By the time that his size 19 foot hit the bottom step, he was a different man. The sweat that had formed on his brow before leaving his room has gone. The dryness at the base of his throat was now gone. The man that he once was, was now…gone. He ran a hand through his hair and coolly proceeded with old swagger past Stepan and his men through the foyer and headed to the meeting.
When the door opened, it appeared that he breezed in past the bodyguards to his rightful chair. He pulled it back carefully, unbuttoned his jacket and sat down.
“
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he said, sitting back in the chair. Weaving his long fingers together, he gazed over everyone and raised his brow. “I’m back,” he said with a devious grin.
Khalid felt a cold chill run over his spine when Dmitry looked over at him. The dimple in his cheek showed as he smiled at him, but there was something void of real emotion behind his eyes.
“
Anatoly has respectfully stepped down. And as Czar, my first act is to find my daughter. Selfish, I know, but a necessary thing. So, let’s move past the formalities and skip to the real shit.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a silver Cross pen. He placed his hands on the pad in front of him. “Roman, RBZ Bank is where I sent my fucking money…are you on it?” He looked over at Roman and tilted his head.
“
Da, da, brat.” Roman had been quiet after his call to thebank. Now sitting down, he looked over at Khalid and hesitantly answered. His brown eyes barely blinked. “The account that you wired the money to belongs to Khalid Sidorov.”
The entire room went deathly still. All eyes burned through Khalid.
The old man looked over at Roman with a frown of confusion and then back to Dmitry. “Impossible,” he said confidently. “I have no such account.”
“
Are you sure that you don’t know anything about this, my dear friend?” Dmitry asked.
“
How can you even ask?” Khalid replied with disbelief in his withered features.
“
How can I not,” Dmitry said, putting down his pen. “Something that I didn’t included in the briefing is that your son is still alive. You want to tell me that isn’t true as well.”
Khalid’s mouth twisted as a strong pain hit him. “No. It’s true.”
The rest of the men knew this story well. It was a whispered tale among the new recruits about the bond between Dmitry and Khalid, but now it seemed to be all falling apart. Khalid was not the man that Dmitry thought him to be.
“
Why did you lie to me? After I trusted you, you lied to me about Vladimir,” Dmitry said without emotion. He sucked his perfectly white teeth and then picked up a glass of water beside him. As he was about to drink it, he stopped and put it down. “Bring me a bottle water,” he said to the bodyguard by the bar.
“
The explanation is simple. I could not bring myself to kill my son. I went to London with the intention to do so, but I could not. Could you imagine killing one of the boys that you so desperately protect upstairs?” Khalid asked sincerely.
“
I would have never agreed to kill one of my children unless I planned to do just that,” Dmitry answered quickly. “So how long have you been in on this? Did you find a way to extort the money out of me that I took from my father? Is that what this is all about?”
“
Just the opposite,” Khalid said, voice quivering. “I’m an old man. Too old to lie or deceive you now. In fact, I received notice from my doctor that I have less than six months to live. Because of that, I have transferred all of my estate over to you. If you don’t believe me, then check the dates that the will was executed. I’ve made my money and my mark. It’s time for me to move on. I told my son just that. I explained to him that I would be leaving him nothing when I left and that he was finally on his own. I’ve taken care of him long enough. Maybe that is what this is all about.”
Dmitry puckered his mouth in thought and then rested his head back on his chair. “So you didn’t know that your son is working with my father’s daughter to steal from me?”
“
What daughter?” Khalid asked. “The woman in the photo?” He picked the picture back up and looked at it again.
“
Yes, the woman in the
fucking
photo,” Dmitry snapped. “You didn’t know?”
Khalid was calm. “No. I did not know. If I had known, I would have told you.”
“
You would tell me that but you wouldn’t tell me that Vladimir was still alive,” Dmitry said, not knowing what to believe.
“
Vladimir was no threat to you…so I thought. I paid for his entire lifestyle outside of what little money he made for himself with his senseless schemes. He wouldn’t be a threat now, if I weren’t dying. And no, I had no idea that Evgeny had a daughter. I knew that this girl worked for him at the Red Square but he never said a thing about her being related to him.”
“
He hid it well,” Dmitry said, exhaling a frustrated sigh.
“
When she would come to the suite, I thought that they were making love when they would go into the bedroom and close the door. I had no idea that they were talking…plotting. Probably against me,” Khalid said, putting the pieces together after so many years.
Dmitry looked over at the old man and without hesitation said, “I believe you. But what are you going to do to rectify the situation?”
“
What would you have me do?” Khalid asked. “Ask me anything.”
“
Can you get him on his cell phone? We can track the number and pinpoint his location. He has my money, but more importantly, he had Anya.”
“
I can give you that an all of his safe houses,” Khalid said, wiping sweat from his brow. He rested an elbow on the table, completely out of character for him and gave a deflated and defeated groan.
The men looked on at the man and felt both shame and pity for him.
“
Hopefully, you’ll never have to make the decisions that I have to,” Khalid said, not making excuses for his decision.
“
Killing your father is a pretty hard fucking decision, Khalid,” Dmitry reminded him of his sins. “Yet, I followed through with it. I did what I said I would, just like I always do.” His admonishment stung Khalid to the core. Turning his attention to the other men, he tapped his finger on the table. “There are two other things that we need to discuss. These things couldn’t be discussed over the phone. One. There is something that is going to happen tomorrow morning that I have already authorized. This thing might effect some of you and your connections. I take full responsibility for those things, but I can’t discuss it with you any further until tomorrow.”
“
Is it a hit?” Roman asked blatantly.
“
Yes,” Dmitry answered.
“
On one of us?” Pavel asked.
“
No,” Dmitry looked at Khalid. “But it was necessary in order to get Anya back and to get the information that I currently have on our new friends. Also I want to bring another member to the council. This will be the last member for a while.”
Khalid smiled. “Gabriel.”
Dmitry always appreciated Khalid’s quick thinking, even now. He pursed his lips and showed the lines in his face as he rested back in his seat. “Yes…Gabriel.”
“
He was a fucking DEA agent,” Alexander said, frowning. “The code…”
“
Has never seen anything like this. His father was a Vor despite whatever else he was and he was my brother and founding member of this council. Gabriel has turned away from the DEA and saved this council on more than one occasion.”
The men were so new until their apprehensions, while respected, could not override Dmitry’s decision.
“
I need to know that he’ll have your full acceptance.” Dmitry waited.
“
He has to be Vory first,” Igor said, finally putting two and two together. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you suggesting that we give him stars?”
“
That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” Dmitry said. “This approval must come from the highest rank of the Vor, one of whom sits at this very table.” He looked over at Khalid.
“
He knows the code better than most. And Gabriel has turned away from his government and taken his rightful place with is family. He could be an asset, giving us information on other undercover agents, helping us fortify our current shipments against detection and working those within the DEA who might be men of fortune,” Khalid said, furrowing his graying brows. Nodding at Dmitry, he gave his approval. “It is my last request as a member of this council before I regretfully step down to ask that you accept Dmitry’s candidate, Gabriel Medlov, for appointment to this council and acceptance into this sacred brotherhood.”
Khalid’s resignation was a historical event. For Dmitry, it marked an end to an era, and for the other men of the council it marked the true start of their reign. Out of respect for their elder and a true leader of the Vory v Zakone, they collectively agreed.
Dmitry was finally pleased. “Very well. We will meet tonight when they arrive back. Until then, make yourselves comfortable at my home. I will have dinner taken care of by Stepan in the absence of my staff and you all are free to use my house as your own.” Standing up, he looked over at Khalid. “We need to speak in private.”
“
My thoughts exactly,” Khalid said, slowly rising.
Dmitry helped the ailing man to the door that led to his study and closed it behind them.
It had been months since Dmitry had seen Khalid, but he could clearly recognize the deterioration of the man. Even as he bent to hold his father figure up, he felt his frail bones in his grip. It would be senseless to punish him at this point for his deceit. And in truth, his heart broke to know that the old man approached his demise alone with not even his son to stand by him.
“
I’ve taken everything from you,” Dmitry said when they were alone. “There is nothing more to take, is there?” He sat Khalid behind the same desk that he had sat behind the night that they had killed his father. Stepping back, he stuffed his hands down in his pockets like a child and stared at the floor.
“
You’ve taken nothing from me that I have not freely given, Dmitry,” Khalid conceded. Shaking in pain, he took Dmitry’s pen and wrote down Vladimir’s number. “You know, I always wished that he was you. I hated him for not being you. He was weak – a sniveling little rich boy with his preppy Oxford friends and his flighty ideas about ruling the world. The truth of the matter is that he couldn’t wipe his own ass if I didn’t hire someone to reach back and do it for him. There were so many times after I spared his life that I wished that I had killed him, but I just didn’t have it in me. Do you know why?”
Dmitry nodded no.
“
Because it’s an easy thing to have people that you don’t know, or people that you know but don’t love killed. It’s a gruesome thing to murder your own blood when it comes from your own loins and raised it from a seed to a man. It’s an impossible fucking thing, Dmitry.” Khalid wiped a tear from his reddening eyes. “And I’m sorry. Sorry that I let you down. You were my son, too, and I let you down, but I didn’t do it knowingly and I would have never knowingly put Anya in danger.”
“
I know that,” Dmitry said humbly. “But you still did.” His voice faded. “And if anything happens to her, it’s still your fault.” Frustrated, he wiped a hand over his blonde locks and turned and walked to the window. Looking out of it, he shook his head. “As angry as I am, I have to admit that you’ve always had a special place in my heart, Khalid. I hated Vladimir too, for having such a good father and fucking you over. If I had had you instead of Evgeny, then I might have had more of a fighting chance.”
Khalid appreciated that more than Dmitry knew. Smiling at Dmitry’s turned back, he wrote down the contact for his lawyer with his will beside Vladimir’s cell number.
“
My lawyer is the only other person who knows that Vladimir is still alive. He also knows the location of all the safe houses. But if you track this number, you should find him. He’s never without his phone. And like I said before, all that I own, which is more than the ransom that they are asking, even if you happen to lose it to get her back, is now yours.”
Dmitry closed his eyes as he heard the gun cock behind him. Planting his hands on the window he leaned in and took a deep breath. “It’s been a pleasure,” he said as tears fell down his cheek.
“
The same for me, my dear boy. I’m very proud of you,” Khalid said, pulling the trigger.
The gunshot made everyone jump, except Dmitry. Bodyguards quickly knocked in the door and came running in, guns pointed to find Khalid slumped over in the chair with the gun on the floor beside him. The council members ran in afterwards, mouths opened and in shock.
Dmitry finally turned around from the window and looked over at his desk. Brain matter had splattered all over the desk, the side of the wall and the computer. But he had pushed the note for Dmitry up to the end to make sure that he didn’t ruin it. He walked over to the desk and picked up the paper. Slipping it into his pants, he looked over at the bodyguards and straightened his tie. “Call the coroner,” he said barely above a whisper. “And tell the tech guy to meet in the work room to trace Vladimir.” With that, he turned -all eyes on him, trying to piece together what had just happened - and walked out of the room quietly.
Chapter 25
Vladimir looked at the wire one last time that had been sent out with Manon’s face on it, before he threw it into the fireplace and burned it. It was clear to him now that he had to distance himself from both her and Balthazar, because they were now sitting ducks. The big question was how did they get found out? Everything had been set up perfectly. The plan had been fucking fool proof.