Page 25 of Exacting Vengeance

“You need to quit banging every piece of ass that looks like your ex-wife. I told you not to marry an American, even one born to Russian parents. They’re boring, two-dimensional, and uncultured.”

But his Vika was so beautiful, a priceless gem on his arm to be shown off at parties. A sign that even he, a rough, uncultured street thug covered in Gulag tattoos, could land such a stunning woman. And she made the best borscht he ever had, a worthy and mitigating factor for marrying an American-born Russian woman.

He pressed the phone tighter against his ear. “She is my wife. Not ex-wife,” he reminded his friend. The divorce papers had been delivered to him while he was in prison. He’d never signed them, therefore they were still married. No judge’s signature on some worthless piece of paper could sever that eternal bond. Vika was his and his alone until the day she died. His wife, his woman and, most importantly, his property to do with as he saw fit. “I miss her. And how do you know what I’ve been doing with my time?”

“Bah.” Nikolai laughed. “I have people everywhere. Besides, you don’t miss her. I know why you want to find her.”

Yuri was tempted to hang up. But this was Nikolai—Nikki. Nikki knew him better than anyone, including why finding Vika was so important to him. They’d been in a Russian Gulag together. They’d even come to America together and run scams in Chicago that had made them both rich. Including one in particular.

Before the FBI had crawled up his ass and taken everything from him, Yuri had been first in line for the top brigadier position with Semyon Novikov. When Novikov died in prison, so had his chances to be the old man’s right hand. Novikov had done one good thing before kicking the bucket. Since Yuri hadn’t squealed on him or Nikki—and he so fucking could have—the old man had gotten half the sentence he’d expected and issued an order that no one else could take him out for bringing that Fed into their world. Even Nikki had benefited from Yuri’s silence. He’d walked out the prison door six years before Yuri had.

He ground his teeth. While he’d been in prison, Nikki had relocated to New York and risen to become boss of the Brighton Beach Bratva. The man who’d once answered to him was now his boss. Yuri pinched the bridge of his nose so hard, he welcomed the pain.

“Vika will turn up,” Nikki continued, “and when she does, you will tell me, and we will figure things out. I have an interest in finding her, too. For now, there’s nothing left for you in Chicago. Do you really want to take orders from those baby-faced brigadiers? You’d have to start from the bottom again. You’re better than that. More valuable. Come to New York. I need your…specialty.”

“My specialty?” His specialty was killing people. “May I remind you, my friend,” he emphasized with unconcealed derision, “before prison, you told me Semyon wanted a new breed of clean-cut businessmen—without tattoos—for the Brotherhood, to beef up his stock portfolio and buy more buildings. People like Alex Tarankov. Look where that got us.” He paused for effect. “Prison.”

Nikki sighed. “There will always be a place for you at my side, Yuri Petrov.”

“Right. Because the great Nikolai Lebedev won’t bloody his hands anymore. You want me to do your dirty work for you.”

“Yuri,” Nikki growled.

“No!” he snapped. If Nikki were standing before him, he would be tempted to smash his teeth in. “After our last job together, you said no more, that dirty jobs like that were a thing of the past and no longer meshed with the Brotherhood’s new direction. Yet here you are, needing my ‘specialty’ again.” Even in Chicago, everyone knew Nikki’s first-line brigadier, Boris Kolbayev, was in trouble with the Feds. Whatever he needed, he could do it himself. “Nyet. I will not go anywhere until I find Vika.”

“Dammit, Yuri!” He held the phone away from his ear. “This is not a question. It’s an order. I need you here. Now!”

Yuri ground his teeth, swallowing enough deadly threats to fill a keg of Stoli.

Officially, the Russian Bratva had no hierarchy and no “mob boss,” like the Italian Mafia. Unofficially, Nikki was his boss. Shit.

“What do you need of me?”

“You may have heard, my man, Boris Kolbayev, has a problem. Somehow, the FBI got to his wife, Alyona, and she’s testifying against him.”

“That tiny mouse of a woman?” Yuri had a vague recollection of meeting Kolbayev’s shy wife before he went into prison. The woman was so timid she’d flinch at the sound of her own name. “Doesn’t she know what will happen if she talks?”

“My sources say they got her a shrink,” Nikki continued. “There’s a ticket waiting for you at O’Hare. I’m texting you the information.” Yuri’s phone dinged. “I’ll explain more when you get here. After this is taken care of, I’ll help you find your woman. But remember… Before Semyon died, he issued you an order when you got out—leave that FBI agent alone. That order still stands in New York, and it comes directly from me. After what happened last year with the agent killed by the Mafia, their business went to shit. I don’t want my business to go to shit. So stay away from the FBI.”

The phone went dead, and he slammed it on the table.

Damn the FBI.

One minute he’d been rich, and the next, it had all been taken from him. Everything that had happened to him was all their fault. Alex Tarankov’s fault.

Fucking. Alex. Tarankov. Fucking Kyle Gates.

After his arrest, his lawyer had given him the news that Tarankov was really FBI Special Agent Gates, and the evidence Gates had amassed was so overwhelmingly solid, he’d recommended Yuri plead guilty rather than be subjected to a trial that would undoubtedly put him away for life.

Gates would pay.

For everything.

Rage boiled in his blood, and he started to sweat. That fucker took away his freedom…and his wife. He should have seen it coming.

After Semyon’s last New Year’s Eve party, Olga had warned him they were all over each other, practically fucking right there on the dance floor. Then, Gates had kidnapped Vika out of Sasha’s. It was bullshit, but additional time had been tacked on to Yuri’s sentence simply for giving his own wife a lesson she had deserved and brought on herself. She was his wife. His possession. Why was he the only one who understood that?

While in prison, he’d had people searching for her. They’d checked all the hospitals in Chicago but were told no such person had ever been admitted. He suspected Gates had paid off the doctors and nurses not to tell anyone where she was. Later, he’d even had his people search for Vika’s mother. He’d nearly torn his cell apart after hearing the old bag had also disappeared into thin air.