Yannick
The alcohol had long since left my system, and as all five of us sat in the living room of Sandir and Andrey’s house, eating pizza at four o’clock in the morning, my head was clearer than it had ever been. With business to discuss, we’d all come back to the house the brothers shared. Relaxing and shooting the shit at Caulder’s, we knew there were some tough conversations to be had because I’d planted the seed of uncertainty in their minds. I couldn’t leave them hanging, or second guessing what was going on in my head and what my plans were.
“I had a moment of weakness,” I said around a mouthful of the dry pizza dough. Throwing it back onto the plate in disgust, I wiped my hands with a piece of kitchen roll Greg handed over. “Don’t buy that nasty crap again.”
“Your moment of weakness done now?”
I sat back in the recliner. “Yeah. Head’s all over the place though.”
“Price of freedom,” Sandir mumbled.
“Yup, freedom will do that to you. World’s your oyster, if that’s what you want.” Andrey agreed.
They all knew the score. I’d been honest from the start about the hold Irina and her family had on me, they were well aware of the sordid details and the family history. Sandir and Andrey had been friends with me since I’d been a boy, Tayte since I was a teenager and Greg, well, I eventually told him what the score was. Poor guy couldn’t believe his ears.
“How are you not cock deep in pussy, man?”
“There’s time yet. You’ve got your eye on Bunny, I reckon,” Greg muttered, then threw me a cheeky smile. The pink-haired woman had left a lasting impression on me and I didn’t mind Greg calling me out.
“Oh, he has,” Tayte laughed, pointing a pizza crust at me.
Calling out and admitting were two different things, I wasn’t holding my hand up to this lot, not on a matter like Jolie, so I shirked the topic for the time being. “Irina’s going to have a trick or two up her sleeve. I can’t make moves until I know what she’s up to. Frankly, there’s nothing appealing about going out and looking for something that means nothing. I don’t need to be cock deep as you so elegantly put it, Sandy.”
“So, no Wharf Street?” Tayte smirked, glancing in Andrey’s direction and flipping him the bird.
“No Wharf Street. Jesus, no.”
“Go see Lev.”
“Lev’s finished,” I said confidently. The old man pulled strings, but they’d loosened over the years and he was too old to force his hand anymore, which made my future easier to navigate.
“Maybe, but he still gets the say so ultimately. He’s your man if you want Irina off your back.” Sandir raised his eyebrows at me.
“She’ll go to him if she thinks he’ll tell her what she wants to hear. The likelihood of him turning around and telling her to back off is not unlikely, so it’s pretty safe to say, she’s not running to Lev. Definitely plotting though.”
I turned my attention to Tayte. “When isn’t she? That woman loves to play games, the bloodier the better. She has an axe to grind with Lev, remember? She never wanted the Ischmov name across this organisation, she wanted hers. Lev refused and we all know why. Irina doesn’t forget, Lev might have a problem if he tells her no again and she takes things into her own hands.”
“Well, she made a right fucking mess of that chick, Kayleigh, even I felt sorry for the bitch.” Sandir’s comment surprised me. He went all in as much as Irina did when he smelled blood and let loose. “She gets more inventive with that blade of hers every time she uses it.”
Greg shuddered. “We all know how Irina operates.”
“I think we need to tread carefully where she’s concerned. Do you want her out of the picture?”
“There’s no advantage there,” I reminded him. She’d built up our business just as much as we had, there was no sense in cutting her out, Irina didn’t deserve that kind of betrayal, not from me, the organisation was as much Irina’s as mine, if not more so. “Things are changing, regardless. I’m not bound to her anymore, and guys, you’re not bound to me either.”
“Yeah, well.” Sandir got up and clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re stuck with us, we’ve been together a long time, no need for our group to go sideways. We’re all marked because of who we are, nothing anyone can do about that, I reckon, though who’d dare fuck with us?” He shrugged as if unconcerned. “I don’t know. If fresh blood came in looking to make money and encroach on business, not understanding the boundaries or the rules of the streets? Might be a problem if Irina cottoned on before any of us did, she could use something like that to her advantage against you, Yan. So, make better choices if you’re serious about walking off, cos I very much doubt Irina is gonna be happy letting you go.” Sandir looked over at his brother, some unspoken thing passing between them. “Besides, maybe it’s time, you know? I don’t wanna be a big fish in a little pond forever, I’m getting fucking old, man. While I like my unremarkable life, I always
