The Chronicles of Young Dmitry Medlov: Volume 7 (The Medlov Crime Family Short Stories Series) (2 page)

Chapter 1

London, England

When Dmitry was starving in the wretched, unforgiving streets of Moscow, Russia many years ago as an 18-year old man running from the sins of his past and toward the iniquities of his future, all he wanted was to be able to feed himself and his baby brother.

While in prison and sleeping on a cot too small for his growing body, he had often dreamt of being able to buy a car or afford a reasonable place to live where dog-sized rodents and fearless roaches weren’t a noticeable infestation. A place where diseased whores didn’t litter the corners with their offers, where people didn’t set garbage cans on fire at night to keep warm, and pollution didn’t choke out a mid-morning sun and any hope of a better life. 

Daily, he would imagine what he’d look like in clothes made to fit his body and being able to walk into a store and not have to steal products just to keep his hygiene up. 

Even now, he still remembered the awful hunger pains of going for days without a decent meal, or tormented by the smell of food he couldn’t afford while passing a bakery or restaurant. 

In those days before there was hope, he would pray a lot, although he felt himself completely unworthy. He would pray for his brother’s protection.  He prayed not to fail.  Most of all, he prayed for an opportunity.   In those days, life made sense, because there was only one objective…to survive.

But never in his wildest dreams or his worst nightmares did he ever imagine that having money would be more complicated than being dirt poor. 

And if someone had bothered to tell him, he would not have believed them.  He would have simply blown it off as mindless bitching by the spoiled and privileged.

Needless to say when the
opportunity
did present itself, he was ill prepared for being a billionaire before the age of 24, but he had adjusted as best he could. After all, while completely undeserving, God had answered his prayers. 

Such a reality often baffled him.  Why him?  Why had he been given anything considering who he was and considering all the bad he had done?

As a rich man, he had taken his late wife Catherine’s lessons to heart, and he had tried to carry himself as something other than a fool when it came to money.

But no preparation in the world could have gotten him ready to deal with what he was facing as of late.

There was something to be said for a rich man’s blues.

After arriving home in London a few months ago, an Angolan president short, due to his girlfriend’s assassination by her father, and was forced to kill his business partner’s son, adjustments to his new life had not been easy. 

He was welcomed at the airport by a barrage of interrogators including Scotland Yard and worse than that, hounded by the insidious and relentless press.

On top of that, his investment in the luxurious skyscraper in Milan was in the toilet and so were any hopes of doing anything legitimate. 

After the bombing by Dorian, investors had taken their money when the insurance company paid out and ran for the hills.  Stockholders sold their stocks in Hutton Industries at a record breaking speed and any new legitimate investors treated him like a pariah, refusing to even give him a meeting.

Overnight, he had gone from a prince to a glorified pauper in designer clothes.  They dragged his name through the mud daily as local stations made millions off his purported scandal by running his picture with half-truths and salacious rumors.

Life had gone by in one big haze.  He went with his lawyers from one interrogation to the other and from one interview to another with his highly-paid public relations team. Millions spent on litigation and more millions were lost as his businesses plummeted. 

Catherine would have been devastated if she had seen what he had become and so would Elsa.  Both had taught him better.  Only, not having either of them to lend valuable advice was playing a big role in his undoing.   

The result had left him tired and weak.

Yet still, he could not give up.  It wasn’t in him to fail, not after he had come so far.

He should have been dead a million times before, and yet here he stood unscathed despite their best efforts, so he must still have a purpose. 

Now, on the emergence of his 26th birthday, he stood in the mirror gazing at himself in his bathroom with a heady mix of determination and disgust. 

The night before, he had had a little more to drink than normal and was currently in the middle of feeling a bit of a hangover. 

However, unlike other young, single billionaires, he had not celebrated with an entourage of beautiful women and eager yes men over champagne fountains on a yacht or in a club. 

Instead, in his normal hermit fashion, he had chosen to sit alone in front of the fireplace in his bedroom, recounting his life over the last eight years, drinking bottle after bottle of Russian vodka while playing his wife’s old jazz records and looking through his financial statements and old pictures of former lovers in his life.

It had been less than exciting, but no less than pathetic. 

Completely naked now, he turned on the gold-gilded faucet and ran his large, tattooed hands under the scalding hot water.  Splashing it on his face, he closed his blue eyes and sighed into his hands, creating bubbles in the stream. 

Damn, that felt good.
There was still something about the simple things that brought him pleasure.  Hot water was one of them.   It was his only way of getting clean anymore.  Life’s bad experiences left a residue on him, however, that he was not able to simply wash off. 

Grabbing his brown leather razor kit from the counter, he unzipped it slowly and pulled out his razor and set it by the sink. 

In slow motion, he lined up everything that he needed to begin his day and started the process of shaving the blonde stubbly beard off his face. 

With each evolution of the sharp razor on his skin in downward strokes, he transformed from the sulking, disheveled brute he was becoming in the confines of his lonely castle, back into the young, dashing billionaire that everyone loved to hate. 

Revealing perfectly tanned resilient skin; he ran the water again and washed the foam from his face before applying aftershave.

Dabbing his chiseled features dry, he stood up to his full 7’ of glory and willed himself to begin his day.  His chest had grown exponentially over the last few months because of so many hours in the gym. 

Ripped with taut, almost gaudy muscles from his broad shoulders to his meaty chest, down to the eight pack of muscles in his abdomen to his long legs, he was still a formidable man, despite his internal conflict.

Working out in his personal gym and running across his grounds were the only two things that brought him peace of late. 

During his torturous workouts, he would struggle with himself and his thoughts to develop plans on how to pull himself from the depths of this new hell back into the world he had fought so hard to get to. 

He would rationalize how cutting off all supplies to South Angola and impacting an entire civil war had been reasonable, how spending millions to hunt down Dorian had been a wise investment, how keeping Khalid alive despite what he had done to him had been respectable, how losing a child had been beneficial, how loving his brother was still fathomable and how keeping his sanity was even possible.

In his mind and only during the times that he tortured himself in his workouts seemed to be the only times that all of the things that made him crazy actually made sense. 

Ready to start a new day, he dressed in the clothes that had been laid out by the maid the night before on the chaise lounge chair in the corner that Catherine used to sit in and watch him shower.

Slipping on his running pants, a t-shirt, throwing on a hoodie, tying his gym shoes, and grabbing his gun, Dmitry closed the door to his bedroom and locked it.  Then quietly, he made his way down the long wooden stairwell, making sure not to wake the sleeping residents of his home. He was used to being the first one up and the last one asleep.  Besides he could rest when he was dead. 

The sun had started to peak through the clouds and shine through the windows into the castle, casting shadows of light throughout the majestic museum of a house onto priceless vases and century-old paintings of men who would turn in their grave if they knew that he had been their beneficiary. 

Without another thought, he passed his inherited wealth and made his way out of the front door. 

Dew was still covering the large manor’s lawn.  Like a thick layer of star dust, it danced over the green lawns and manicured landscaping. 

Overhead, pockets of dark clouds gave way to blue skies and hues of yellow gold.  To top off the dawning day, a crisp chill was in the air, perfect for a gut-busting run. 

Taking a deep breath, he started his 10-mile run and began his battle within on how to be the best man that he could be, at least for today.

***

As a fiery early morning sun rose above the cloudless horizon of the sleepy brick city of London, Ivan stepped out on the veranda of his posh penthouse hotel room only blocks from the waterway.  Still dressed in his black slacks and black dress shirt from the night before, he downed the last of the vodka in his bottle, then casually pitched it over the black iron rail into the quiet, unsuspecting streets below. 

The sound of glass busting against metal caused a small grin to pull at the corner of his heart-shaped lips as he slipped a joint into his mouth.  Digging in his pants pockets, he pulled out his silver lighter and crooked his head to the right as he squinted and lit the newly rolled blunt.  The drag was lovely; the smell immediate.  Smoke billowed up into the air above him in a cloud and as he inhaled then exhaled deeply. 

Something in him at that moment eased and he could finally hear the raised voices below from the apparent flying bottle.  He hoped more than anything that the bottle had landed on the car of Dmitry’s guards waiting for him, but he’d settle for their witness to the act. 

He loathed being babysat every hour on the hour by his brother’s mindless idiots.
But because of Dmitry’s ramping paranoia, the order was carried out without prejudice. 

Dmitry wanted to know where Ivan was at all times - a task that he made difficult for the men responsible for him at every given opportunity. 

After Dmitry’s girlfriend had stabbed him in the back, Dmitry had turned into a different type of animal – completely different from anything that Ivan had seen before.  He was quieter now, more calculating, and less interested in anyone else’s opinion
outside of Davyd
. All his big brother ever did now was sulk and
work
, brood and
work
, bitch and
work
.  He was completely devoted to adding one more zero to his dwindling billions, even though he didn’t need the money, and based on Ivan’s bank account, didn’t plan to share.

The thought of that meddling old man made Ivan scowl outwardly, even amidst the beauty before him.  To Ivan’s way of thinking, Davyd was nothing more than a mindless extension of Dmitry’s body put on this earth to make his life miserable and to follow Dmitry straight into the clutches of hell.  He just wished that he could be there when the dinosaur took his last breath.  

Of course for Ivan, the constant surveillance also made certain pressing matters impossible to handle, like getting rid of the Irish mobsters that he had recruited over in Dublin over two years ago to sell drugs in their clubs for him. 

It had taken forever to set up proper distribution – certain palms had to be thoroughly greased and others cut completely off, but things had finally started to look up.  Money was coming in regularly and the suppliers had finally begun to cut him deals due to bulk. True, it took
bartering
of some of Dmitry’s munitions in factories around the UK, but what the fuck did he care? 

Then in the middle of building his own thing and finally being able to get from under Dmitry’s thumb, he got busted.  The result had been a setback of epic proportions: one dead drug lord and one dead Russian Vor. The fallout had included his money tree being burned right in front of him and a noose being placed around his neck.

When Ivan had arrived back to London with his brother, he had sent quiet word to his Irish helpers to disband temporarily, at least until the coast was clear. The word around town was his gaggle of misfits had grown exponentially and what they weren’t doing for him any longer, they were again doing for themselves as they had before he took over. 

Such news would eventually get back to his brother if he didn’t do something soon.  He was sure that another falling out with Dmitry would not end quite as amicably as it did in Italy.

He hated to admit it, but he should have listened to Dmitry and killed the Irishmen when he first was sent to do so. Now, he had money owed to him and bodies to get rid of. 

It would be tricky. 

But each and every day, he was developing a plan, watching the bodyguards, figuring out their weaknesses and moving toward a final reconciliation. 

It would be a job that he wouldn’t be able to do alone, but the only other person he could use as leverage was his wife, Arie.