King of New York, page 16
“They’re scared of you,” Sale said in a corridor ambush the day the funeral was made public. “They’re scared you’re going to try something crazy with your Russian friends.”
“I have no Russian friends,” Jimmy replied stoically.
“I told them that. They’ve been watching too much Game of Thrones. But there you are. What can you do? Still, I think it would be better if you didn’t show your face.”
“I think you’re right, Sale,” Jimmy said.
It was a win-win situation for Sale. If Jimmy showed up, then Alessandro would spend the entire time trying to persuade people Jimmy was making a deal with someone other than them.
If Jimmy didn’t show up, Sale would present himself as the de facto head of the Martello family. The eldest male. He didn’t consider Nicky to be a real underboss. He was as wet behind the ears and wasn’t formally made. It wouldn’t take much to convince them it was insulting that Jimmy hadn’t cut his business trip short, the way they had for Italo’s funeral, even if everyone knew that none of them wanted him there.
As far as Sale was concerned, it was a plan that couldn’t fail.
And, given there was a funeral, there was bound to be a repast, where connects could be made and cemented.
Sale imagined himself in the company of powerful men—where, as far as he was concerned, he belonged, by birthright. They would recognize him as one of their own. He’d talk with them, share a few jokes, offer insights, and all would have a good time.
The funeral plan had been Alessandro’s, but Sale had forgotten that already.
He was too busy thinking about how clever he’d been and how much fun the funeral would be to even consider that young Alessandro was manipulating him.
Alessandro had seeds to plant and ideas he wanted the dons to consider. Sale was barely more than just a mouthpiece to parrot them, convinced all along they were his ideas, his genius.
Sale’s greatest weakness was that he thought he was clever, and that made him easy to manipulate.
He had no idea who was really setting him up.
* * *
Siberia, London, Paris, and Tunisia.
Jimmy had allowed himself only a couple of days in each place. He had picked Novosibirsk as his Siberian city, quite simply because it was the largest one there, not because there were any specific leads or connects. In Tunisia, it was the capital, Tunis. In both cases, he had no idea where Volkov maintained his base of operations, if indeed it was even within the city limits and not somewhere far outside the scrutiny and jurisdiction of local law.
He’d had Enzo find family members for him to visit.
London and Paris were easy enough. The Martellos were victims of their own diaspora, like so many Italian families, so it didn’t take long to find cugini, even if some were so distantly related to him and the gene pool was so diluted that they’d almost miss the link under sequencing.
Enzo had found him one contact in Siberia who was willing to meet in Novosibirsk, and someone in Tunisia from a family they’d done good business with through the years.
In his head, Jimmy was just going to step off the plane, roll into one of these places, bang on a few doors, and voilà, see Chiara standing there. Or maybe she’d be crossing a road with a goon too close for her to risk running, and he’d step in. Everything would be perfect in that fairy tale.
Life wasn’t that, though. Especially not his.
The slaughter in his father’s study proved beyond any doubt that he didn’t live in any sort of a fairy tale.
Outside of the fairy tale, what he needed to do was firm up his contacts and find out about Russian activity on the ground. His main hope was to gather enough intelligence to give his team a chance at finding her, but that was a huge ask. The problem with being outside the fairy tale was that that was all they had.
Jimmy wasn’t ready for Siberia.
He thought New York winters were cold, but the air in Novosibirsk made his lungs shrivel and his bones freeze; it was that cold. Enzo had organized a translator, but that made everything slow. Poking around asking was dangerous. This was their home turf, and every single Russian could have been working for Volkov, assuming Volkov was in the pocket of one of the oligarchs, and in turn in the deep pockets of the FSB and Putin’s goons. It was a different world. And he didn’t like it. Surrounded by signs he couldn’t read and people speaking a language he didn’t understand, Jimmy felt alone and lost.
His main hope in all of the time he spent there was that Chiara was somewhere else, because if she was in this icebox of a country he’d never be able to find her.
Tunisia was a relief after that, even if it was only due to the fact that it was so much warmer and his contacts spoke English, even some Italian, as well as several other languages. It removed the need for an interpreter and made conversation relatively easy, even if he needed to fumble through a few languages a couple of times to find a way to make himself understood. Yes, there was a Russian presence in the city. Yes, they believed there was a base near Tunis and quite possibly a smaller one farther over in Sudan. No, the man they called the Great Bear hadn’t been seen for a long time. But, seen or not, there was a massive house on the outskirts of the city, more akin to a compound than a mansion, and the place had been locked up tightly for the last few months.
Locked up, but not abandoned.
There was a security guard on duty at any given time, day and night. It was never more vulnerable than that.
The Tunisian cugini had a gift in that with their smiles and charm, it felt like they could get just about anyone talking. Of course, the cigars and high-priced liquor they brought with them didn’t hurt. They did their thing, and in less than half an hour, they had convincing assurances that no one had been at the place for every bit as long as Chiara had been missing. Now, that could be taken one of two ways: either cross it off the list, because there wasn’t enough security for the protection of a prized asset, or underline it because the fact no one was coming or going—even if there was an armed guard on the door 24-7—meant there was something inside worth protecting.
He resisted the temptation to make a move too soon and headed for Paris, acutely aware that he could have been leaving her behind.
He knew Paris from previous visits, and although his family there was distant, he’d met several of them before when they’d visited America.
There were four of them, and he was never quite sure which one was which—they were all de-aged versions of him with their white, tight-fitting T-shirts and designer shades. They went out of their way to make sure he was aware they had turned over every stone looking for Russians in their fair city and had several locations where the Russians liked to drink. One, they hoped, would prove fruitful.
It took them a few tries to find someone willing to talk, but enough Stoli eventually loosened a few lips. Yes, Volkov owned a number of properties in Paris. Yes, sometimes he brought in girls. Yes, sometimes they were stolen from his enemies, rivals, or fools who owed him money.
No one recognized Chiara from the photos.
They didn’t let that deter them. They took her photo to some of the brothels, asking about fresh meat.
No one had girls who hadn’t been there for months already, and none that matched her description.
Jimmy wasn’t sure he could rule out Paris, either, as it ticked so many of the boxes, but every one they opened was empty, so he moved over to London, sticking to his original plan.
He’d suspected it was London from day one. That was the most frequent location for where the girls were trafficked, based on his research. Nothing thus far had changed that feeling.
In his first few hours in the city, he saw five women who, at a distance, he was sure must be her, but they turned out to be complete strangers. He humbled himself when he realized that Chiara was also a complete stranger to him…for now.
His connect, Marvino, took him on a tour of Russian brothels, first online, scrolling through page after page of “Meet the Girls” portraits before they went knocking on doors in person.
He saw a lot of very young girls—some very pretty; others striking or different, veering into the fetish territory—who tried desperately not to appear frightened or sad.
He couldn’t save all of them, so he did his best not to think about how they got there, or what their lives were like, as toys for the lost and the lonely.
As much as he wanted to sympathize, he needed to focus on finding Chiara.
By the time he flew back to New York, he had one decent lead.
Rumor had it that Volkov’s people had brought a new girl in recently, but they weren’t putting her up for sale just yet. She was, so the whispers went, special.
“They do tests,” Marvino explained. “Medical first, because a clean girl is worth more. A virgin is worth even more. They’ll auction off her virginity if they can, and that takes a while to set up the auction itself. It isn’t like they can just walk up to Sotheby’s and say the next lot is a ripe twenty-four-year-old piece of ass. It doesn’t even matter if she’s not; there are a lot of sickos and pervs out there who will pay big money to live out their darkest fantasy. I’ve heard whispers that the best money they ever took was on a dark-web auction with some BDSM psycho wanting to make his own snuff film. No idea if it’s true, but such stories are the foundation of a man like Lev Volkov’s reputation.”
* * *
The funeral was a tense gathering, and the repast was even worse.
You only had to look around the room to know that everyone assembled had at least one concealed weapon.
No one wanted a war.
No one wanted to start something.
But if something started, they were all ready.
No prisoners.
No backing down.
Take it to the afterlife.
Alessandro could feel the threat in the air, like the constant screaming of distant sirens.
His body buzzed with adrenaline.
If he played it right, today could work out very well for him.
It was a gamble, but somewhere along the line, he’d become a gambling man.
Still, if he was wrong about Jimmy Martello, this could all go to hell in a heartbeat.
For all that Alessandro had been saying about how Jimmy was a dangerous man, he didn’t think it was true. It was just too…unlikely. Alessandro was good when it came to thinking about plots and moves, the idea of puzzles and following the through line, ignoring the noise to find the truth. And nothing he’d seen in any of it came close to a reality where an interfamily shootout was in the cards. It wasn’t a Michael Mann movie. From where he was, it seemed fairly obvious that Jimmy was angling to improve his standing. He might have ideas above his station and truly think being King of New York was his destiny, but it felt far more likely there was another set of objectives at play. He was using information, turning people into pieces, but he didn’t seem to be amassing genuine support or actual power. If it came down to it, Alessandro thought he could win more of the families over because he had more to offer. That was how they operated.
He had a lot of conversations that day.
Quiet conversations, where he very gently seeded ideas, and let people think they’d come up with them on their own.
Why were they taking so much time and effort bribing politicians, which was a crapshoot, when they could get their own people into those positions, and loyalty would never be a question?
Alessandro wanted to be that man, and made no bones about it. He talked about his own ambitions and his care for the family. He had one goal, prosperity, though not his own. Everyone’s. He was committed to the family. He wanted to share some of his ideas, things he’d try to implement if he got the votes, but he didn’t get the chance.
An explosion of noise shattered the air.
People screamed.
A hundred hands reached for guns.
They were all on edge, spooked and looking for the silhouette of Jimmy Martello to rise up, starting something, here, now, of all times, all places.
An entire room full of people looked at one another, looked for the threat, the source of the noise, trying to figure out where it had started and what was really going on.
For a few seconds, no one moved.
“It’s fine! It’s fine! Stay calm!” Alessandro shouted into the quiet of the room, looking to take charge, to placate people even before they knew what had happened.
He’d seen it.
It wasn’t Martello.
It was a clumsy server girl.
People made space around him, and as they moved back, they revealed the poor girl who’d dropped a massive glass bowl.
Food and glass had scattered across the floor, hence the explosion of noise that had sounded eerily like a bomb going off deep in the heart of the building, taking out the windows.
“It’s all good. No real harm done, unless you’re a glass bowl, that is,” Alessandro called out again, and in that moment, felt the wave of relief as the tension ebbed.
A few people laughed, even if it wasn’t funny.
He gave the girl a gentle smile. “Best get it cleaned up,” he said. “Someone could get hurt.”
She returned his smile shyly.
She’d done well. He’d gambled on the broken bowl not leading to actual shots fired, and the bet had paid off. Each and every one of them in that room had seen just how jumpy the other great men of the families were right now. But more than that, what they’d also seen was how cool and alert he’d been, handling the situation calmly, a gentle wit as he got control of the situation before an itchy trigger finger caused a fatal problem.
The day had been everything he could have hoped for.
* * *
Jimmy felt the cold steel of the tip of the gun’s muzzle kissing his forehead.
He’d been waiting for this.
One of Volkov’s men, maybe, or someone Yakovlev had sent.
“You know what?” The words were sinister and familiar. He didn’t recognize the voice. “I think you need a better view.” The pressure lifted from Jimmy’s forehead and moved into the space between his eyes.
He’d lived this moment a hundred times before, but it was different every time, just as much as it was the same.
How many enemies had he made by now? They outweighed friends at this point.
For every favor he had owed to him, he’d probably drawn as much if not more ill will.
Any number of people could have put targets on him.
Jimmy felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion coupled with resignation.
He’d put so much of his life into this plan that he couldn’t back out now.
He had to keep going, had to make it work.
It was the most important thing in his life.
“There, that’s better,” the phantom voice continued. “Now, you have a front row seat to the big show.”
He wondered if it would be a relief to die.
“You don’t have a gun,” the voice said. “You’re going to die by the gun, just like your daddy. You couldn’t save him. You can’t save yourself. You can’t even avenge him properly. You are weak. You are nothing. You are such a disappointment. I pity you, Jimmy boy.”
“Why would you care?” Jimmy said. He had nothing to lose. A guy who hadn’t made the kill by now wasn’t intending to pull the trigger. Too much talking.
Bang!
It would be so easy to die.
And yet somehow, he was awake, and shaking.
The tremors were violent.
Convulsions.
Jimmy reached for the light, but it was daylight already.
He remembered his nonna calling him a vampire, and wondered if that was how he’d stayed alive this long.
Maybe Sale hadn’t thought to get him staked through the heart.
* * *
The first photo was out of focus, but he could see that one of the figures, caught midmovement, had a hood pulled over their head.
However, as the series of shots progressed, the hood came off, and a face was exposed. Still blurry, and blown up too large for the resolution to hold from the security camera footage. Chin at a defiant angle, or maybe that was his mind adding the details it wanted to see.
Jimmy’s heart fluttered.
It was her.
It had to be.
It could only be.
Chiara…
How many times in London had he thought he’d caught a glimpse of her, only to get close and realize that the woman in question didn’t look anything like her.
It could be Chiara, though.
There was a similarity to the features that his mind kept filling in. But the last of the photos made him wonder. The massive brute of a man with her forced the hood back down over her head, like he really didn’t want her seen. Not by anyone or anything.
“Don’t ask me what I had to do to find these,” said Daniel.
“Is that a subtle way of saying I should be paying you more?” Jimmy asked, still flicking through the images, staring at her face.
“Now, that’s a question you should consider, but I can help with the answer, which is obviously yes. I’m worth every cent.” Daniel laughed.
Jimmy was paying him a lot, but he’d more than earned it, not just with this stuff. The real worth in what his team was doing came through helping the family open up new markets and ways of working online.
