Let Me In-Dragan's Tale: The Mikhailov Brothers (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

BOSS MAN

The Dragan

It was a series of events that led to me nearly beating the shit out of Boris’s employee.

It started when I pulled up to the house, expecting some gratitude from my woman. Gratitude in the form of getting naked and riding my cock again. Instead I see her bawling her eyes out on Boris’s shoulder. Just like I caught her crying into Evelyn’s chest from the window of The Booth this morning. And like I heard her doing on the phone with David
after we’d fucked. I got in the shower and she called her friend to unload her worries. Or when she called Rosa this afternoon to check on her. For fuck’s sake. Rosa’d just sold the bar right out from under her and Toni called to check on her. And cried to Rosa about losin’ the bar…to me.

But when I’ve asked if she was cool. If she needed a shoulder, what does she say to me? ‘I’m fine Mikhailov. I’m always fine.’

And then that little prick tried to dog me in front of her. And then winked! Oh, hell no!

“Here,” she said. Standing in front of
the sofa, Antonina had brought me in some water. I took it but didn’t drink. “You want to talk about what’s going on, here?” she asked.

I looked down at the empty space next to me on the sofa. She took the hint and sat
down.

“You’
ve done a lot crying the past twenty-four hours. You wanna talk to me?”
She turned to me and gave me a face as if I was insane. “Are you nuts?” Like I said, she gave me a look.

I explained in a different way, “I’ve been asking you for months. When I see you lookin’ low at The Booth. Asking if you needed help when you’re sittin’ at a bus stop in the rain. Done that like three times, at least. I’
ve watched you grimace in pain bending over to put dishes in a dishwasher. I asked, ‘You okay?’ And what do I get from you? ‘I’ve fine Mikhailov. No worries Mikhailov, I’m not the type to cry.’”

Her pink tongue came out and licked the corner of her mouth. Her eyes calculated, her nostrils flared. “So this is about
me needing you?” she asked.

I sat the g
lass of water on the end table and scrubbed my face with my hands. “Of course it is!” I admitted to her and myself. “I watched you cry your eyes out all over a man you barely know. Boris is great but…shit Antonina. Talk to me. I’ve been tryin’ to get to you however I could for months. You give me nothing. All hell breaks loose in three days. You fall apart over and over, from the stress, the fatigue, the burdens you carry.” I grabbed the glass, downed the water and continued. “Shit I watched you hug that prick I nearly ended in your front yard. I had my dick inside you. Today! But you still give me nothin’.”

Antonina swallowed hard and looking away from me she answered. “Your dick was inside me, you got more than most do. As for needing you…No, I don’t need. I got friends for that. Just like every other man I’ve
fucked; you think getting between my legs buys you a ticket to my soft fluffy center. Like you said just a few days ago, pussy is pussy.” I shuddered at my own words but said nothing. “I didn’t ask you for help. You gave and I really appreciate it. What you’re doing for my mom… here, with the ramp. That’s amazing. But I didn’t ask for it. Evie pointed out some silver lining for me today. I got money. There’s over 55,000 dollars in my savings account. I’ll ask Boris for an invoice and pay you back. I’ll find out whatever Mikey would have charged you and send you a check for my car. M’kay?”

“Antonina…”

“No, this is good, Mikhailov. I was getting carried away. I’m not going to lose myself in a man. So…” she smacked my knee and stood, taking the glass from me. “If you’ll excuse me, I want to get the smell of your soap off me, and change clothes. I got, like, 30 minutes to get to the hospital. I’m on schedule at the bar tomorrow, so maybe I’ll see you there, boss man.” She walked into the kitchen to deposit the glass and then headed down the hall to the bathroom. “Let yourself out,” she called over her shoulder.

Toni

I waited to hear the door close and let the air escape my lungs. Rushing to my closet, I pulled out a pair of jeans, a pink fuzzy short-sleeved sweater and my hot pink Teva flip flops and jumped in the shower. When the water hit my back I started to cry. “What a fuckin’ girl!” I
pouted. I’d made a huge mistake. Got way too comfortable with that man too quickly. I washed my hair. I noticed it smelled like his cigars earlier today. I kept bringing it to my nose to smell it.

I rinsed and let the water drain away all the suds before I turned the knob and hopped out and hurried to braid my hair and get dressed.

I replayed the scene with Dragan in my mind. It was way too soon and I was way to unwilling to concede to a man. Saw my mom do it when I was little. That man, my dad nearly brought our family to its knees. Seeing Dragan bring that man to his knees made me sick to my stomach. I won’t live with that violence. My mom gave me a lot of wisdom over the years. Falling in love with a violent man was problematic. You never knew when he would turn that shit on you. Not happening.

It was five minutes after six and I was running into the main lobby of Austin General Hospital. I hoped I hadn’t missed the orthopedic surgeon. There was no way Mom would ask all the questions. She was way too nice to doctors. Evie taught me a long time ago. All doctors want you to bow to them. She taught me to talk to all doctors as if they’re a little slow. And randomly throw facts that have no relevance into the conversation. It kept them on their toes. Unless they were psychologists. They’d offer their card and your best move was to back away slowly.

When I entered Mom’s room I was surprised to find not only Davy but his mom and dad surrounding
her bed.

Mom was laughing at something David said. She looked really good.

“Hey, sweetie,” she called. “Come give me a kiss.”

I did as I was told and then made my way around the room to
greet everyone. I haven’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Ross in months and guilt hit me hard when Mr. Ross wrapped me up in a big hug. The man gave great hugs. The best in fact. He did dad things with me when I was a kid, just like he did for Evie.

At the Middle Ridge Junior High School’s annual Father and Daughter Dan
ce, he escorted Evie and I. When I got into Tulane, I told my mom and then Mr. Ross in that order. I’d been so obsessed with doing everything on my own; I’d neglected some relationships that mattered to me.

I sat between them in the hospital room while they regaled us with stories of all the trouble Davy and I used to get into. My mom looked relaxed and happy. Better than she’d looked in a long time. Mrs. Ross brought her homemade chicken and no
odle soup and she ate every bite.

It was a few minutes after eight
when the orthopedic surgeon, who introduced himself as Brian Felton, finally showed up. He looked young. I had my list of questions in my binder but before I could start, the Rosses were all over him. Asking him about his qualifications and where he’d studied. He answered every question with a smile and even showed a little sense of humor.

His assessment
, after reviewing Mom’s records, was to use local anesthesia and make incisions around her skin over the damaged tendon, sew the torn ends of the tendon together, check the surrounding tissue to make sure no other injuries have occurred, like injury to the blood vessels or nerves. Then close the incision with stitches. All this and she would be able to come home a day later.

After Mom and I
decided to proceed with the surgery he offered his thanks for all the great questions and apologized for making us wait. This shocked the shit out of me.

“Antonina,” my mom said as the door closed. He was
really cute and I think he was flirting with you.”

I laughed. “Momma, he was answering our questions about a serious surgical procedure. Not every man who meets me is hitting on me.”
I patted her.

The door snapped closed again and Dr. Felton was standing at the
entrance. He smiled and walked around the bed toward me. “Excuse me for interrupting. I forgot to give you my card.” I thanked him and looked down. Nice card. Thick paper. Embossed in gold. “My cell phone number is on the back if you have any more questions or… anything.”

I smiled again and tucked the card into my back pocket.
And my momma laughed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

BULLETS

The Dragan

I’d fucked things up with Antonina.
I wasn’t sure what I did. But I was definitely out. And she wasted no time in making her point. By the time, I’d gotten on the highway, Mikey was callin’ to ask if Toni was unhappy with the car repairs. He said she had called and wanted an invoice listing everything he did to her car. We agreed on what the bill would say and he promised to mail it out to her right away.

I was twenty minutes outside of Houston
on Highway 290 when Brenna called, wanting to know what I did to upset Antonina. Boris had filled her ear with the scene at Toni’s house. I’d already called and apologized to Boris. I had a temper. I owned it. The skinny little fuck made a pass and I had to smack his hand away from the cookie jar. End of story.

Instead of getting into the details with my sister, I lied and told her Toni and I would come for dinner sometime soon. She needed a distraction from our family shit, so if my nonexistent love life helped, so be it.

It was nearly nine p.m. when I pulled the car up to the unexceptional overhead coiling door at the side of what looked, to most, like an abandoned building. I drove through when the door opened wide enough for my rented Lincoln Town Car to get through and remained seated until the door closed behind me.

When I heard the
clink, tick
of the lock behind me, I swung my door open and unfolded from the car and made my way to the fuck I’d waited twenty years to end.

W
ith the exception of a table and two chairs which were illuminated in the yellow buzzing glow of a single recessed troffer light hanging by a chain in the middle of the space, the building was bare.

“Old man,”
I greeted, nodding to the guard I’d hired to drag Drobski off the plane he was trying to escape on. I dismissed the hired gun and I took a seat in the folding chair next to Baron Drobski.

He wasn’t a tall man twenty years ago, maybe f
ive and a half feet. He was broader in shoulder then and leaner in waist back in my childhood. Sitting in front of me, clearly those particular parts of his physique had reversed roles. And of course, he had a ski mask on back then.

“Miss Evelyn and the blonde al
l right after the scene you caused in that bar?” he asked.

I pulled out a Montecristo Mini-Pantela from the leather pouch in my front breast pocket and popped it between my teeth. It was a small, cigarette-sized cigar. Really like a
five-minute smoke. Smooth even burn. I wouldn’t be here long, but I wanted to enjoy it.

“Don’t,” I began to instruct and paused to light my
blunt. “Don’t say Evelyn’s name in front of me. And you jumped over the line seeking out that blonde.” I stopped the old man’s education long enough to take a drag and let the warmth of the smoke fill my lungs.

“Mikhailov, I’
ve been waiting a long time for this, why don’t you just shoot me or stab me. Do what you got to do and fuck off.”

I feigned shock. “But don’t you want to do that witty banter shit, where you tell me about how you’re a better criminal than me. And I don’t know who
I’m messing with…” I rolled my hand in circles stirring the unsaid words into the air.

“No, I know what you are, Mikhailov. That mudák
brother of yours turned his back on everything our families built together. Your name meant something years ago. That cunt grandmother of yours let greed win the day and it’s all for shit now.”

I rolled the smooth Cuban-
rolled leaf between my thumb and forefinger and grinned.

“Old man, you don’t understand.
That ‘dickless pig’ brother of mine, as you call him, is all gold. He’s on the up and up. Boy plays by the rules. Those indictments that came down today, they don’t mean shit to me. I ain’t gold. You know your two nephews, who your people paid those cops to let them slip out of the country a day ago? They never made it to their destination. Their bodies are somewhere between New York and London right now. Well, I should clarify; parts of their bodies are between New York and London right now. I had their heads expressed delivered to that chicken shit brother of yours who lives in Detroit.”

That got the old man’s attention, so I continued. “And don’t worry. I made sure he had a moment to pray over the loss of his sons before the bullet blew the back of his head off.”

He shifted in his chair but knew better than to move more than that.

I spread my feet wide and rested my elbows on my knees. “
You see, I don’t care about the justice system. Due process means dick to me. The Drobski and Mikhailov families got in bed together a long time ago. Back in the gulag, killing people for a corrupt government after the war. Our families, our legacy was built on killing for money. Poor people, who didn’t have bread to eat or a pot to piss in. And you and Irina are still doin’ it.

“But you want in on a little secret? I don’t care. I’m not Robin Hood. You’re not here
because I want retribution for all the people who have suffered because of our families. You’re here because you walked into my Mom’s kitchen, her home. You put a knife to her throat and scared her so bad she wet herself. You’re here because Irina wanted Mom frightened enough not to talk to the police. Instead, you slit her throat in front of her ten-year-old son. And then you chased him down and did the same to him.”

I let my hand come up and touch the scar across my neck.

“Mom used to tell me stories about Norse mythology and a sea serpent. The serpent was a child of Loki. She told me about Odin taking Loki's children and throwing them into the great ocean that circled the world. She said the serpent got so big that he was able to surround the Earth and grab his own tail in his mouth. She said she told me so I’d remember to never let go of myself. If I ever let go, she was afraid my world would come apart.”

I finished my cigar with a final drag, snuffed it on the bottom of my shoe and stuck it in my pocket. “When I ran from you twenty years ago, I let go. I left my mom to die.” I stood and arched my back. The seat was hard and I’d had enough for the day. “
I want to end you but I won’t do that to my brother. No shortcuts this time.” I pulled my cell out and tapped in our location. “The feds are on the way. You and me are going to sit here and wait for ’em. You’re going to prison. And with the wonders of modern medicine you could easily live another twenty years. And I already got a reservation for you at the pen of my choice. I even got a big dicked inmate ready to make you his bitch.”

It was at that moment
, I heard the click behind me. The shot was off before I could jump out of the way.

A burst of blood wet
my face. Blinking in surprise, I checked myself for the hole I thought I had in my chest but found nothing but a ruined shirt.

“Don’t worry, Dragan. You’re fine.”

I turned to the voice and stilled. “What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?”

She looked at me and with a shake of her head in disappointment, she sighed. “I’m protecting
our family and don’t taught to me that way. Show some respect for your grandmother.”