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WHEN I WOKE UP THE next morning, I rolled right out of bed and into the shower before the tiredness could hit me too hard.
It had been a long night, and I knew it was going to be an even longer day ahead of me. The last thing I needed was to laze around in bed and fail to get anything done. I already had a couple of messages from Mauro, nudging me in the right direction, and the first one was to do with the market that I had passed the night before – that little bodega that owed us money.
I wanted to go down there and just talk. I knew I could have sent some of my guys there and they would have put the fear of God into the owner, whoever he was, but my gut told me to be a little gentler with him. He was another Serbian, after all, and we had to look out for each other. I wasn’t going to cut him too much slack, but giving him a little more time wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like we needed the money.
I got dressed and headed out to the car, where Kieran was already waiting for me. I assumed one of the staff had called ahead to let him know that I was on my way, and I was glad I wasn’t going to have to bother with calling him. One of the best things about this work was that everything ran smoothly without you having to put in all that much effort, and that was just the way I liked it. I wanted it to be simple for me, given that most of what it took to run this business was utterly complex in ways I was still getting my head around.
“Take me to Unders Street,” I told Kieran. “I have a store owner I need to see down there.”
Kieran nodded, adjusted his mirror, and we pulled out of the long gravel driveway of my family home. I’d heard people refer to it as a mansion, but that seemed a bit of an overstatement to me; sure, it wasn’t small, but that didn’t mean it was some sort of damn castle. Besides, my father had worked hard to earn it, and I wasn’t going to feel ashamed of what he had left me now that I was in charge here.
It was a bright day, sunny but a little cold, and it reminded me of all those stories my father had told me about Serbia. I had been once or twice when I was much younger, but most of what I knew of that place came from what he had told me. He’d grown up there, and it was from his home country that he’d gotten his hardcore sense of motivation. He told me he never wanted to go back there to live, but that it taught him how to fight – how to stand up for himself and get what he knew he deserved.
That was why he had been such a success when he had come over here. There weren’t many people willing to work as hard as he had, and he was willing to pull on his contacts from back home, too. So many people who came from Serbia seemed determined to leave everything about that life behind, but he knew his connections from his home country were the most powerful thing he had going for him.
He had never forgotten who he was, and that was something I intended to carry forward myself, too. Which was exactly why I intended to give this little bodega a break for a couple of days, even though I could have sent in my guys and gotten the money the owner owed me in an instant.
“Here,” I told Kieran, gesturing to the side of the street I wanted to be let out on, and he pulled the car to a halt and let me out. I spotted a few people peering at me nervously, and I knew why. It wasn’t like I was exactly inconspicuous, turning up in this part of town in a car as fancy as that. They knew what I was there for, and they were worried that they were going to get pulled into it.
But I had no interest in causing any trouble today. I just wanted to get in, get out, and make it clear I wasn’t going to take much more in the way of falling behind on debts. I never wanted people to think I’d gotten soft. And I sure as hell didn’t want anyone to think I was going to rain down hellfire on everyone who owed me, either. It was a tough act to balance, but I was determined that I would find a way to do it.
The man behind the counter looked up as soon as he heard the rusty old bell over the door tinkle, and when he saw who was standing there, his eyes widened and he dived out from behind the till.
“Mister Salieri,” he greeted me, his voice trembling slightly. I wasn’t always sure I liked having this impact on people, but then, I wasn’t going to argue with it, either. The reputation my father had left behind had insured that nobody fucked with me, and that was the way I preferred to keep it.
“Mister Litvenko,” I replied, calmly. I could see that his hands were shaking a little, and I wasn’t sure if that was to do with his age or the panic that he was feeling right now.
“I suppose you’re here about the debt,” he blurted out, and I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded.
“That’s correct.”
“And I – I want you to know, we’re doing everything we can to get it paid back,” he continued, speaking quickly, wringing his hands as he went. The blood had drained from his face, and he looked almost comically pale now. I wondered what he had heard that had gotten him so nervous, if he had been made aware of what had happened to the other people who hadn’t paid us back in time.
“I assumed so,” I replied. “How close are you now?”
“Days away,” he promised me, nodding enthusiastically. “We just – we're waiting for a few final things to come together, and then we can give it back to you in full.”
I reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, doing my best to calm him. I didn’t need him freaking out on me. That was only going to make getting my money back that much harder.
“I’m not going to cause any trouble for you,” I told him. “We Serbians have to look out for each other, don’t we?”
He nodded, not taking his eyes off of me, as though he was sure there was something to come at the end of that statement that would throw him off his game.
“Three days,” I told him. “I’ll be back to collect in three days, and then we can leave all of this behind us for good, can’t we?”
“Of course,” he blurted out, and he seemed beyond relieved that I wasn’t going to demand more from him yet. I smiled, making sure that he understood just what I was doing for him right now. He must have been aware of what had happened to other people who had failed to deliver on their debts.
“Good,” I replied, and I offered him one last smile. I had no idea how long he had been running this place – maybe it was a hand-me-down from his father, but judging by the thickness of his accent, I would have been surprised to find out he was an American native. But this place was hodge-podged together enough that I could imagine his family running it, relying on the friends they had made to keep the doors open and make sure that they didn’t lose out on more money than they could handle.
Which hadn’t worked, clearly, since he had needed me to step in to cover for him. But hey, in a matter of days, he would be done with his debt – if he stuck to his word, of course. Though I wasn’t sure he was really going to be able to see that through. Something told me he was just saying what he could to get me out of here so my presence didn’t scare away his customers, most of whom were not likely to walk into a store with some Serbian villain waiting inside.
I turned to head out of the door, and I heard him let out a sigh of relief as soon as my back was to him. Even though I had been nothing but polite to him, I knew he would be downright relieved to get me out of there. When it came to normal life, like this, I was an anomaly. That was why I spent most of my time in nightclubs, when I was out at all – I blended in there, and nobody thought twice about my presence.
I would head back to the club after this, take a look at it now that everyone was out and we were facing the clear light of day. I was sure it would look worse, under the unflinching daytime light, but that was what I was there for – to ensure that I scrubbed it up into the luxury place I knew it could be.
My father had insisted that I work towards going legit, and that was what I had been focusing on as much as possible. Yeah, we loaned a few people money just to make sure the interest kept trickling in, and I doubted the banks would have been too pleased about the way we enforced it when we didn’t get what we wanted, but for the most part, I was turning my father’s empire into something we could both be publicly proud of. No need to hide ourselves or pretend we hadn’t earned everything we had. We could be honest. And that was what I wanted, more than anything.
Truthfully, the thing that got to me the most was knowing he wasn’t here to revel in the winnings that we were going to take. Not just the literal cash, but the move into real society. He had set this up for me to take home, and I wasn’t going to let him down – but I wished he was here to see it. I knew he would have been so proud of everything I had been able to achieve.
And that was why I kept my head down and got on with it. Because it was the least I could do, to keep his empire alive. He had worked from the ground up to make sure I didn’t have anything to worry about, to make sure all I had to do was build on what he had laid down.
Hennessey’s was going to be my way into the mainstream, I knew it. With the dancers and the bar downstairs, and the tables upstairs, all I had to do was turn up the luxury a little and I would be laughing.
And, hopefully, find out just what the hell was going on with that girl who had danced with me the other night – and why she thought it was okay to talk to her boss the way she had.
