Anatoly Medlov (37 page)

“Please call me Dmitry. I am, after all, your son-in-law.” He rubbed through Royal’s coal black locks. “This is...well, this is your daughter.” He put his large hands on her shoulders.

Feeling more self-conscious, Ms. Smith moved away from the table and slowly inched towards the beautiful woman. As she got closer, the tears flowed down her cheeks harder.
Royal...her oldest daughter. Her sunshine.

“When I lost you, I thought for sure that they’d changed your name. I never imagined in a million years that you’d be able to keep it,” her mother said, reaching out to touch her arm.

Royal wiped the tears that blanketed her face. “That was all they allowed me to keep,” she said, wanting to run away.

Her mother sobbed. “I’ve been looking for you since you were put up for adoption. And I even hired a private detective, who finally came back three years ago and said that you were dead. But there wasn’t a single night that I didn’t pray for my girls, worry about you and miss you.” Her voice faded as she cried.

Dmitry motioned towards the door and quietly excused the rest of the family so that Ms. Smith and Royal could speak in private. Turnig quickly as he ducked out of the room, Royal looked to him, begging him through her eyes to stay.

“Baby, you can do this. I’ll be right in the next room. Why don’t you two get familiar, and we’ll join you in a little while,” Dmitry said, holding Anya in his arms.

“Okay,” Royal said, wiping tears.

***

While Royal got to know her mother, the men excused themselves and left Briggy, Anya and Renee to get familiar with the upstairs entertainment rooms. There were things to discuss that dealt with immediate life or death. And they knew that the senior Boss Medlov would want to weigh in on the matter.

Convening out on the deck in a secluded area by the cove and with drinks in hand, the three of them laid out the plan.

“Yuri has always been a slick
sonofabitch
,” Dmitry said, sipping his scotch. “I should have known that he might do something like this as soon as I was out of the way.”

“So what do you think that we should do?” Anatoly asked, enjoying in the warm breeze coming from the waterway.

“After this little reunion, you and I are going back to Memphis together,” Dmitry said with a clever grin.

“Papa, you haven’t been to the states since the
thing
,” Anatoly said worried.

“I’m not a fugitive. I can come back whenever I like, and I’d
like
to go now. I can’t wait to see their faces.”

“You better not let Agosto find out,” Anatoly said laughing.

Dmitry laughed with him. “I should probably give him a call...just to fuck with him.” He turned to his son and sighed. “Did Adolfo happen to send any cigars with him?”

Anatoly stopped smiling and nodded. “
Da
, papa. He sent some.”

“If you don’t mind,” Dmitry said, motioning towards the door of the patio. “Go and get one for me.”

Anatoly turned and looked at Gabriel with a frown and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

Gabriel watched quietly wondering what he had missed. Taking a deep, quiet breath, he took a sip of his scotch and sat back in the chair.

When Anatoly had gone, Dmitry turned to Gabriel and stared him down. He waited a minute, thinking thoughts in his head, calculating. Then, he gave a clever, summed-up smirk.

“Since we’re all having our own little mini-reunions, I thought you and I might have one ourselvesd, motioy said, reaching into his pocket.

Gabriel waited for a gun to emerge from his uncle’s pocket, but instead, he pulled out an envelope. Sliding it over to him as a gust of wind blew through, he looked his nephew in the eye. “This is for you.”

“What is it?” Gabriel asked, taking the envelope.

“You mother was cut out of her family’s estate, because she didn’t see eye to eye with your grandmother about me. That is the money that was supposed to go to her upon your grandmother’s death. Now, I tried to give it to her shortly after you were born, but she wouldn’t take a dime of it.”

Gabriel opened the envelope to find a check for $35 million dollars. Shaking his head, he tried to give it back.

“I don’t deserve this,” Gabriel said, voice trembling.

“You do deserve it. It’s yours. And I won’t take it back or be refused,” Dmitry said, sitting back in his chair. He bit his bottom lip and tapped the table with his large hand.

“Why now?” Gabriel asked, looking at the check.

“Because I have the distinct feeling that after this reunion of ours and after we return to Memphis, we won’t be seeing each other anymore; that is after we both get what we came for. So, this is yours. And it won’t bounce after the meeting. It’ll never bounce. It’s yours. You cash it when you’re ready, when you can. You and Briggy can start over somewhere fresh where there are no extradition treaties.” He smirked.

Gabriel sat quietly, fighting the tears and trying to catch his breath. He looked up at the night sky and nodded. His bottom lip quivered.

“Hey.” Dmitry looked him in his eyes. “I want you to know that what happened to you was my fault. And I don’t blame you. I don’t fault you for what you have become as a result. And I made a promise to Royal after she found out our little story and after you reconnected her to her mother that I’d see after you. This...this should do just that.”

Gabriel wiped his eyes. “Do you...do you know who I am?”

Dmitry smiled and raised his drink. “You’re a Medlov.”

The sound of the ocean waves beating against the rocks calmed the moment. They both stared at each other, both men from different sides of the same coin.

Anatoly came through the doors with three cigars in his hand and walked back over to the table. Sitting down, he noticed the mood change. Looking at his father, he shrugged. “What did I miss?” he asked, passing his father his cigar.

Chapter Thirty

A ferocious autumn storm ripped through Memphis as the Medlov jet land. However, all the men on the plane were aware of the fact that things were going to get a lot worse in the city in just a minute.

Briggy and Renee were escorted in one car to an off-site location with no explanation of why; neither asked.

The men loaded up in six of Anatoly’s bullet proof Land Rovers and headed to Mother Russia.

The meeting would take place in fifteen minutes. Suiting up, Dmitry rode in one car with his bodyguard Davyd and three other men, fully strapped with his trusty Glock, a bullet-proof vest, two AK47s and a knife from his childhood.

Anatoly rode in a separate SUV with Vasily and three of his men, fully loaded and ready to attack. Cracking his knuckles as they rode, he smiled to himself, ready to finally taste blood again.

Gabriel rode in an SUV with a few men who had been tapped specifically for this job. As they drove, he finally texted Agent Lee the location of the drug warehouse and the time to meet him there. He had been in contact with him since the night of his uncle’s talk and had arranged a swift attack.

Three additional SUVs ran protection around the convoy, each carrying men in tactical gear just in case things got out of control. Other men rode high-grade bikes through the rain on the convoy’s flanks.

***

As the storm raged outside, Agosto sat at his desk with his feet up eating Chinese food with chop sticks and going over the notes to a file he was working on regarding three children who had come up missing. His worry was that he was dealing with a possible child-ring. Exhausted from being at the office all night, he popped a couple of caffeine pills and drank a protein shake.

The phone rang on his hip, pulling him away from his work. Frustrated, he answered.

“Yeah,” he said quickly.

“Agosto. I just saw the biggest fucking Medlov convoy since the restaurant thing,” the airport worker said, looking around him as he made the call on the pay phone.

Agosto jumped up. “Did you see Dmitry Medlov?”

“The big, seven-foot tall motherfucker. Yeah, I saw the dude. He was with like a hundred men. They loaded up and headed out of the airport about five minutes ago.”

“Shit. Alright. Thanks.” Agosto jumped up from his desk and grabbed his coat and pulled his drawer open to grab his extra clips. “Hey, Martinez!” he screamed.

“Yeah,” the detective said, sticking his head through the door.

“Get your shit. Dmitry Medlov is home. Something big is going down. He’s headed somewhere. I need someone out at the fucking restaurant...” He slammed his drawer shut and locked it. “And I need cars ready to rock when I give the word.”

“Got it boss,” Martinez said, walking off.

“Hey, Martinez...”

“Yeah,” he said, coming back to the door.

“Call Harrison. Tell him that this might be the only chance to get that bastard Anatoly Medlov back for fucking his ex-fiancé.”

“On it,” Martinez said disappearing.

***

The convoy pulled up to the back of
Mother Russia
restaurant, and the men quickly flooded out, opening the doors for their bosses to escort them safely inside out of sight.

Since the restaurant had been rebuilt, there were several entry-ways that lead to the downstairs basement and several exits that led out.

Hitting the stairs, they opened the doors and cleared the halls as Dmitry and Anatoly made their way down to the meeting. The people eating out in the restaurant didn’t have a clue that on the other side of the bullet-proof walls, and a few feet below them a war was about to ensue.

The council members sat waiting Anatoly to arrive. No one knew what was keeping him so long with the exception that maybe the conditions had gotten too bad to fly. Suddenly, they heard footsteps, only it sounded like more than normal.

The door swung open and in flooded men in tactical gear. Shortly after, Anatoly walked in and then Dmitry followed. The room silenced, gasps were held.

Dmitry walked in with a bright, devious smile. Showing the deep dimples in his square jaws, clenching his teeth and staring his council down, he smirked.

“Don’t look so happy to see me,” he said, walking over to the head of the table. Anatoly pulled the chair out for him and he sat down. Wiping the rain water from his face, he took a deep breath and poured himself a glass of water. “It’s good to be home. Anatoly, check the room before we begin.”

Anatoly did so quickly. He nodded when they were clear. “Ten minutes until they arrive,” Anatoly said, checking his text from the detective Cory, who had actually gotten useful Intel to them on time.

“So, I guess that I’ll make this short. You motherfuckers were supposed to support my son, not kill him. Not allow him to be killed.” Dmitry’s voice was a low, menacing growl. Looking like a predator stalking his prey, he set his knife on the table.

“We have done our jobs,” Khalid answered confidently. “We have not forgotten the code.”

Dmitry nodded and pointed his long finger. “Some of you
have
forgotten. Two of you at least.” His point landed on Oleg and Yuri.

“Eight minutes.” Anatoly said, counting down the time they had before the police arrived.

“Let this be a lesson to you who may have forgotten. This is my house. I built it!” Dmitry screamed, hitting the table with his fist. “And there isn’t a thing that either of your sons of whores can do about it. As long as I live, as long as I draw breath, my son will not be removed from this table as boss, will not be over-thrown by anyone on this council and will not be plotted against by the very men that I put in charge to protect his interests. And each and every time that I have to come here to make that point, it will be a motherfucking, bloody damned massacre.”

Standing up as the chair fell behind him, Dmitry pulled his Glock and shot Yuri and Oleg in the head. He then pulled out his knife. The serrated edge gleamed. Walking over to them, he bent down on his knee and snatched their head back. Their dead eyes looked up at the ceiling. Pulling their shirt open, he cut off the stars on their chest, indicating their status in the Vory. Throwing the pieces of flesh on the ground, he looked around.

Breathing heavily, he wiped the blood on his shirt. “Are there any questions?” he asked.

The men shook their heads, mortified by what they had just witnessed, specifically Oleg and Yuri’s sons - who were spared for some reason. They sat in complete shock as they watched their fathers murdered. Still, they felt relieved in some ways that Dmitry had been merciful than expected.

Spitting, Dmitry looked at his son.

“Four minutes,” Anatoly said, looking at his watch.

“Vasily, I want every man in both of these men’s camp dead by dusk. Do you understand? Take Roman and Alesky to a safe house until it’s over. I don’t want them harmed. I’m sure that they’ve been through enough watching what has happened to their fathers.”

“
Da
, boss,” Vasily answered quickly.