He scowls, knocking back the rest of his drink before setting the glass on the table between us. He steeples his hands as he leans back against the sofa, his foot over one knee.
“Were you aware that the Barone family had another party interested in their West Side development project, before inking a deal with your family?”
I shrug. “I would assume they had a few offers. Though, yes, I know during the later stages of negotiations, we were aware of one other aggressive interested party. But they dropped out when we radically upped our price.”
Arian nods slowly. “You mean when Drazen Krylov became a silent partner in the deal, using his considerable assets to bump up the pot.”
I eye Arian curiously. He quickly shakes his head.
“That isn’t meant to be antagonistic. Just stating facts.”
My head nods. “In that case, yes, Drazen became a silent partner in the project. I think it’s fair to say we ended up paying more than expected. But it’s still a solid investment, and I doubt we’d have clinched the deal at all without Drazen and his money.” My brows knit “Where is this going, Arian?”
“What if I were to tell you that the party you were bidding against was my family.”
I pause with my glass halfway to my lips.
Arian shakes his head again. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I wanted no part in any of that. Neither did my father, actually, but his hands were tied. You see, we also had a silent investment partner.” His face darkens. “Or rather, a not-so-silent one. You asked me the other night if I was in business with Boris Chernoff.”
The hairs go up on the back of my neck. “Arian…”
“Well.” He spreads his arms, a bitter smile on his face. “Unfortunately, I am. Because I didn’t just inherit my father’s empire. I inherited his debts, and his parasites.” Arian exhales. “How well do you know Drazen?”
I shake my head. “Not well. Just what most people know. All the usual bedtime stories to scare the kids.”
His face is grim as he reaches over to the table next to him and grabs a stack of folders. Turning, he tosses them on the table between us.
“They’re not bedtime stories.”
Frowning, I pick up the first file. Inside, there’s a bunch of grainy black and white photos of a guy in a suit, lounging on a yacht. The documents in the folder, official reports by the looks of them, are in Cyrillic.
“My Russian’s pretty rusty,” I mutter. I flip to the next page, and my frown deepens. “My Albanian’s worse.”
“Allow me to translate, then,” Arian growls. “That’s Serge Markarov, head of the Markarov Bratva based out of London.” He grimaces. “Or rather, that was Serge Markarov, just like that was his yacht. Losing his life and his giant-ass boat on the same night wasn’t the sum total of it, either. Actually, Serge was quite possibly on one of the worst streaks of shit luck in the history of the world in the two months before his death.”
Arian starts to tick off his fingers.
“His father fell out a thirty-story window. All twelve of his shipping warehouses used for his illicit goods managed to catch fire, on the same night, and every single one of their fire suppression systems failed.”
My brows arch. Arian keeps ticking his fingers.
“His uncle, who was terrified of open water, died in a scuba accident. His grandfather ate the business end of a shotgun. His mother’s multiple affairs were exposed in a prominent British tabloid. She ended up stepping off a platform under an oncoming commuter train. Even his twenty-year-old nephew overdosed on a frankly superhuman amount of cocaine—and the kid was on a pre-Olympian track team. Body was a temple, never touched drugs in his life.”
My jaw starts to grind.
“I’ll give you the Cliff Notes version of the next couple of folders,” Arian spits. “Savin Borisov, of the Borisov Bratva: hangs himself, leaving a note admitting his numerous affairs. But, hey, good news for the wife he left behind: none of the women he listed fucking exist. Too bad it didn’t stop his widow from swallowing about a pound of sleeping pills the night of his funeral. Oh, and his warehouses must have had their fire suppression systems set up by the same dipshits, because all ten of his also failed the night they all caught on fire.”
Fuck me.
“The Zaytsev Bratva: pakhan and entire empire wiped off the face of the Earth. Vlasov Bratva, same thing. Popov Bratva, take a guess.” He smiles grimly. “Same fucking fate.” Arian taps the table between us with a stiff finger. “Would you care to guess who the fuck they all, without fail, had secret meetings with, roughly a week before each of them died?”
My pulse thuds as I lean back in my seat, stroking my jaw.
“Krylov,” I growl quietly.
Adrian nods. “Drazen fucking Krylov. Now, guess who just lost his cousin, who he was very close with, in a freak skiing accident? And who also just had three warehouses in Jersey go up in flames a few weeks ago?”
Oh, shit.
“And for the million-dollar prize, Kratos,” Arian mutters, “guess who owned that West Side development project before times got tough and they were forced to sell it to Vito Barone, about thirty years ago?”
“You’re fucking shitting me.”
“The Chernoff family,” Arian growls. “Boris Chernoff’s grandfather poured everything he had into buying that property, when the Chernoff organization was nothing more than a bunch of street hustlers and bootleggers. Boris’ mother was fucking born in that building. When I say Boris wanted to buy it back from Vito, I mean he was ready to open a vein if the Italians said that was what it would take. And then Drazen swans in and helps you and yours scoop up the whole thing.”
Arian sits back in his chair, shaking his head.
“Let me guess, he’s ready to pour some more money into a major remodel.”
My jaw grinds. “Tentative plans involve razing the whole place to the ground first.”
Arian snorts. “Yeah, I’ll bet they do. And I’ll bet he wants Chernoff to watch it happen before he buries him in the new foundation or something.”
The Albanian across from me shakes his head slowly. “You and I aren’t rivals, Kratos. We never have been.” His eyes darken. “We’re fucking pawns. This whole thing was Drazen Krylov waging a proxy war on Chernoff, and we were just his fucking foot soldiers.”
Son of a bitch…
“Feels shitty, doesn’t it,” Arian mutters. “But fuck me, that Krylov. I mean that’s some evil genius level shit, Kratos.”
