Arranged Bratva Love

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I stared around at the carnage before me, pissed off. While I’d been fucking my wife, one of my most prestigious nightclubs, Shiver, had been attacked. There were three dead bodies, several injured, and now I was enraged.

Shiver was a civilian club to the outside world. No link to us, dealt with through a company of a company until you got to me, the owner.

This was where we handled some of the coke we distributed, but it was never within the walls of the club. We kept out illegal businesses running side by side and within the restrictions of the law.

No one thought to attack this place. This was private business. Only those closest to me knew about this, unless someone had talked and gotten sloppy.

With my hands on my hips, I knew the cop on my payroll wanted to talk to me. I nodded my head toward the back of my office. Daniel was a good guy. His kid got diagnosed with cancer five years ago. I saw an opportunity and took it. His salary didn’t pay for the extensive treatment his son needed, and well, we came to an arrangement.

Arms folded, I waited as he closed the door.

“What do we have?”

“All the witness reports are unclear. Several men enter the establishment at approximately ten o’clock, and they start firing. Your barman is the first victim.”

I made a mental note to deal with the family.

Ricky was a good guy. A family man and loyal. He’d been manning this bar ever since it opened ten years ago. He’d always been the first one to call when anything fishy was happening, which told me this attack was designed to look random but with the missing coke, it wasn’t.

“The next two victims?”

“Women in their early twenties. They were out looking for a good time. Neither of them are related to your work.”

I rubbed at my chin. “So we’ve got three dead people, many injured, and a busted-up nightclub.”

“Is there anything else you need to report?” Daniel asked.

“Nothing you need to know.”

“Look, Mr. Ivanov, this is pretty serious. I know you have your … company problems, but this might be completely random. This place isn’t even associated with you.”

He chuckled, but I felt no humor. “You know when you’re a kid growing up and there’s something you want? A cookie, a video game, some shit like that.”

“Your point?”

“When you try to get mommy’s and daddy’s attention to buy you that, you talk about anything but that, right. Until they finally turn around and say, what do you want, sweetie?” I kept my voice low.

“What do you want me to do?”

I folded my arms. “I want the security footage for outside on the street.”

“Mr. Ivanov, you know I don’t have that authority.”

“Then find someone who does, but I want a copy. I need to see what I’m dealing with here.”

Daniel didn’t look happy about it, and the truth was, neither did I. The little elitist group of soldiers hadn’t attacked in a while, but why here, why now? None of it made any sense.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you now?” he asked.

“No.” I needed those security tapes.

“I don’t like this, Mr. Ivanov.”

“I don’t pay you to like it. How is your son?” It was the fastest way to get him to leave. Daniel left the room to join the rest of his men working through my nightclub.

My cell phone rang, and I pulled it out to see Cara was calling me. I stared at the call for several seconds before finally picking it up.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hey, you. I wanted to check in. See how you were,” Cara said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’m a curious woman, you know.”

“Cara, you haven’t called to check up on me in nearly fifteen years. Is there a problem?”

“No, no problem. I wanted to see how my best friend was doing.”

I looked around my office, suspicion rising up inside me.

“I don’t want you touching my woman ever again, do you hear me?”

“Ah, we’re back to that. Did you at least heed my advice? Did you make her yours? Showed her what a real man could do?”

“I’m busy right now, Cara.” I hung up my cell phone and sent a quick email off to the private alerts for Ivan Volkov and the rest of the brigadiers to alert them of a possible impending attack.

With nothing in my office to keep my attention, I made my way out to the main floor where most of the damage seemed to have taken place.

I moved to the bar and looked around. Moving up and down the length, I checked out the entrance point, but from the bar, there was no direct shot of everyone coming in or out.

Then I realized the men coming in to attack didn’t get through the front. My men were on the doors, and I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to them yet as the cops were taking their sweet time asking all the questions.

On the way past a forensic person, I stole a glove, sliding it on my hand. No one bothered me. I was merely the owner walking around. I checked the door and ran my hand across the lock.

The door had been pried open, and when I glanced down, I saw the crowbar. The people who attacked my club were sloppy. Why attack and not take their weapon of choice? Rather than give it to the police, I placed the crowbar out of sight with the intention of giving it to my own personal analyst.

I had more faith in the men I paid for than the cops assigned to help me out.

The room they came into was the storage room.

I followed the path and came to another door, which was even more interesting. This one wasn’t pried open. This one appeared to have been opened with a single flick of the wrist, which I did, and stepped out.

The scent of cigarette smoke assailed my senses. I never smoked, and as I looked at the shaking woman who immediately stood, my nerves went to an all-time high.

“You shouldn’t be out here. The cops are going to want to interview you.”

“Have they talked to you?”

“No. I didn’t see anything. I was dealing with inventory, you know.”

I stepped a little closer, and this time, the woman whose name badge labeled her as Casey, tried to run. She dropped her cigarette as I wrapped my fingers around her throat and pressed her up against the wall.

“Please, don’t kill me. I don’t want to die. Please. Please.”

Her sobbing filled the air, irritating me. She wasn’t sorry for what she’d done.

“Why don’t you tell me what is going on right now?” I asked. I was calm.

“I don’t know anything. I swear, I don’t.”

I shoved her up against the wall, squeezing her throat tightly. She tried to claw at my wrists, but her nails had been so chewed down, she couldn’t even leave a scratch. It would be so easy to watch her die. I didn’t need her. She was the cause of three deaths.

But I needed information.

Releasing her neck long enough to let her breathe, I continued to stare at her as she whimpered and moaned.

“Please. Please,” she said. “I don’t want to die.”

“Then why don’t you start talking? Give me enough information, you’ll live. You don’t, well, we know what is going to happen to you.”

She whimpered. “I … they didn’t say what they were going to do. All I was supposed to do was open the door, that was all. I opened the door and I got my daughter back. I’m trying to be clean, but it was so easy.”

“What’s so easy?” I asked.

“All I have to do is fuck who they say and I get the money and the coke, and I … I did really well, I promise. I said no. I wanted my daughter back but, but, they found me, and they fed me and I remembered how good it was.” She covered her face with her hands.

This woman was an addict and someone had gotten her hooked back on the dope.

“Is it mine?” I asked.

“The kid?”

I frowned. I’d never sleep with a woman like this. So helpless, mainly useless. “No, the dope.”

“I don’t know. I just know it’s so good and after I’ve done what I’ve done, it makes everything so easy.” She smiled as if she was in some fairytale land. “My kid is better off without me. She doesn’t need me. I’m a failure. I want my own life. I never wanted to get pregnant. You can hurt me all you want, but I only have a couple of text messages that told me what to do. I didn’t break any law.” Her sobbing turned into aggression.

“Give me your cell phone,” I said.

She scrambled on her person, handing me the phone. With my hand over her mouth and nose, I didn’t hesitate or stop. I cut off her air and watched this woman slowly die, feeling nothing.

She crumpled to the ground, and I pulled out my cell phone, making a call. With the cops so close, I should have waited, but I wasn’t a patient man when it came to getting rid of a problem, and this woman was a problem.

With her cell phone in my pocket, I checked the time and saw it was now a little after midnight.

My thoughts drifted to Aurora. When I got the call to come down to Shiver, we hadn’t spoken since I told her I wouldn’t be a submissive man. There was no way I was going to trust her so easily.

“You expect me to trust you? You haven’t earned it.”

How have I not earned her trust? She wasn’t dead, and it pissed me off for her to even think to doubt me. I’d been good to her, more than good.

Anger flooded me.

This was why I didn’t want to get close to the woman. She got under my skin and pissed me off. This wasn’t the time and place to be analyzing the shit we’d said to each other, and yet, here I was, thinking about it.

By the time my guy arrived, he was on his own, in the smallest van we owned. I helped him to pick up the body, throwing it into the back.

“Run dental records, or whatever shit you need. She mentioned something about a kid. I want to know everything about this woman as soon as you can.”

The man nodded and left the scene.

With that, rather than go through the storage room, I made my way out of the back alley, onto the street. My car was parked around the other side. Standing on the pavement near my bar, I looked around.

There were so many avenues the men could have come from. I knew for certain they hadn’t come through the front.

Who would take this much time to find the right opportunity to attack this club? The woman I’d just killed had been purposefully chosen because of her working here, preyed upon, and hooked back on the drugs.

It never took long to get an addict back on what they considered a lifeline.

The question was why?

Why go to so much effort?

I understood it, but if you wanted to attack a nightclub, why not go from the front? This was personal, and I just didn’t see the connection.