Joey: Chapter 37

“This is a nice place,” I say, looking around Dmitri Varkov’s new coffee shop on our way through to the back office where we agreed to meet him.

Dante gives an impressed nod. “Yeah, I think maybe we need to get in on the coffee shop business. You know the markup in these places is huge.”

“Are you fucking for real? Haven’t we got enough on our plates without adding coffee shops to the mix?”

“I was thinking of something Joey could take the lead on. I figured you’d prefer that over her being involved in the casinos.”

He’s got a point. The casino deals can get bloody, and I don’t want my girl in the middle of all that. But I don’t think I have much choice. “If you give your sister a chain of coffee shops to run, she’ll just branch out and buy her own fucking casino, D.”

He rolls his eyes. “She fucking would too.”

“What about Kat? She’s always looking for things to keep her occupied, and she’s smart enough to run a business.”

“My wife is going to have her hands a whole lot fuller very shortly,” he says, a wicked glint in his eye.

“You’ve knocked that poor woman up again, haven’t you?”

“Poor woman?” He snorts. “She has everything she could ever want or need, and she loves being pregnant.”

“Gentlemen?” Kyzen says, interrupting our exchange as he steps out of the back of the shop to greet us. “Dmitri is waiting for you.”

“After you, Daddy,” I say with a smirk.

Dante barks a laugh and shakes his head. “Don’t call me that, you fucking psycho.”

“I bet you like Kat calling you that,” I mumble as we head into the office.

I’m saved from a punch in the mouth by Kyzen offering each of us a seat. Dante sits, but I remain standing because it’s my duty to have his back. While these men are our friends, we never know if and when something’s gonna go down.

“I like your new place,” Dante says.

“Yeah.” Dmitri gives a small smile and shrugs. “They were my wife’s idea. The markup is astronomical.”

“Told you,” Dante says to me out of the corner of his mouth, and I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes.

There’s no way my little spitfire is going be happy managing a chain of coffee shops, so I don’t bother responding. Instead, I ask Dmitri, “Did you find out anything about Vito?”

“Yes. That’s why I called you here. I didn’t think anything of it at first.” He taps the screen of his phone a few times and passes it to Dante.

I look over his shoulder at the image of a bruised and swollen face. The guy looks half dead, but there’s no mistaking that it’s Uncle Vito.

“Where is he?” I ask.

Dmitri takes his phone back. “That’s him? Your uncle?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“I wasn’t sure. Some of my men found him in the Michigan warehouse.”

“The one Pushkin was using for the sex trafficking?” Dante asks.

“Yes. It was closed down as soon as Pushkin’s operation was uncovered. I have some contacts there, and we had the entire building condemned by the health department so nobody would go snooping and find anything. And as far as we were aware, none of Pushkin’s men went back there either. But with the search for Pushkin drying up, I had some men take a look just in case. They found this guy chained up in a cell.”

“Dead?” I ask.

“Almost, but not quite. I didn’t connect the dots at first. We assumed he was some guy who pissed off the wrong person, but when they sent me the photograph, I noticed a resemblance.”

I nod. “There was nothing and no one else there?”

“No. My men were thorough. He was alone. Left for dead.”

“And where is he now?” Dante asks.

“He’s with my men. He’s had some basic medical care and some fluids. I told them to wait for my word before they dropped him off at a hospital. You want him brought to you instead?”

“Have him brought to the house,” Dante says.

“Of course.” Dmitri says something to his brother in Russian, and Kyzen nods and leaves the room.

I thank Dmitri for his help, but he waves me off. “Anything I can do to assist either of you, you know that.”

“You said the leads on Pushkin are going cold though?” Dante asks.

A shadow falls across Dmitri’s face. “Yes,” he grits out. “He’s a slippery fucker. But I have every resource at my disposal looking for him and his sons. We will find him.”

Standing up, Dante sighs. “He always was a snake. Keep me posted.”