Page 113 of The Brigadier

“Oh, no, sir. I think the other Russian Pakhan is behind this, at least to some degree.”

“Why do you think that?” Vadim asked.

“I’m pretty sure I heard a couple of the guards speaking Russian. I did catch a couple words that I knew the meaning of. Shipment. Attack. Things like that.”

“Very good,” I told him. Thankfully, it was something. But if he was right and the Kaskov regime was working with someone, my bets were on Balian. They’d been sniffing around each other for years.

I wasn’t certain right now we could get more and I started to stand when he jerked up his head quickly.

“What does ‘skoro on uznayet, chto ya sil’neye i bystreye’ mean?”

I was shocked he’d done very well pronouncing Russian, which also made me a bit nervous.

“He will soon learn I’m stronger and faster,” Vadim translated.

Shit.

Shit…

It had been a very long time since a chill had coursed through me but at this moment, I felt icy cold. I stood very slowly and turned to Vadim. Once again, we didn’t need to talk.

“Just remember you guys can’t leave the room. There will be a steady string of soldiers ensuring your safety. Okay?” I told Tanner.

“Thank you, sir.”

A part of me wanted to take him with me back to the beach house. However, I wasn’t a cruel bastard. He deserved to spend time with his family after what all of them had endured.

“What do you want to do?” Vadim asked.

“Bring hell onto earth.”

Sins of the father…

I’d heard that line so many times over the years, but in this case, it was all about the sins of the brother. I’d been blindsided once in my life and I wasn’t thinking about with Tanner. That had been a kick in the gut, but being blindsided was something else entirely.

There were no words that would soothe the ache or help me understand.

My own brother, the man I’d grown up with and looked up to had betrayed me in such an egregious way I couldn’t think as clearly as I should.

Still, I’d insisted on driving, this time Vadim in the passenger seat beside me as I barreled my way toward the beach house. He’d tried to convince me that Vissarian wouldn’t be there, but I knew better.

He was ready to finish the charade. Crippled but not down.

What I still couldn’t fathom was that he’d placed his own daughter in the middle of a war. Why? What had been the point?

There was only one guess in my mind. The only way the New York Bratva would allow my brother to step foot into the city and consider forming an alliance was if an alliance was locked firmly in place.

A marriage.

Kaskov had a son, a brutal jerk right around thirty. If Chantel was forced into marriage, the two families would in a sense become one.

Another of the old ways but one that had worked over the centuries.

I twisted my hand around the steering wheel, furious with myself for not seeing it. The clues were there. My guess was he’d tossed out his ideas to the other syndicates he’d met with, knowing what their reaction would be. But by then, he would have gleaned additional information regarding the illegal products he was prepared to steal.

It was brilliant really, more so than I’d seen coming.

Well thought out. Months of planning. And he’d sucked me into part of it. Brilliant indeed.