“Of course,” Anatoly said, rolling his eyes again. “The old man has figured out a way to make his money no matter what. Do you see this, Gabriel? This is the reward we get for trying to save a dollar for him.”
Dmitry laughed again. “This is the price of being a boss.”
“I never asked to be a boss,” Gabriel said, putting his head in his hands. “You people are unreal. Aren’t you the Czar? Shouldn’t you make the final call?”
Dmitry raised a brow. “It’s your legacy. When I’m dead and gone, you still have to take care of this family. If you have to pay, consider it money going into a long-term savings account.”
“Oh, well that’s comforting, considering how many children the Medlov men seem to put out a year, by the time you die, we’ll be in debt,” Gabriel said under his breath.
Pulling out his phone, Anatoly checked his email and then huffed. “Shit,” he said, grabbing the remote for the large television across the room. “Looks like there is a problem in New York.”
“What now?” Dmitry asked with a frown.
Turning on the television, Anatoly quickly turned to a cable network where breaking news from Attica flashed across the screen. A woman stood in front of a burning wall of the prison reporting that Russian mob boss Leo Rasputin had broken out of prison and a national manhunt led by US Marshalls was underway.
Stepping out of the shadows Vasily walked over to the television and listened carefully. His brow furrowed and heat started to form under his perfectly pressed collar. “Boss,” he said, turning back to Anatoly with concern.
Anatoly wiped his face and then stood up. He walked over to his father, leaned down and whispered something in his ear, leaving the rest of the men puzzled.
Dmitry listened and nodded his head. “Vasily, you may take your leave.”
“Thank you,” Vasily said, gratefully.
“How long will you need?” Anatoly asked. His tone was amazingly filled with unease.
“At most two days. I’ll know more when I get there,” Vasily said, pointing at one of his other men. “Boris will watch over you while I’m gone.”
Boris quickly took his boss’s lead. “I’m ready,” he assured him.
“Call us should you need anything? Stop by the house. Get what you need from the safe,” Anatoly said, looking at his watch. “Do you need a plane?”
“Yes, boss,” Vasily answered, walking to the door. “I appreciate this.”
“There is no need to thank us. You are family,” Dmitry reminded.
Nodding Vasily put his code into the padlocked door and unlocked it.
Within minutes, he was up the private elevator and onto the main floor of the restaurant with the rest of the crowds of people, who were eating, dancing and laughing. He moved quickly through the huddles of clueless masses, making sure to be careful not to let anyone brush past the guns in the holsters under his arms as they swarmed the corridor.
As the hostess opened the front door for him, he stepped out into the night air, entering an abrupt and welcomed silence of night. There in the front on the cobblestone street a black S-class Mercedes Benz waited on him. The driver nodded and opened the back door for him.
“Where to, sir?” the driver asked as Vasily stepped inside.
“Back to the compound,” Vasily said, looking at his watch. Each moment was precious. He had to hurry.
Chapter 2
Jackson, MS.
Cleveland’s Bar
The heavy rains of a hot summer’s night didn’t seem to keep people out of the small back road bar that Lilly worked in on Saturdays. It was packed way past fire code with every blue collar worker in the area ordering a beer and unwinding after a long day at the job.
Country music played on the jukebox; people played pool and others drank and played darts. In the seedy corners, couples kissed and hugged while a few argued over the news. In all, it truly was an average Saturday of normal proportions.
In a pair of worn sneakers, short shorts that showed the pockets from the bottoms and a white t-shirt that put her large bosom on display with the word Cleveland across the back in fire engine red, Lilly ran in between tables serving up big mugs of beer on tap and typical pub crawl food while swatting hands that tried desperately to feel her up.
“I hate my life,” she said, resting against the bar while the bartender, Logan, loaded up her round wooden tray again. She stepped back a millimeter and wiped the front of her clothes were a beer had spilled on the bar and was dripping off the side. “Great!” she cursed. “That’s just great.”
“Well, sweetheart, things could always be worse,” Logan said, with a trace of humor in his lusty hazel eyes. “Give me a kiss. It might make you feel better,” he said, reaching over the bar to grab her face jokingly.
“In your dreams, Logan,” Lilly said, snatching back. “Everyone knows that you’re a pig.”
“A reputation that I don’t deserve,” Logan explained with a toothy grin. He gave her a suggestive wink, one that he had given her every night since the first night that she’d started working there. Unfortunately, his country boy good looks didn’t work on her, nor did the Wrangler jeans, the Timberland boots or his signature pearly white t-shirt that showed off his meaty, former football playing pecks.
“A reputation that you’ve worked hard to uphold from what I’ve heard,” she said as she picked up her tray. The moisture below the tray from the wet bar made her fingers slip slightly. Still, she gripped it tightly.
“Well, I’d turn in my card for you, Lilly you Northern Belle,” he promised. “I’d marry you at the chapel on Saturday, and give you a bunch of babies on Sunday morning, darlin’.”
“Pity your momma doesn’t like black women,” Lilly snickered. “I don’t believe that I’m the right shade to be Mrs. Mosby.”
“It’s the 20th century,” Logan said, hitting his broad chest. “I can change.”
“21st century,” Lilly corrected. “You are about a hundred years behind as is the rest of this shit hole.” She joked with him, but she meant it wholeheartedly. She absolutely abhorred Jackson, Mississippi.
Logan laughed. “It’s that kind of attitude that’s gonna keep you single, Lilly.”
“Single isn’t a bad thing in comparison to a bad relationship. Trust me,” she said with a wry smile.
In his normal chauvinistic fashion, he watched her backside as she walked away. Licking his lips, he shook his head. “Damn, girl.”
Lilly walked over to her normal guys who worked for the railroad and put their drinks on the table, when she noticed the news on the television above them. A flash of Attica Prison drew her attention.
“How ya doing there, good looking,” Greg said, taking his glass off the tray. “I’ve been dreaming about this drink all damn day. Dear God, Lilly. You are a life saver.”
Normally, Lilly would have had a quirky comeback, but at the moment, she was paralyzed. Staring at the television as the words Leo Rasputin flashed across the ticker below a reporter, she broke out in a cold sweat.
“Something wrong?” Greg asked, noticing her sudden change.
The room began to swim.
Lilly swallowed down a fleeting breath. Her heart thudded in her chest. “Just… the damn news.” She tried to laugh, but it came across with the same nervousness as her broken face. “I’ll be right back, boys,” she said, nearly falling over her own feet.
It was as if she were walking in a fog. With hands shaking, he found her way back to the bar. “Hey Logan, I need to go,” she said, palms flat on the wet bar, forgetting its stickiness.
“What?” He frowned. “I’m already short. Lisa won’t be here for another hour.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilly said absently before she darted to the back. “I’ve got to go.”
Logan was quickly behind her. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” He grabbed her arm and swung her around. “Jeez, you’re shaking like a leaf. What happened back there? Did Greg say something to you? I’ll beat his ass.�
�
Lilly looked away. “No. It’s not Greg. I just need to go, Logan. And I need to go right now.”
Seeing that she was clearly in no state to serve his customers, he let her arm go. “Well, is there anything that I can do?”
“No,” she said, grabbing her purse out of her locker. “I appreciate it.”
“Well, can you at least tell me what’s going on?”
“Just felt sick all of a sudden. Like something I ate. It just hit me,” she lied.
“Something here?” He probed.
Lilly felt her stomach cramp. “I’m going to be sick,” she said, running toward the employee restroom. Closing the door behind her, she fell on her knees in front of the toilet.
Logan could hear her throwing up as he pressed his head to the door. All suspicion quailed; he put his hand on the door in the truest of sympathy. “Get better. Do you need me to drive you home?”
Wiping her mouth, Lilly held on to the cool seat of the toilet. “No, I’ll be fine. I’m just going to slip out the back door and head home, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. No worries,” Logan said, still unsure if he should leave her alone. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Okay,” Lilly said, wiping tears from her eyes. She tried to still her quivering voice.
Getting up off her knees and flushing the toilet, she looked at herself in the mirror above the sink. Suddenly, she had gone pale, despite her warm brown skin.
It only took one man’s name to do her in.
Running water in the sink, she washed her face to cool her burning cheeks and pulled her hair down out of the two ponytails. Digging for a brush in her purse, she quickly combed her hair down and grabbed her keys. She had to get a handle on herself now.
***
When Leo came out of his deep sleep, he realized that he was no longer in the helicopter used to help him escape the prison but in a dark room in a real bed, something that he had been denied for many years. His body was absorbed by the softness of the mattress.
He relished in its comfort until finally fully awake, he sat up in the bed and looked around. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the pitch blackness.
Focusing on the light coming from under the door and the moonlight coming from the window, he stood up still in his prison uniform and went to the door.
After many years of being told what to do every second of his life, he felt nervous about simply opening the door on his own. A wave of distrust came over him, and he put his head on the door to listen to the muffled voices on the other side.
The echo of deep, laughing Russian accents calmed him.
Finally opening the door, his eyes squinted at the overwhelming light on the other side of the dark room. He walked slowly out, cautiously looking around.
As he emerged, his men stopped talking and stood up.
One of his closest men before the arrests was standing only feet away from him.
“Boss,” Aleksi said with a nervous smile. “You finally got up. We thought that you’d sleep all night.”
Leo looked around at all his men. There wasn’t a face in the room that he didn’t recognize making him feel as though he was at a reunion of sorts. “Yes, I’m finally awake,” he said, scratching his stubbly beard. Next thing he’d get a good shave from a barber, but for now… “Where are we?” he asked.
“Ottawa,” Aleksi explained. “Canada.”
“Is there another Ottawa?” Leo asked sarcastically. Fucking yahoo.
Aleski shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know one way or the other. “We had to get you out of the country, ASAP. You’re all over the news like a fucking movie star. Police are looking everywhere. We smuggled you here in a box when you were dropped off by that warden’s men.”
Leo smiled and rolled his large arm in a circular motion. “That explains the soreness. I feel like I was hit by a truck.” He walked over to the table and all the food that had been prepared. There was plenty of meat, potatoes, cabbage and beer. “This for me?” he asked, mouthwatering and stomach growling.
A big smile appeared. “Da, da, boss. We wanted to give you the best homecoming we could. All your favorites are here in one big meal.” Reaching under the table, Aleski pulled out a case and opened it, revealing two custom-made Glocks. “You remember these? We managed to save them from the Feds.” He offered them proudly.
Leo ran his hand over the cold steel and shook his head. “Oh, I remember everything,” he said, picking one of the guns up. He took a fully loaded magazine and shoved it into the Glock until it made a distinctive click and sighed. It was like music to his ears. “Now, that feels good,” he said with a wicked grin.
All five of the men at the table laughed.
Leo scratched his naturally arched eyebrow with the muzzle of the gun and squinted as he recalled something disturbing. “You know, it’s funny. I don’t remember what a hot bath feels like, what a good meal or a good fuck feels like, but I do remember what stab right in the back feels like. It’s a very sobering thing.”
The tension in the room began to heighten.
Aleski looked over at his boss confused. “What?” he asked, paying closer attention to Leo now that he was armed.
“I paid a lot of money to that prick of a lawyer Lowenstein. And he promised me one thing; if he couldn’t get me off, he’d damn sure make me aware of everyone who had put me there. And one of those reports guess whose name showed up for giving information to the fucking cops during an investigation on me?” he said, still sort of chuckling.
The tension in the room heightened. Four of the five men looked at their friend in disbelief.
“You helped keep me locked up like a fucking animal, Aleski, just so you could become boss of my men.”
Aleski frowned in confusion. “Who me?” He touched his chest. “Not me. No, boss. I never gave anyone nothing. I’m telling you. Someone is lying.”
Leo laughed. “Oh really? Then how are you walking like a free man? I mean, I know how Yakov is. He managed to get to the only guy who could testify against him and cut his balls off. And we thought that we had taken care of everyone else but it stuck. Why did the charge stick?”
“I don’t know. I ain’t no fucking lawyer,” Aleksi said, sweat pouring over his face.
“It stuck because you and that bitch made it stick,” Leo growled.
Before Aleksi could respond, Leo raised his gun quickly and pulled the trigger twice. Each shot rang into the large man, sending him backwards and onto the floor. Before Aleksi’s eyes could dim, Leo stepped over him and shot him again in the chest.
“Suka,” Leo said, spitting on Aleksi’s carcass.
When he finished, he turned to the other men in the room who stood stupefied by the act as if nothing had happened. Suddenly, the darkness in his eyes had lifted and he almost had a grin tugging at the sides of his mouth. Still, no one knew if they would be next. They all froze in place, waiting to see what the verdict would be.
“Now that that’s done, we can relax. I don’t remember anyone else’s name, so by all means, sit down. Eat with me,” he said, pulling back Aleksi’s chair. “Come, come.” He kicked the dead man’s leg out of the way and sat down at the table, ready to enjoy his feast.
His men, unable and unwilling to speak, did the same. To say that they were completely surprised by his actions would have been a lie. Boss Leo had never been a man of many words, but murder was a typical action that he seemed to carry out with a certain amount of unforgiveable pleasure.
As they ate and drank above the dead man’s body, they all tried to avoid any looks of loss for their friend, or they knew that they would possibly tempt their boss. Remorse was not taken lightly. And what was done, was done.
Assessing the heightened fear permeating the room, Leo took a deep breath of it and continued. “Now,” Leo said, grabbing a turkey leg off the platter across from him. “Let’s talk about how to get me back into the U.S. and to find that whore of an ex-wife of mine, kill her and get my fucking
diamonds back so that I can actually get on with building my empire back up.”
One of his other men spoke up. “Boss, the U.S. is too hot right now. We should be getting you to Venezuela like we planned where there is no extradition. If we go back, you could get caught. Is there any way that we can do this for you? Surely we can find her.”
Leo hit the table in anger, knocking glasses of wine over and down onto the floor. Voice raised, he spat out angry words. “I’m flat fucking broke right now besides a couple of hundred thousand dollars, I had stashed away. I went from millions on top of millions to damn near nothing because of a few motherfuckers and their testimonies, even my own wife, who divorced me in prison and ran off with $20 million in uncut diamonds. Well now, I want her head on a plate,” he growled. “And I want those diamonds back in my hand. And no one is going anywhere or doing anything else until Lilly Rasputin is hunted down. Do I make myself clear?”
He looked around the table at nodding or bowed heads. No one wanted to make eye contact, especially about the present topic. Lilly was a touchy subject, one that no one wanted to broach. Evidently, she had married him despite a falling out about a former bodyguard. However, she turned against him like a rattlesnake as soon as the fed’s came knocking, when she could have taken the 5th and never given them a thing.
Sitting back, he relaxed his broad shoulders. “Now, the way I figure it, I can make my way to find the man who last saw her alive. Find Yakov. He hasn’t been to see me once in Attica. Word is that he went soft, started a family in Brighton Beach. He shouldn’t be too hard to find, and if I know him, he knows exactly where she is.”
Chapter 3
In a broke down 1998 blue Honda Accord with paint chips missing and a loud muffler, Lilly zoomed up her long, dirt driveway kicking up dust and mud to her home, an old 1930’s style, two-story, white wood house with a wraparound porch and a swing. She had a Coltrane CD blasting to drown out the irritatingly loud sound of her busted car and the windows down to make up for the air conditioner on the fritz.
Vasily's Revenge: The Complete Story (The Medlov Men Book 1) Page 3
