.

“We can talk more in my office.” I eye Aslav then glance at my father. “Or at home.”

“Here is fine.” My father switches from English to Russian. “I have definitive proof of the Azdak family involvement in the lost shipment last month.” My father’s lips pinch together into a straight line.

Before I can question him, his meal arrives, and new plates are distributed. The house special of prime rib is put out before him. Another plate in front of Aslav.

“Looks good.” Aslav picks up a fork and knife, ready to dig in. Once the servers are gone, I raise my brow at my father.

“You were saying?”

He leans back in his chair. “They stole the shipment.”

“The entire lot?” I ask. There were over twenty women in the last shipment. I had warned him such a large group was risky, even with the help of the Putin family, but now isn’t the time to remind him.

“What does Putin say about it?” I ask.

“Nothing.” My father shakes his head. “He’s dead. Shot in the head. Suicide.” He wiggles his fingers in the air to project quotation marks.

“And you think Azdak had something to do with it? Wasn’t he in Europe for a while? Legal trouble?” The Azdak family has held a truce with the Pedro family for two decades. They stay on their side of Chicago and we stay on ours. Everyone plays nice and stays alive. What would make them break the agreement now?

“He was, yes. His son, Kaleb, took Putin’s daughter for his wife. They intervened, took our girls.”

Our girls.

My stomach knots at the phrasing. They’re nothing more than product to my father. They were even less than that to my brother. To me, they’re the guilt rotting my stomach. But I don’t express my disgust for this part of his business—our business.

“Is Joseph Azdak home?” Maybe a conversation with the father will make the son fall in line. It’s worked well enough in our family. But the Bratva men aren’t easily swayed by our women. It will take a hell of a lot more than some girl to destroy my family name. If Kaleb allowed his wife to get involved. If he did in fact steal my father’s shipment of girls being sent home to Russia, the truce can be voided.

“He is.” My father nods, digging his phone out of the inside of his pocket. He swipes across the screen several times then looks up at me with a severity I haven’t seen since Igor’s car was found wrapped around a traffic light. His eyes darken with a brewing storm, and his eyebrows, laced with traces of gray, knit together.

“This can’t go unanswered, Andrei.” His words fall between us like concrete boulders. He considers the truce broken.

I steal a quick glance at my cousin, who salivates for a reason to go to war. He doesn’t care about who, only that he’ll be able to knock in heads, and kill his enemies without question or provocation. He’s as savage as Igor was.

Not as cool-headed as me.

“What do you want done?” I lean one elbow on the table and turn toward him, giving him my full attention.

Plates clank in the dining room. A bubble of laughter bursts from somewhere near the bar. The restaurant can wait. I have managers to deal with the business. My father won’t be placated like a toddler given a lollipop. He requires my utmost attention.

He turns his phone toward me. A photograph—no, a live stream.

“It’s being taken care of.”