Page 12 of Exacting Vengeance

“Blyat! What the fuck, Nikki!” Near-freezing-cold water plastered his clothes to his skin and dripped down his pants into his boots.

“I’m so sorry, my friend.” Nikki held his arms wide, laughing. “Really, I am.”

“I’ll bet you are.” Yuri sat, reinserting the oars into the locks and rowing quickly back to shore. If he didn’t get his ass out of these wet clothes, he’d be the one freezing his hairy balls off.

“This is a good life lesson,” Nikki said, his stupid-ass grin making Yuri seriously consider whacking him over the head with an oar and adding him to the growing pile of bodies at the bottom of the lake. “God is telling you there are better, less frigid ways to earn money.”

Yuri stopped rowing, allowing the bow of the boat to ease onto shore. “This is who I am, and you know it.”

As they dragged the dinghy back to the truck, distant fireworks popped and crackled in the night sky.

“It’s a new year.” Nikki clapped him on the back. “A time to celebrate, and a good time to make changes.”

Yuri kicked off his wet boots and pants, then got into the truck to warm himself.

He didn’t like change. Change meant people like Alex Tarankov, not those like him, who’d grown up on the streets of Moscow and in Russian Gulags, fighting just to put food in his mouth.

Nikki headed them onto the main road and back toward Chicago. In the darkness, Yuri glared at the man who’d been his friend for most of his life.

But was he still a friend today?

Deep in his bones, he suspected change was coming whether he wanted it to or not. That didn’t mean he had to accept it.

Somehow, he would find a way to move up the chain, to surpass Nikki and become Semyon’s first line brigadier. The way to Semyon’s right hand was always about money.

Money bought power.

Money bought everything.

Chapter Seven

Alex sat in a corner table at Sasha’s Place, Yuri’s favorite hangout club. He rolled his coffee cup between his hands as he and the rest of Yuri’s and Nikki’s crews—including Mike’s CI—watched Yuri slug down his fifth whiskey. Alex hated being there, but if this was what it took to pound the last nail on Yuri’s coffin, he’d swallow a gallon of coffee and wait all night. Yuri had arrived an hour earlier by taxi from the airport and started pounding shots the second he’d blown through the door.

The club’s phone rang and the owner, Sasha, answered it, spoke briefly, and hung up. “Hey Yuri,” he shouted. “That was Viktoria. She’s been waiting for you at the airport for over an hour.”

Yuri flicked his finger for Sasha to top off his glass. “She can’t even pick me up at the airport on time. When we get home, I’m gonna knock the shit out of her.” His speech had been slurring more by the minute.

Alex gripped the coffee cup tighter, his mood darkening as Yuri got drunker and drunker, inhaling whiskey as if it were water.

Thirty minutes later, Viktoria walked in, oblivious to Yuri’s condition. She spotted him at the bar and hurried over. “Yuri, I waited for you at the Delta terminal for over an hour, then I called here, and Sasha told me you took a taxi.”

“That’s right,” he snarled. “I waited for you at the American Airlines terminal. You never showed.”

“You told me Delta Airlines, and that’s where I was. I’m sorry. I really was there on time.” The worry etched on her face put every muscle in Alex’s body on high alert. Whatever came next wouldn’t be good.

“Suka blyat.” Yuri stood and wound back his arm.

“Yuri, no!” Alex launched from his chair but was too far away to prevent Yuri from hitting Viktoria squarely in the face. The blow sent her crashing to the floor. Alex found his arms restrained by four men. Something cold pressed against the back of his head.

A gun.

“Leave it be,” growled one of Nikki’s men—Ivan Asimov.

Ignoring the Glock jammed against his skull, he struggled to get free, dragging the men with him across the floor. The closer he got to his quarry, the more men restrained him. His heart was in his throat as Yuri started kicking Viktoria in the ribs.

“Alex, no,” the CI warned, lowering his voice. “You don’t interfere in a man’s marriage. No matter how bad. Your position will be compromised.” To the others within earshot, they would assume the CI meant his position in Yuri’s crew and Novkov’s operation. Not as an undercover FBI agent.

He watched helplessly, straining against a dozen arms while Yuri kicked Viktoria again and again in the ribs and the head. He had to get to her. There was only so much she could take before he killed her.