Antonio
Two weeks later…
Situated behind my desk, Ardian comes blazing into my office. “Sir, we’ve got company.”
Before he can further elaborate, Mikhail pushes past him and strides into my office. His bodyguard accompanies him, blocking the door.
Ardian hurries down the hallway, and I can only assume to gather reinforcements and weapons.
“How’d you get in past the gate?” I ask.
Did one of my men agree to let him inside? I can’t help but wonder if anyone else has betrayed me since Mario.
There’s a wicked grin on his face. “Don’t mind yourself in such untrivial matters, Antonio.” Mikhail steps closer, approaches my desk, and finally sits across from me. He kicks his legs up on the wooden desk, his boots filthy and tracked with snow that he leaves behind on the papers strewn about.
I push my laptop aside, out of his way, and shut the lid.
“What do you want?” I seethe. He’s not here for a pleasant visit. That doesn’t exist between us and never will.
“I’ve come to collect what’s rightfully mine. I gave you my sister and her children. You’ve yet to pay me the two hundred thousand, let alone a percentage of your empire.”
I scoff at his idea of a deal. I’m a man who keeps his word, but I have a feeling he’s not here just for the money.
“As soon as you give me the routing and account number, I’ll transfer you the funds that we’ve agreed upon,” I say. I’d do anything to protect my family, including Aleksandra, Sophia, and Liam.
“Good, because I’d hate to do anything drastic,” Mikhail says and snickers. “I’ve got two men watching the twins at their preschool, and another has a gun on your girlfriend. Don’t do anything foolish.”
Mikhail reaches into his pocket. “I’m not going for a weapon,” he assures me and reveals a handheld tablet. He flips it around to show me the screen.
There’s surveillance footage of the twins on the playground at the preschool, and his men are visible just outside the gate. He flicks the screen with his hand and shows me the second set of footage, with a gun poised on Aleksandra.
She’s in the back of a vehicle. It’s dark. There’s duct tape on her lips, and her hands appear bound behind her back.
“Let her go!”
“As soon as we get our money, every penny,” Mikhail says. He hands me a slip of paper with his routing and account numbers to transfer the money to him.
I exhale a heavy breath. Is this what I get to look forward to every month?
Extortion and threats to my family.
I refuse to bow down or cower to men like Mikhail. But I have to tread carefully to ensure that Aleksandra and my children are unharmed.
“Do you mind?” I say, gesturing to his sopping wet boots on my desk.
Mikhail chuckles and removes his feet from the wood, sitting up straight. “I never thought you’d be this easy to extort,” he says. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s gloating underneath his calm exterior.
I open my laptop and sign into the computer. I’m opening a web browser to transfer the funds to his bank account a moment later. It’s probably an offshore account, untraceable.
“You are never to come near my family again,” I warn.
It was too easy for Mikhail to get to the twins, to Aleksandra, to waltz right into my office. How many of my men have betrayed me? I can feel the treachery burning inside of me like a raging inferno. Mikhail is waging war, and my men have proven disloyal.
“You needn’t worry yourself, Antonio. If you continue the monthly payments, you’ll never see me again,” he says.
I exhale a heavy breath. “How much are we talking?” He’d asked for ten percent gross, but it’s not like he has direct access to my financial records and receipts for transactions. There’s no paper trail in the business I’m in, and he knows it.
“Twenty percent,” Mikhail says. “Is that going to be a problem?”
His bodyguard stands in the door and glances from the hallway back toward his boss and then at me. He clears his throat at Mikhail. I can only assume it’s a signal, but of what?
His bodyguard’s gun is poised at his hip. The reflection of metal catches my eye. He isn’t holding it, which means I could reach for my spare gun under my desk and take out Mikhail or the bodyguard. It’s unlikely I’d make both shots before getting hit myself with a round or two.
And I’m more concerned about Aleksandra and the twins. If I make one wrong move, they could die.
I press my lips together. I don’t like shakedowns. While I’m a man of the mafia, I’m also a man of my word. “We agreed to ten percent,” I say. Technically, I wasn’t happy about that arrangement, but I’d have said anything to get Aleksandra and the kids away from the Russian mobster.
Mikhail leans back in the chair. He stretches his arms and puts his hands behind his head. “Well, the price went up.”
“Excuse me?”
What’s saying he won’t raise the price again in a month. He’s just as bad as the cable provider that fucking hoses me. At least with cable, I get a service. What do I get from Mikhail? Certainly not him leaving us alone.
“You left with my sister and didn’t pay.”
He thinks he owns me. “You’re a dead man!” I threaten, my heart pounding against my ribcage.
“Remember who started this war,” Mikhail says. “You brought death onto your doorstep and into the homes of your mafia brothers. Are you sure you want to do that again?”
My top lip twitches with a snarl. “You’re a monster.”
“No worse than you kidnapping my nephew and working for Roberto.” Mikhail can’t let that go.
“Do you see Roberto running the mafia around here?” I won’t confess to murdering Roberto. I can’t take a chance that Mikhail came in here with another agenda, wearing a wire, and trying to incriminate me.
He glances around my office from his position in the chair. “Seems you’ve done well for yourself. Let me give you a piece of advice, brother.” There’s disdain in his tone, arrogance, and anger simmering at the surface.
“I don’t want your advice,” I snap.
“But you should take it,” Mikhail says. His demeanor is calm, and why shouldn’t it be? He’s getting everything he fucking wants. “Don’t fuck with the bratva unless you’re prepared for war. Your predecessor was foolish, believing he could sell Liam, and for what, a couple hundred thousand to a wealthy family who wanted a Caucasian son? You nearly destroyed your own family, and you didn’t even know it.”
He’s right, I fucked up, started a war, but we put it all behind us. Didn’t we? We’d made a truce, a cease-fire, and the arrangement had been to let Mikhail return to the bratva under the condition that he and his men leave the other mafia families alone. His war was with us.
“I paid you your money,” I say, turning the computer screen so he can see the receipt for the transfer of funds. “I want Aleksandra released and you to leave my children alone.”