“Forgive me,” Alberto started to say, shrugging, “but we haven’t exactly been amicable in the past.”
Vasily tipped his head to the side like he was brushing the statement off. “I accepted your offer because I believe the best thing to do is stop the fighting.”
Alberto had to agree.
When street wars got to the point that innocents were involved, it had already gone too far.
“You just said—”
“I came here without my brother’s knowledge or permission,” Vasily interrupted before Alberto could finish. “I know his intentions, and that he wishes to open the Markovic Bratva territory beyond the streets of Little Odessa. To do that, the feud between our families will have to continue. My interests are not aligned with my brother’s, but at the moment, it seems ours are, Alberto.”
“So it seems,” Alberto echoed.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Violet point to an oak tree filled with colorful leaves that were just beginning to fall from the thick branches. The boy at her side shook his head, and Violet frowned with her pout firmly in place.
“I assume,” Alberto said, still watching the two children, “... that if your interests are not tied in with your brother’s, then that will be a problem you’ll have to deal with. Won’t it?”
Vasily sighed, tossing his hands into his pants pockets. “Perhaps, but I don’t want to keep fighting for possession of something that doesn’t belong to us. And if I did, at what cost will it come to me? You nearly took my son from me the last time.”
Alberto flinched. “That was a mistake that never should have happened. The bomb was intended for your brother.”
“A mistake that would have resulted in a war far greater than you could imagine.” Vasily’s tone never changed from one of casual indifference, but Alberto could still hear the warning behind his words. “And you call us Russians savages.”
Alberto was on guard, waiting for the moment when the Russian would strike. The Markovic brothers were volatile by nature. It didn’t take much to set one off.
Even so, he kept his composure as he said, “It was a mix up of cars, and certainly not intentional on my part.”
Vasily met his gaze. “Nonetheless, you came too close.”
He had.
Even Alberto knew it.
“How do you intend to fix the little issue of your brother’s interests, if they don’t fit with what you want, then?” Alberto asked. “That’s a bit of a mountain to climb over, considering he’s the boss of your operation.”
“Pakhan,” Vasily corrected. “We call him Pakhan.”
“Same thing, isn’t it?”
“About the same as someone from the outside addressing you as Don, Alberto,” Vasily said.
He wondered, if briefly, whether the Russian was intending to be offensive, or if it was just his nature. “Understood.”
“And my brother … He seems to be a problem for us both, no?”
Alberto took Vasily’s seemingly innocent statement in, absorbing what the man might be alluding to. Often times, discussions where business was forefront were held with a sort of vague secrecy surrounding them. A man should never come right out and say what he wanted or needed done, but rather, hint at it and let the other side draw its own conclusions.
“He’s certainly a problem for me, if he intends to make his way any farther into Brooklyn than where he already is,” Alberto said. “As it is, he’s severely cut off some ties my Capos have to warehouses that we use for storing things needing to stay hidden for a while. I don’t like losing out on money because someone wants to play keep away with my streets.”
Vasily chuckled. “You don’t have other storage facilities to use?”
“None close enough to keep attention away from the fact that things are traveling,” Alberto answered, not giving away much else.
His hand in the cocaine trade had long been a source of debate between his syndicates and other Cosa Nostra families that he sometimes did business with. Cosa Nostra liked to tote themselves as upholding standards, but also keeping away from being the moral police.
Yet, when a Don decided to handle substances as a way to make money, someone always took issue.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Alberto asked.
Vasily lifted a single brow high. “About what I intend to do with my brother, you mean.”
“Sì. About him ...”
The Russian smiled again, in that cold way like he had earlier. “I was hoping we could work something out that would be to both of our benefits where Gavrill is concerned.”
Alberto stood a little straighter.
Were they actually getting somewhere now?
“Keep going,” Alberto pressed.
Vasily passed his son and Violet a glance before quickly turning back to Alberto, his face a mask of passive indifference. “As I see it, we really only have one option, Italian. You don’t want to keep fighting, and neither do I. Given that this is a triangle with my brother being the peak, we have to consider him, too.”
“He does want to keep fighting.”