Anatoly's Retribution Read online

  “I just want him to be everything that I see when I look into his eyes, Royal. My husband has been through so much in his life. He has been hurt so badly. All I want is for him to be better than he has imagined. I ride him.” She sniffled and laughed. “I know it. But I do it, because I know he can be better.”

  “Fuck better, Renee. Let him be great,” Royal said with a warm smile. “But don’t forget to let him be a Medlov in the process. It’s either us or them. There is no gray. There is only black and white. Choose, Renee. Stand with us. Stand with him…” She squeezed Renee’s hand. “Or he’ll die alone and hurt. We are the only people that plant seeds in their minds that truly grow. Their souls are our farms to harvest. If we plant doubt, it will produce doubt. If you plant success, it will produce success. If we plant confusion and hurt…you get my point. We are in a unique position.”

  “I would never use my position in Anatoly’s life to hurt him.” Renee said, batting away tears. “I would never leave him. I’d give my life first.”

  “That’s the great thing. He doesn’t want you to give your life. He wants you…to live your life with him. So, what is it going to be? Them or us?”

  “Us,” Renee said without pause. “Always us.”

  ***

  With a beat red face, Dmitry walked out of his son’s bedroom enraged. Someone had to pay for what they had done to Anatoly. They could have killed him, could have rendered him a vegetable for the rest of his life, could have taken him from his wife and his child forever with a few party drugs.

  Forcing himself not to slam the door behind him, Dmitry stalked down the hallway, wiping sweat from his brow while planning to exact revenge.

  When he got back downstairs, Marat was waiting. He glanced through him, biting his lip and flaring his nostrils.

  “What was the name of the club where this happened?” In Dmitry’s hysteria earlier, he couldn’t be sure that he heard Marat correctly.

  “The Tide,” Marat answered.

  Dmitry pointed a long finger at Marat, making the man want to take a step back. “I don’t care how you do it, just find out who drugged him. I want the person who put the pill in his drink brought to me before noon today.” He glared at Marat like he was going to eat his heart. “No excuses.”

  “Yes, Boss,” Marat said, dashing toward the front door. Waving for Boris to follow him, he headed out into the early morning on a countdown.

  Dmitry looked around in frustration. There were a thousand rooms in the house. How was he supposed to know where to go? “Somebody please tell me where the fuck is Anil?” he said aloud. His loud voice paralyzed everyone in its proximity.

  The maid, who was bringing coffee from the kitchen, turned and headed back in the direction she had come from to avoid the wrath behind the boss’s booming voice.

  One of the guards standing by the front door, quickly ran toward Dmitry, and pointed. “This way, Boss,” he eked out, turning to lead Dmitry in the opposite direction toward the entertainment room.

  Dmitry wanted to kill something, like he had not wanted in a very long time. He almost hated Marat for not bringing at least one head to sacrifice for his son’s suffering. But he knew that he had to be strategic. Emotion only got a man so far. Still, heat boiled at his collar, making his ears feel like they were on fire. “Find Gabriel. Tell him he has an hour to come up with a plan with Vasily and Nadei. ONE FUCKING HOUR.”

  The guard had never had the opportunity to even speak with Gabriel or Nadei before, being so low on the totem pole, now his big boss wanted him to deliver orders? “Yes, sir,” the guard replied, stopping at the double doors toward the end of the hall on the east wing. “This is the entertainment room, sir.” He avoided eye contact with the giant.

  Dmitry looked at the doors and tried to calm his breathing. “Leave me,” he ordered. “And don’t let anyone bother me while I’m in here.”

  Without another word, the guard quickly disappeared out of Dmitry’s presence, happy to get some distance between himself and the man who had been labeled the butcher in his youth.

  Putting his hands on the brass knob, Dmitry opened the white doors and stepped into the entertainment room. It was an airy space with vaulted ceilings, receding lights, a large television mounted among a wall of electronics. No wonder Anatoly had rented the place. He was a movie hound of epic portions when he wasn’t playing with his dogs. This room had to be like a wet dream for him.

  Closing the door behind him, Dmitry moved quietly on the carpet and found Anil resting on the brown leather sectional in front of the television. With a small pillow tucked under his head, his arms crossed over his large chest and his feet propped up on the arm rest, Anil slept heavily.

  After a whirlwind of a night at the club, which had ultimately concluded with a shooting and a felony flee, he had been drained of all energy. Then, upon arriving at a mansion larger than some of the buildings on his college campus, he was rendered speechless by his family’s apparent wealth.

  Finally, he had worried about his newly found brother until the point where he had to retreat to this room to gain his wits about himself and get some much-needed rest before the next explosive experience.

  Dmitry stood over his son, unnerved by their similarity in physical appearance. Anil was the same build as he was at his age – lean and muscular. They had the same large hands. The same square jaw. The same full lips. The same arched brows and stubborn chin. The only thing that was different was the boy’s beautiful bronze coloring – a gift from his mother.

  Stirring in his sleep, the slits of Anil’s eyes opened slowly, glare landing squarely on the giant hovering over him. It was a familiar face, although he had never seen him in person – a man in a black suit with blonde hair, ice blue eyes, tanned skin and a Rolex that looked just like Anatoly’s.

  Anil raised his head and squinted, running a hand over his mouth and dragging it to the back of his neck. “What time is it?” he asked, looking at his watch.

  “It’s morning,” Dmitry answered. His deep Russian baritone voice caught Anil off guard. His voice was even larger than his presence.

  “Shit.” Anil sat up. “Is Anatoly awake yet?” He had only meant to get about an hour of shut-eye, but according to his watch, he had been out for nearly two hours.

  Dmitry held back a smile, glad to know Anil was concerned about his big brother. “No, he’s still resting.” He motioned toward the sofa. “Do you mind if I have a seat?”

  Anil looked over at the space beside him and raised a brow. “Sure. Better than you watching me while I sleep like a stalker.” He smirked and scooted over.

  Hiking up his pants, Dmitry sat down on the sofa beside Anil and glanced over at the television.

  “Are you watching this?” An infomercial about penis enhancement was not really setting the mood for what he needed to say.

  “No, I’m good.” Anil’s mind processed over a hundred jokes, but he could tell his father was not interested in being entertained. And it wasn’t a joking matter, meeting his father for the first time, but he had used humor to lace his nervousness for so long until it was hard to cut the coping mechanism off.

  Dmitry grabbed the remote and turned off the television. “I had imagined us meeting under different circumstances.”

  “Well, I had imagined meeting you about twenty years ago.”

  “Point taken,” Dmitry said, seeing how he had that one coming. “Your mother didn’t tell me about you. It seems to be the trend with the women in my life. Evidently, I’m not the type of person that they see themselves raising a child with. My wife, Royal, is the only one crazy enough to stick around.”

  “Mom told me about you, but not much, not enough to find you with. At some point in my life, I just stopped looking.”

  Dmitry bit his lip. “Believe it or not, nine years ago, Anatoly told me a similar story.”

  Anil was surprised. “You didn’t raise him?” Anatoly talked about Dmitry like he had known him forever.

  “I met hi
m when he was eighteen years old. He didn’t even tell me that he was my son until a year after he started working for me. His mother was a girl I dated before I left Moscow. She felt it was best to keep him away as a child, and when he was an adult, she felt like it was best for him to stay with me.” Dmitry would have never told that to anyone outside of the family, but he couldn’t think of a better time than now to tell Anil. It might have given the young man some much-needed perspective.

  “So, girls don’t like rich, successful, powerful, and attractive men?” Anil asked sardonically. “In that case, I should have them throwing themselves at me in droves. Panties falling from the rafters…”

  “They don’t?” Dmitry asked, surprised.

  Anil had to admit. “Some do. But then, you know, the ones who only like to eat at Subway.”

  Dmitry laughed. He liked Anil’s since of humor. “I wasn’t always rich.”

  “Really?” Anil found that hard to believe also. Dmitry Medlov looked like he was wearing a million-dollar suit and with the expensive cologne and a billion-watt smile, it was impossible to imagine a man like him ever had wanted for anything.

  Dmitry quickly debunked the myth. “I was so poor, I couldn’t afford to pay attention. And that’s very hard for a man my size. I ran around in high water pants and midriff T-shirts in the winter.”

  Anil laughed, not only at the thought of Dmitry in that kind of get up, but also because he too had suffered wardrobe issues as a young man. His mother could never find anything to fit him and when she did, it was normally something no one else would ever wear. “What about shoes?”

  Dmitry pushed a breath out of his mouth, making his lips vibrate. “The worse. Do you know how hard it is to find a size 16 shoe in Kapotnya?”

  “Yeah, I do. I wear a sixteen.” Anil raised his foot so that Dmitry could see. “I have to work double shifts to afford kicks, man.”

  Dmitry looked at his son’s foot and nodded. “Those are definitely my feet.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Anil looked over at his father and saw his smile was gone. Something he said had hit a nerve.

  “I’m sorry you had to walk in my shoes,” Dmitry said, sincerely. “It was never my intention to hurt you, to cause you to hurt, to burden your mother.” He shook his head. “I never would have just…”

  “Anatoly told me.” Anil wasn’t a selfish man. Dmitry’s son was upstairs incapacitated. There was no way he was going to sit downstairs and berate him over things he couldn’t control.

  “I’m sorry,” Dmitry said, locking eyes on Anil. “I wronged you, whether I meant to or not. I should have been there.”

  “Yes, you should have.” Anil shrugged. “But my mother should be on the beach, swimming in the waves like she used to when I was a kid instead of laying up in a hospital dying. My brother should be running around here being an asshole instead of recovering from a drug overdose. Trump should be running another company into the ground and declaring bankruptcy instead of being the president of the United States.” He nodded at his father and smiled. “You get my point. Shit happens. I’m tough. I’ll be alright. One thing I always have done – plan for the worst and pray for the best.”

  It was a mantra Dmitry lived by. To hear his son say it only confirmed that this meeting was predestined.

  Dmitry reached over and tousled his son’s curly locks. “How’d you get so wise? You’re only a damn kid.”

  “Maybe it’s genetic,,” Anil joked, but he knew it wouldn’t have been a bad thing if he got more than the guy’s looks. Dmitry had built an empire even though he was born poor. He had the love of his son and family, the respect of all these men around here. The guy was solid, and Anil knew he could learn a lot from him.

  “You want some breakfast?” Dmitry asked, stomach growling.

  “Yeah, I could eat.”

  “Let’s get some breakfast in here, then.” He knew that by now a guard was standing outside the door. “Hey!” he screamed out.

  The door opened, and a guard stuck his head inside the room. “Yes, Boss,” the man said, looking between Dmitry and Anil, fascinated by their similarities.

  Dmitry stood up and pulled off his suit jacket. The shiny guns in their holsters caught Anil’s attention. “Get us some breakfast in here, eh. I’ll have black coffee and strawberry crepes with a side of mango.” He looked over at his son. “What do you want?”

  “Anything?” Anil asked. Outside of working at the restaurant as a waiter, he had never been around people who simply told someone else to go and get things for them on a constant basis. It was unsettling.

  “Da, da. Whatever you want?” Dmitry answered, throwing his suit jacket over the back of the sofa.

  Anil looked at the guard. “I’ll take a bowl of Froot Loops and some orange juice.”

  “Froot Loops?” the Russian guard asked, unsure of what the man meant. “You mean like cereal?”

  Anil shrugged. “Yeah. Cereal.” The guard nodded and closed the door behind him.

  Dmitry laughed as he rolled up his sleeves, revealing elaborate tattoos on his arms. He offered the boy whatever his heart desired and all he asked for was a bowl of sugary cereal.

  Priceless.

  Dmitry glanced at his watch and realized he had thirty minutes before he needed to meet with Gabriel and Nadei. “I’ll say the same thing to you that I said to Anatoly nine years ago, with the one caveat - we’ll have to cut it short and resume later after my meeting in thirty minutes.”

  “What’s that?” Anil asked more relaxed. Dmitry Medlov was much nicer than he had imagined, but he also remembered his brother’s warning - never take his kindness for weakness.

  “Tell me everything,” Dmitry said with a gleam in his eyes.

  Chapter Three

  Get It Done!

  The Tide Night Club

  7:00 a.m.

  South Miami Beach

  W ith a cup of hot coffee pressed to his lips, Marat watched from the driver’s seat of their SUV as uniform and plain-clothes police officers on the scene of the previous night’s shooting wrapped up their investigation.

  Multi-colored, plastic drink cups, neon party streamers and black tire skid marks lined the road from the stampede of frightened patrons, who came flooding out of the club only a few short hours before.

  The small stretch of space was a mess and a sore reminder to Marat of how close he had come to not only losing Anatoly but also getting arrested. He could never let that happen again.

  Turning the station from talk radio to music, Marat took a sip of his breakfast and rested back on the leather head rest.

  “Hey, I was listening to that,” Boris protested, frowning at Marat. Nothing was worse than a radio hog.

  Marat rolled his eyes. “You were not.”

  “Bullshit,” Boris said, reaching for the knob.

  “If you change that station, I will shoot you,” Marat warned. He cut his eyes at Boris with enough heat to singe his friend and took another sip of his coffee.

  Boris was unfazed by his friend’s empty threat or by his posturing. “Stop pouting, you baby. You’re not the first person to ever have a bad day.” He turned the channel anyway, back to the radio personality talking about the shooting. “Plus, it’s valuable Intel,” he added.

  Marat felt a ringing in his ears, not just from the sound of the woman’s shrill voice on the radio but from the bright sun rays shining in through their windows and the headache focused in his frontal lobe.

  Agony, pure agony.

  After a long night with Anatoly and an even longer morning with Dmitry, it took everything in Marat not to pass out from sheer exhaustion.

  Fighting with Boris over the radio was only going to push him over the edge, so he gave in. “Fine, listen to your stupid show.”

  They had been sitting there for thirty-seven minutes waiting for the club’s VIP manager to finally emerge from the building. Dmitry wanted answers about who drugged his son, so they had to start with him. It was the most logical of choices.


  “Although no one was badly hurt, we have to ask ourselves what kind of monster shoots a gun in the middle of a crowded club?” the radio personality went on to say. “In these grim days of mass shootings, we must take each occurrence seriously, and we need the Miami Police Department, if you are listening this morning, to act swiftly. Get this psycho off the streets.” There was a pause. “Alright, we’re going to take a break, pay some bills with a few commercials, and be right back, but don’t go anywhere. At fifteen before the hour, we’re going to take calls and hear what you have to say.”

  “Ugh.” Marat looked over at Boris with an impulsive snarl on his face. “Is this the Intel you need? Because some stupid bitch on the radio is scared of her own shadow and wants justice, we should turn in your boss, let him get arrested?” he mocked.

  Boris ignored Marat’s bad mood. “I’ll have you know, public opinion drives law enforcement. The more we know about what the community is demanding, the more we know about how the police will respond.”

  “Fuck the police,” Marat said, changing the channel again. “And fuck your Dr. Phil psychology.”

  “You’re just angry, but you shouldn’t be. You did a good job.” Boris had worked with Marat for years and knew that he was always thorough. “No one could have done things any better. And you can’t control the entire world. Sometimes, shit just happens.”

  “Tell that to Boss Dmitry. Just waltz right in when we get back and tell him to apologize to me, and while you’re at it, tell him to give me a raise, and if he gets upset about any of it, you tell the Butcher of Kapotnya that shit just happens,” Marat said facetiously.

  “Well, I won’t do it if you’re going to be so rude,” Boris quipped, turning to look out of his passenger window as a young woman in hot pink workout pants and a sports bra ran past him. On the prowl, he sat up in his seat. “You think she’s single?”

  Marat turned just in time and caught a glimpse of the woman. Unimpressed, he croaked a low growl and rested back in his seat. “She’s got a flat ass. Who cares.”