“You can’t get crabs from yourself,” Yani joked.
Just then, a cab pulled up, and Dmitry popped out with a small backpack hung over his broad shoulder.
All three boys jumped up. Ivan had a wide grin on his face that he normally would have repressed if he had not missed his only brother so much.
Dmitry didn’t smile as he walked over. Instead, he stood face-to-face with Ivan, who was elevated by the stairwell, and looked him over. Ivan had grown a full foot since he last saw him and picked up the usual bulky Medlov weight.
Ivan had deep blue menacing eyes that were hidden under the darkest eyelashes. His perfect aquiline nose rested on his wide face, bringing out his chiseled jaw and thin lips. Even a small mustache was now above his lip making him look 25 instead of a pipsqueak 15.
But Ivan was thrown off by the pained look in his brother’s face. Was he already disappointed?
Dmitry put his bag down on the step and cupped his brother’s face in his hands, looking in his eyes, checking his teeth and pulling his coat down to look at the fresh tattoos.
“Those better not be forced,” he warned of the markings on his little brother’s neck.
“They’re not,” Ivan said as he snatched away. His dark black hair flipped in his face. “I earned them.”
Dmitry finally stepped away. “Well, you look good.”
“You look jealous,” Ivan retorted, venom seeping into the veins that stuck out of his muscular neck. He wasn’t used to compliments, especially from Dmitry.
“Not jealous, brat, pained. I’ve missed so much since I’ve been away. And for that, I guess, I’m sorry.” Dmitry rubbed his hand through his brother’s tousled black locks.
The words humbled Ivan. He could never read his big brother. He could never tell if his displeasure was with him or the world in general, both had grave consequences.
“We can catch up later,” Ivan said with a wide grin. In his signature way, he quickly moved from one emotion to the next, hampering his sudden anger. He pointed at his friends, who watched on mesmerized by Dmitry’s height and stature. He was bigger than life. “You remember Yani, Stepan’s little brother, and this is Gistofani, my second-in- charge.”
Dmitry chuckled under his breath. What the hell did these mismatch kids know about a second-in-charge? He started to tell them that they meant underboss but bit his tongue. What did it matter?
He turned and looked at Yani, a spitting image of his good friend, Stepan and his family line. Stepan was a part of his crew and had been faithful many years. He had even served time with Stepan and Yani’s father and uncle while he was in prison. Yani was a good boy; he could be trusted. Then he trailed over to the olive skin boy called Gistofani and stopped.
“Gistofani, huh. Are you Italian?” Dmitry asked.
“Yeah. My father is Sicilian,” Gistofani replied proudly. He stuck his chest out a little.
“What are you doing in Moscow, Gistofani the Sicilian?”
“My family has been here since Mussolini,” he explained.
Dmitry turned to Ivan and hit him on the chest. “Get rid of him. We don’t deal with Italians?”
The crew laughed thinking that Dmitry was kidding, but he was not. He turned back around with a scowl on his face at the very hesitation of his orders. He looked Ivan in the eye. “Get rid of him, Ivan. Or I will.”
The small group of boys quieted.
Not looking back, Dmitry headed up the stairs to their old apartment and let the raggedy glass door rattle behind him.
“Welcome home, dickhead,” Ivan said, turning around disgusted.
***
The stench from inside his mother’s apartment building made Dmitry sick. He had seen better upkeep in prison. Every entryway was lined with urine, trash and rodents. Stepping over the small messes and passing the doors of loud arguing families, he made his way to his old apartment. He swung the door open, unsure of who was inside. Ducking into the small place, he kicked a bag of garbage out of his way and closed the door behind him. Disgusting.
Over the years, trapped in prison with animals, he had become accustomed to scum, but he never expected to find his old place ruined worse than the grimmest cell.
This apartment was the only thing that connected him to his mother, and because of that, he had worked very hard to keep it clean for he and his brother. Now, it too had been destroyed like everything in their lives.
Graffiti decorated the walls, beer cans and drugs covered the tables, dirty clothes and food were all over the floors, and the black and white television blasted in the corner.
Dmitry dropped his small backpack in the only clean corner he could find and immediately began to clean. What did he expect from a 15-year-old kid left alone since he was 12? Ivan was less than responsible. It was evident by the appearance of this apartment, but at least his brother had found a way to keep the place.
Pulling the windows up, he allowed fresh air to come rushing into the dark place and replace the repugnant odors that gagged him. He sat on the window seal and eyed a small pile of used condoms in the corner. He shied away. There was no way in hell he would clean that up.
Opening a trash bag on the floor, he felt the contents in his stomach leap to his mouth. Old blood? He pulled the bag to the window to illuminate it and found a dead cat inside. How long had it been there? Closing the bag back up tightly, he looked around for a garbage can.
Ivan came through the door shortly after. He was alone now, sensing that his brother would want to talk to him private.
Ignoring the mess, he ducked into the little apartment and sat down on top of papers and bags in the chair in the corner. He looked at Dmitry, who was now bigger than before if it were possible, and rolled his eyes.
“Gistofani is my friend,” he lamented.
Dmitry did not look up. “He’s Italian. If he wants to be a part of a family, he should find his own.” He grunted as he cleaned.
“Why? He’s loyal. Didn’t you say that mattered most?” Ivan sat on the edge of his seat.
Dmitry was bent over behind the dirty couch picking up cups. He threw them in the garbage bag and looked over at his whining brother. “I was wrong. It’s important, but it’s not the most important thing, Ivan.”
“Then what is?” Ivan’s voice lowered.
“Brotherhood. Blood. We are most important. It doesn’t work if we don’t trust each other, brat.”
The room was silent except for Dmitry’s busy hands. Ivan sat back in his seat watching his brother clean. He looked up at the stained ceiling and sighed.
“Help me clean this shit up. I don’t have much time. We can talk about your little boyfriend later,” Dmitry ordered. “And don’t pout around me. It’s irritating.”
“I don’t pout.” Ivan rolled his eyes again. Now he was curious. “Time for what? What’s going on?”
“The boss is coming over. I don’t want him to see this place like this.”
“The boss is coming here?” Ivan stood up. “Really?”
“Da. And don’t go telling anyone alright...not even your little crew. He’ll be here in one hour. And I don’t want him to think that we are...” he looked around the apartment. “…what we are,” he finally said, standing up off his knees. The garbage bag was still tucked tightly in his hand.
“You’ve grown a lot,” Ivan said amazed. “How tall are you now?”
“The prison guard said seven feet. I think I’m a shy bit under it.”
“Seven feet?”
Dmitry shook his head. “I can’t find shit that fits me.”
“I can’t either.” Ivan pointed at his pants that came way above his ankles. “No shirts, no pants, barely shoes. I stole some yesterday that give me a little more toe room,” he said, wiggling his feet in his worn out boots.
“Soon, we won’t have to just get by anymore.” Dmitry sat down on the dirty couch across from his brother. “I put away the money I had before I got thrown in prison. I’m going to go and get it tonight. And
the crew has been collecting for me since I went in, so I’ll collect on that, too.”
“So how much do we have?” Ivan asked intrigued. “A million dollars?” Ivan’s eyes grew with anticipation. There was so much he wanted. New shoes. New underwear. A new place that didn’t stink of urine and blood.
Dmitry scoffed at the idea of a million dollars, but even as he thought about it, he knew that it was only shortly out of reach. “No, not a million, Ivan.” He watched his brother’s shoulder’s drop. “But,” he put up his finger. “Very soon, if things go well, we will make our first million.” Dmitry tapped Ivan on his back. “So get up off your ass, brat. And help me clean this place up.”
They both smiled as they looked in each other’s eyes. Ivan knew his brother was not a liar and had never promised more than he could deliver.
***
Dmitry looked out the window and waited for his boss to arrive. Peering down into the dirty streets, he wondered if life would have been better if he had chosen to be a regular person. He saw the men who passed his apartment building below - going from one job to the other, barely making their bills, filled with hopelessness. These were also the same men who never had to hide their faces or their hands, never had to worry about getting to close to someone or breaking the code that he so desired to live up to.
It must be easy for them, he thought to himself as he turned away from the window, to be so weak. He had made a choice long ago. He was either going to be a regular person or be the man he had been molded into - a young Vor with the potential to lead many. Proudly, he had chosen the Vor.
Many men would have killed to be in Dmitry’s position, but only a few knew what such a title took. When he was thirteen, he was already over six feet tall and starving.
With his mother dead, the weight of raising Ivan rested heavily upon his shoulders. During that time, most of his providing consisted of stealing, taking charity and doing ungodly acts with older women. So, he started to work for a John of his mother’s, who came curiously around to check on the boys after her death. The man happened to be a captain of the elite Vory v Zakone.
Kirill Derevenko was a very powerful young man - short in stature, missing a front tooth, clean-shaven head, lean and tattooed – and he had an instant appreciation for Dmitry’s size. The first thing Kirill had done was offer Dmitry a job collecting money on past-due debt for him in his territory.
Once Dmitry had mastered not giving into men because they were older than he was and had suffered a few serious ass kickings for not being able to size up his opponents, he was given a more responsible job of having runners and collectors that reported to him.
By age 15, Dmitry was sleeping with a number of women, using them for their resources, and he was running the entire northeast quadrant of his boss’s territory. He did so with an iron fist. His cruelty was unheard of and unnatural, which was why he had acquired the name the butcher. Moreover, it was why he had ended up in prison. He went from running a quadrant to assassinating drug bosses in only two years of knowing his mentor.
Now that Dmitry was out, he had been giving an even harder task. Since Dmitry had been away, Krill had made a very nasty enemy, Sacha Karpenko, who was rumored to be moving in on Kirill’s territory all over Moscow.
To send a message to the outsider, Kirill had decided to send his blond butcher to visit the man in his high-rise apartment. Everyone knew that Dmitry was in jail. Everyone had heard what he and his brother had done to the last boss, Ukrainian drug lord Hamel Stegnof, but no one would be expecting what would happen tonight.
Word would get around that the blond butcher was released for the sole purpose of gruesomely killing Sacha, and he done so at the request of his boss, Kirill , who was so powerful that he could reach into jail and extract the most horrid of assassins whenever he liked. Men of his ilk only responded to that kind of brazen territorial aggression.
Ivan opened the front door of their apartment and stuck his head inside, interrupting his brother in deep thought. With a bit of a grin on his scrubby face, he looked around the now cleaned little apartment. “Kirill is downstairs. He’s on his way up with his men. It’s quite a few of them.”
“Good. See that he gets up here without any trouble,” Dmitry ordered. When the door closed, he straightened his clothes and sat down on the couch, awaiting the man who had forever changed his destiny.
A few short minutes later, the door opened and Kirill strode in with a big smile on his face wearing a pair of jeans, a turtleneck and a black leather coat. With arms opened, he motioned for Dmitry to hug him. Dmitry stood up, even taller since the last time.
“Shit, Dmitry, look at you. You grew another fucking foot,” Kirill said astonished. One of his bodyguards helped him with his jacket.
“Almost a foot,” Dmitry answered. “How have you been, boss?”
“Fucking wonderful,” Kirill said, looking around. “Is there some place that I can sit in here that doesn’t look like someone took a dump on it?” He rubbed his hands together. “It’s freezing in here, brat. Don’t you have heat?”
Dmitry looked around. The answer to both of Kirill’s questions was no.
Kirill shook his head and waved. “Never mind it. I’ll make this short.” He stood in the center of the room on a shabby rug. “It happens tonight. Are you ready?”
“Da,” Dmitry answered. “Ivan and I will do it as agreed.”
“How you plan to get into his apartment?”
“We don’t have some crazy plan. We’re walking in and walking out.”
Kirill sucked his teeth, then turned and grinned at his men. “He’s going to walk in and out, eh?” he mocked. No one could tell if he was pleased or displeased by Dmitry’s explanation. He looked back at Dmitry and frowned. He pulled him out of jail for this?
Dmitry instantly picked up on Kirill ’s displeasure. Sitting back down, he placed his elbows on his knees and crossed his hands. “Tonight at ten o’clock, we go through the service elevators of his building up to his floor. No one will expect us. Since he is the only one who lives on the floor, we oozy the place down first, open the doors to his home, spray the rooms down again, then check the bodies. After that, we walk out. It’s not sexy, but it works. I don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t have a lot of resources. If you want some elaborate plan, you’ll have to give me more of both. If you want him dead tonight, then let me fucking kill him.”
The room was silent except for the sounds that filtered in through the open window. The men behind Kirill looked over at each other and smirked.
With his hands still clasped, Kirill raised his brow and smiled. “Okay. Okay.” He turned to his men and waved for his bodyguards to set down the large duffle bags that they held under their arms. “This is your package. Everything that you need, and...” he bent down and opened the bag to retrieve a wad of cash that he fanned in his hand, “a little more for the work.”
Dmitry took the money but did not count it. “Spasiba.”
“And you don’t have any problems with killing this guy at home?”
“No.”
“There might be family there.”
“I don’t care.”
Kirill was convinced. Dmitry was a hard-core murderer now. And with him a foot taller, a lot deadlier and less respectful of his superiors, it was best to get him out of his hair. Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out number on a piece of paper. “Call this when it’s done and shortly after, I’ll have you on a plane out of Moscow headed to London.”
That was all that Dmitry wanted to hear. Killing this new guy would be worth two plane tickets to London. He had plans for he and his brother, and they didn’t include running Kirill’s territory for the rest of his life.
Chapter Three
Dmitry had been in prison for three years, and he did not plan to spend more than one unnecessary minute locked inside of their little apartment, unless he was forced. Getting dressed in a pair of jeans that was left in the duffle bag for him by Kirill, he
looked in the mirror and tried to see what his entire body looked like.
Everyone automatically thought that being nearly seven feet tall was such a wonderful thing, but he would only ask that they try living in his shoes for one day. No mirror gave him a clear view of his body. No room seemed to big enough for him to spread out in and get dressed. No chair was comfortable. And his back often hurt. Especially now, while he was bent over in the small, filthy bathroom trying to get ready.
Ivan walked to the door and stuck his head in, looking relieved that he was not the only one who shared in the torment of being big. He threw his brother a damp hand towel that was hanging on the rack as Dmitry looked around the bathroom with soap on his face.
“Where are you going?” Ivan asked.
The Chronicles of Young Dmitry Medlov: Book One Page 2
