Leverage (32 page)

Beyond the stillness of the swinging man’s dead body, I remembered nothing after I ended his miserable life. I woke up sometime later on a cot in the corner of a darkened room. A fifty-five gallon metal drum sat on the floor next to me, and above it, another light bulb dangled from a utility cord, casting a dull glow but a few feet around me. I swung my legs over the edge of the cot and planted my feet on the uneven floor as I glanced around the dimly lit space. It wasn’t a room as I’d first thought, but rather the shipping container.

I jumped up and looked around, then toward the center where I knew the man I’d killed had been hanging. There was no chain, no hook, no rope, and no light. I bent down and examined the corrugated floor for blood, but there was nothing, not even any scuff marks in the thick layer of dust. I realized I must have been dumped in the other container. I recalled there were two, side by side, and my heart calmed slightly knowing I wasn’t entombed in the same place I’d killed the swinging man.

But I
had
killed him. I’d made that choice, however coerced, and now my soul burned with the disgrace that I’d broken my vow and destroyed yet another human life, regardless of what he’d done to Nick, and, most likely, to countless others.

I began to pace in the dull circle of light emanating from the bulb in the corner. The weight of my victim’s death grew dense and heavy in my chest. It felt like a living, breathing thing, twisting around my heart, weaving between my ribs, slowly constricting my lungs until I could hardly breathe. I tried to reason with myself. He was a murderer. He’d executed Nick with great satisfaction. I’d killed him to save my wife. Greg had been torturing her, for no other reason than to bend me to his will, to see if I would follow his order to kill on command. And I had. I crossed that line I said I’d never cross again. I was now back on the dark side, and no matter what I did from here on out, I could not be saved.

My soul was lost.

I fell back against the cold wall of the container and slid to the floor, my arms resting atop my knees as I tapped the back of my head against the metal again and again. I closed my eyes to halt the sting of hopelessness behind them.

“Oh, why so bereft?” cooed a familiar voice from the far, dark end.

Greg.

“You saved your beloved, and your daughter is safe and well tended. You’ve proven yourself true and capable. I commend you for that. Perhaps you can make up for the failings of your brother and father. Perhaps the blood feud will end with us and the world will be set to rights.”

I pushed to my feet and crept through the dark toward the other end of the container. As I got closer, the light from the dim bulb seemed to follow me, and in the corner, I could make out a shadow, Greg’s dark form sitting in a folding chair. Then a match sparked as he lit the end of a slender cigar clenched lightly between his lips. The orange glow kindled in his black eyes, and I saw they were trained on me, flat and dead-like, but assessing me nonetheless.

I stopped, still fifteen feet away. “What feud?” I asked, surprised by the defeated tone in my voice. “What exactly happened between my father and your uncle to start all this?”

Pulling the cigar from his mouth, Greg stretched his bottom lip thin, exposing his lower teeth as he sucked in a shot of air. “Oh my, the answer to that will open quite the can of worms, I fear. Perhaps we should discuss it over a drink.”

He stuck the cigar back into his mouth then bent down. He retrieved a bottle and two plain glasses in one hand then reached behind him and hooked the back of the chair with the other, dragging it across the length of the metal floor, all the way to the drum table. He set the chair at an angle facing the cot and placed the bottle and glasses atop the drum. Then he pulled the foul-smelling cigar from between his lips and tamped the end gently into the metal drum to extinguish it.

“Please,” he requested, indicating I take a seat on the cot while he poured a single shot into each glass. When he was done, he held out the bottle for me to see. “I think you’ll appreciate this. Magnum Grey Goose, what’s left of my father’s private reserve.”

I glanced at the frosted glass bottle of vodka then back up at Greg. “Why would I appreciate that?”

He took a sip and briefly closed his eyes in pleasure. “Because it’s some of the best vodka in the world.”

I snorted. “Hardly worth the price of admission to hell. That’s what it is to me, the key that opened the door. I’ve sold my soul to the devil twice over now.”

“Well, then, there’s no reason to look back, now, is there?” Greg argued with his glass raised. He cocked a brow and one corner of his mouth, his head tilted as he waited.

With a deep sigh, I picked up my glass and stared into it. “Fuck it,” I swore. It was too late for me anyway. As long as I could keep Hannah and Nicole alive and safe, I’d sacrifice anything—my pride and sobriety, my freedom and life, even my soul, whatever. None were mine to control anyway. So what the fuck did I care?

I raised my glass up to Greg’s. “To our fathers,” I toasted bitterly.

Greg clinked his glass against mine. “Indeed.”

With that, we both tossed the contents down our throats. Mine went down a hell of a lot smoother than the last time a few hours earlier in Greg’s conference room. Maybe I had just accepted that this was how it was meant to be for me. This was my lot in life. I decided I could deal with that if it meant my family was safe.

I doubted Hannah would be okay with that, which meant, if this was ever going to work, if I was ever going to be able to live with whatever it was I would undoubtedly have to do, I’d need to break the ties that bound us. I knew she’d never go for that, so I’d have to find a way to make her let me go. It would be easier to live with her anger than her disappointment.

“Oh come on, you’re getting all misty on me again,” Greg intruded. “You’ll really have to toughen up if you want to come out of this with any sanity whatsoever.” He leaned over and poured me another shot, then repeated the gesture with his own glass.

“I don’t, for one moment, believe I’ll be getting out of this alive, let alone sane.”

Greg sat back in his chair and took a sip then looked me in the eye. “Please understand, this is purely business. If you do as you’re told, I
will
let you and your wife and child go in peace. I prefer it that way actually. Contrary to what you might believe, I do not have an appetite for violence. It’s simply a means to an end. I would think, as your father’s son, that you would have some appreciation for that, all things considered.”

I pulled back. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means your father did what
he
did to get what
he
wanted.”

“My father did what he did because it was the right thing to do. He had the law on his side. Your uncle did not.”

Greg chuckled. “Oh, my friend, I assure you, the law had nothing whatsoever to do with it. It was all in the name of love, or, at the very least, possession, and perhaps a bit of pride.”

I shook my head, even more confused.

“It was my impression the FBI had shared all this backstory with you years ago,” Greg said by way of explanation.

“They told me my father had provided material witness in a British racketeering and tax fraud case against your uncle.”

“Ha!” Greg barked. “Hardly the truth, and really just fruit of the poisonous tree. Not that it mattered.” He poured us both another shot.

I tipped mine back then slammed the glass onto the drum table. “Would you please stop talking in fucking riddles.”

“Fine. You want to know? Here it is. Much like you, your old man sought revenge, pure and simple.”

“For what?” I asked.

“For your mother, you sod! Can you not figure this out for yourself? She was not a virtuous woman by any stretch of the imagination, and before you go ripping my head off for saying so,” he said with his hand up, ready to fend me off, “let me tell you how it really was.”

He dropped his hand when I slowly relaxed back into the cot, then settled himself more comfortably in his own chair. He poured another round which we both slammed quickly.

“Your father and my uncle, Mikhail, were lifelong friends. Your father worked for him for many years, though they were more like brothers than anything. They even looked alike, and—raised together as they were, their parents close friends—they could have been brothers for all I know. Still, Uncle Mike was boss,
Pakhan
, and your father, Erik, was
Obshchak
, Uncle Mike’s second most-trusted comrade. But, as much as they loved each other like brothers, they also competed with each other for the affection of a long line of women. For many years, it was all fun and games—until your mother came along.”

Greg paused to gauge my reaction. I sat stoically and remained silent. He poured again, and we tipped our drinks back together then laid our glasses down on the drum at the same time. Greg crossed his arms across his chest and caught my eye.

“She belonged to your father first, and they made plans to marry, but Mikhail—always the antagonist and never trusting of outsiders—decided to put Nina to the test. He wanted to see how loyal she was to your father. If she could not be trusted to remain faithful to Erik then she could not be trusted with any connection to, or knowledge of, the Brotherhood. So Mikhail seduced the young, beautiful Nina, and she fell shamelessly into his trap. But my uncle did not count on the feelings he developed for your mother. As much as he wanted to cast her aside, he found he could not, and when she told Mikhail she still intended to marry your father, she begged him not to disclose their affair. Caring as he did for both Erik and Nina, Mikhail agreed to keep their secret. She returned to your father, and they were married hardly a month later.

“Nina was sick for much of their first few months as man and wife. She lost weight, grew gaunt, even as her belly swelled. She was with child, you see, her first. You,” Greg informed me as he picked up the bottle and splashed two more shots into our empty glasses. He raised his in the air. “
Za tee-byá
,” he toasted quickly then tipped the vodka to his lips.

I drew my glass close, but, with my stomach already roiling, and the fear of what I was certain I was about to hear knotting it into a coil, I could not make myself take another drink. I just sat there, staring into its depths as Greg continued.

“Nina and Erik had a tumultuous relationship, as I’m sure you are well aware, but they loved each other, it seems, and even though they often fought and separated for days at a time, they always reunited. Until one day, when your parents had quite the row. Your mum left your father after that and didn’t return for several months, but she did return. And just as it was when they were first married, Nina became sick and was soon discovered to be once again with child, this time with Nick.”

Greg poured himself another shot while my mind tripped and tumbled over the details in his story. I recalled how my parents used to fight when I was very young. I even remembered the time my mum left my pops and I for what seemed like forever, but was actually less than four months. They seemed better after she returned, and when Nick came along later that year, they settled down considerably, at least until Nick was about three.

That’s when he got sick and spent several weeks in the hospital. My parents were stressed and often argued while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with Nick. And when they did, my parents’ arguments grew worse, but only briefly. Then Nick got better and came home, and my parents seemed to slip into quiet cohabitation. They didn’t fight, but they weren’t as close as they once were. I was an adolescent then, eleven years old. I understood the difference. It made me sad at the time, but at least they were friendly, for a while anyway. That was right before we moved to Melbourne.

Melbourne… Shit!

I leaned back against the metal wall with my hand atop my head, the possibilities of what it all meant swirling around my head like a tornado.

“Ah, yes,” Greg quipped. “As the wheels turn, the pieces fall into place. I believe you’ve finally worked it all out, have you not?”

I sat up, my elbows at my knees, my fingers steepled and pressed against my upper lip. Greg was implying that I was the biological love child of his uncle, Mikhail Chernov, conceived prior to my parents’ marriage, my father likely duped into believing I was his. Then what? When he found out I wasn’t, they fought and she left again, only to have history repeat itself with Nick?

I had a nagging feeling that my brother’s paternity had been revealed during his illness. Had my mother disclosed the truth to my father at that point, possibly to save Nick’s life? I can only imagine the betrayal he must have felt knowing his beloved wife had twice been unfaithful to him with his best friend—the man he thought of as his brother—but to learn his children, his sons, were not actually his own... The treachery and bitterness must have eaten my father alive for him to resort to such measures as setting Mikhail up for prosecution. I simply could not believe the level of deception and treachery that feathered the nest I once had called home.

“You’re wrong,” I insisted. “It’s not true. It can’t be.”

Greg leaned down and dragged a short metal trash can from underneath the cot, placing it near my feet. Then he stood and poured himself one last shot. He grabbed the still-full glass from my hand and laid it on the drum before he raised his in one last toast. “Oh, I’m afraid it is, cuz. I’m afraid it is.”

The next thing I knew, I was emptying my guts into the can at my feet.

Jumping back with a bitter chuckle, Greg toasted, “
Za ra-dée-tye-ley
,” then sailed the glass into the metal wall. After the spray of broken glass had settled to the floor, Greg ran his hands through his hair and smoothed his clothing into order. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a metal bin of mints and a pack of gum, both of which he threw onto the cot.

I spit into the can then wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “I don’t understand,” I said. “If this is true, then why would Dmitri want Nick and me dead?”