Like Father, Like Sons…
I f Dmitry had his way, he would exist happily as a legitimate business owner with his more than profitable businesses around the world, but there was still the other side of his life and his empire, which was a dark world of arms dealing, diamond trafficking and blackmail run by his powerful faction of the Vory v Zakone.
He couldn’t deny this part of him, nor did he want to. Through blood, sweat and tears, he had built his empire from nothing to something, and planned to leave it to his son and nephew once he retired.
In the meantime, however, he had a job to do as the Czar of the Russian mafia underworld. And nothing said leadership more than doing it yourself, especially when someone thought you were going soft. That was a career killer. If a man didn’t show his strength every once in a while, someone got ideas about taking over.
“Stop here,” he ordered his driver from the back seat of his blacked-out Land Rover. Pulling a shiny customized Glock from his gun holster, he glanced over at Gabriel, who was sitting beside him with his gun already out. “You ready?”
“Yep,” Gabriel answered, opening his door.
They stepped out into the night in front of a large mansion that belonged to Troy Campbell, a self-made millionaire who was using his resources to lead the Neo-Nazi movement in Tennessee.
Dmitry was a business man, and normally didn’t pass judgement on anyone, but this guy had pushed all of his buttons. There was an unspoken rule. No one encroached on Dmitry’s territory and this was his territory. Campbell had not only been stock piling automatic weapons by the thousands, he was also buying them from a contact in Texas, and turning around and selling those weapons to customers outside of his demented purview right her under Dmitry’s nose.
Big mistake.
Dmitry had sent a warning in the form of a visit to Campbell while he was at his private golf course. One of his soldiers explained to the right-wing nutcase while he stood on the fifteenth hole with his friends that selling to the people who normally bought from the Medlov’s’ was a very bad decision.
But the man didn’t listen. He brushed off the warning, called his man a commie bastard and demanded he leave his club.
Okay. He needed to make himself clearer this time.
The car doors slammed shut around Dmitry and his convoy of his men, all armed to the teeth, moved forward with him as he made his way through the manicured lawn up to the large porch of the plantation style home.
A confederate flag danced in the wind proudly until Gabriel stepped up on the stairs, grabbed the pole and with one hand snatched it out of the wood. He threw it down on the ground and cocked his shotgun. Pointing the barrel at the reinforced steel door, he pulled the trigger.
The front door flew off its hinges, glass exploded across the foyer and the small army advanced through the entrance like a heard of elephants.
The unsuspecting Campbell heard the thunderous racket and jumped up from the sofa in his entertainment room.
“What the hell?” he asked aloud as he rushed to the closet to retrieve an Uzi. His heart pounded in his chest so loudly until he could barely hear himself think.
His first thoughts went to his son, who was out back in the pool taking a swim with his friends.
In his hysteria, he headed for the door to get out to the backyard, but was met by a balled up fist. There was no time to pull the trigger. He felt the powerful blow hit, breaking his nose and then sending him backward onto the hardwood floor.
The gun fell out of his hand, and Dmitry kicked it across the floor. Kneeling over him, Dmitry smiled. “Hello, sunshine.”
Troy’s eyes were big and desperate now as he glared up at the giant. Spitting blood and a front tooth out on the floor, he quickly pushed up on his trembling arms. “Wait…”
Without a word, Dmitry snatched him up by his collar off the floor and led him back to the sofa. “Sit,” he ordered, pushing the man by the back of the head.
Obediently, Troy sat down. “Where’s my son?”
“Coming,” Dmitry said, leaning against the entertainment cabinet. One of his men brought a chair over and sat it in front of the sofa. “And so we are clear before we start, get rid of false hope. There are no cops coming, no one busting in here to save you. You’ll have to save yourself, if you can.”
Troy eyed the chair suspiciously. “What is this about?” he demanded. He was a pillar of the fucking community. How dare this asshole treat him like he was anything less. “What do you…”
“Shut the fuck up,” Dmitry warned, barely above a whisper. His intense blue eyes didn’t blink. “You’re not in charge here. The quicker you accept that, the quicker I decide not to bring your son in here and set him on fire in front of you.”
Now was not the time to establish dominance. Troy pushed back in the sofa, humbled himself and took a deep breath. Trying to get control of his thoughts and ramp down his confusion, he heard his son scuffling down the hall as Gabriel led him by the neck into the room.
“Get in there,” Gabriel ordered. The young man was dripping with salt water, crying and afraid. He too had suffered a punch to the face that had left him nearly blind in one eye.
“Bobby!” Troy exclaimed, when he saw his son quivering in his swimming trunks. The sight was sobering. This was serious. “You son of a bitch!” he snarled at Gabriel.
Dmitry nodded and one of the soldiers punched Troy in the side of the head to get his attention. “You will speak when you are given permission.” Dmitry said, reminding Troy that he was no longer in control.
Troy’s vision blurred. Grabbing his head, he finally let out a defenseless sob, but even then, he didn’t speak another word.
Bobby was placed in the chair in front of Troy like a dangling carrot. Putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder, Gabriel leaned into him and spoke only inches away from his reddening ears. “Keep squawking and I’m going to relieve you of your tongue.”
“Anyone else here?” Dmitry asked one of his men.
“Just the three that were out at the pool with him,” his man answered, finger caressing the trigger of his weapon. The three men by the pool were escorted in and forced to their knees behind the sofa.
“I sent you a message.” Dmitry stepped away from the entertainment center and stood in front of the television. With a dramatic sigh, he shrugged. “I guess you didn’t get it, Mr. Campbell.”
Troy was scared to speak. He glanced from Dmitry to his son, wondering what they planned to do to them. His imagination ran rampant, causing his pulse to quicken.
“You know how you make billions aside from inheriting it?” Dmitry asked with a smirk. “You never miss an opportunity. You treat ten dollars like it’s ten million dollars. But you must know that, right? You didn’t manage to make your money being gracious.”
“Hell no, he didn’t,” Gabriel chimed in, spitting on the floor. “His ass is making a killing with those check cashing places all over the city in the poorest neighborhoods. Ripping off the same people he wants to send back to Africa or Mexico or the Middle East. Fucking hypocrite.”
It was killing him not to be able to speak. Furrowing his brow, Troy wiped his face and sat up. After all, his son was watching him. He had to be strong for him, if nothing else.
“Speak,” Dmitry said, twisting up his lip.
“I’ll pay you whatever you want. Just don’t hurt my boy,” Troy begged.
“Not whatever I want. Whatever you owe me,” Dmitry corrected with emphasis. “It’s what you owe me that has you in this position, not the fact that you are a fucking Nazi.” He stepped closer to the man. “And you owe me not only money, which numbers in the millions by the way,” Dmitry bent down to look at Troy. “But you owe me some FUCKING RESPECT!” His deep voice echoed around the room and sent a chill up Troy’s spine.
Troy looked Dmitry in the eyes and regretted his initial response to the man’s warning at the golf course. Realizing he was woefully out of his depth, he nodded. “Let me make it right, sir. Please.”
Dmitry raised from his bent position and walked over to the glass table full of family pictures. He picked up one of the man’s family portraits. “I’m doing you a big favor, whether you realize it or not. Mrs. Campbell is out tonight. She’s with your business partner, Chuck, right now in a hotel room at the Peabody with a ball gag in her mouth and another man’s cock up her ass. So, I doubt she’ll be showing up anytime soon.” He put the picture down and turned to see the varied reaction on Troy’s face.
Troy’s mouth dropped open. He had his suspicions about his wife, but he had no idea who she was seeing. CHUCK of all people! It was just unfortunate that he had to find out this way – in front of his boy. If Dmitry meant to completely emasculate him, he had accomplished that and then some.
Dmitry scratched under his chin and continued. “Your daughter, Bethany, is still on holiday with her friends in Paris. So, she’s out of the way. From what I heard, she was going to see a show at the Théâtre du Châtelet then hooking up with some young Parisian boys for a little late-night dancing.” He winked at Troy, knowing he had his full attention. “What I’m saying, TROY, is that the womenfolk are safe. I could have waited until they were here to come by and visit, made it a real family affair.”
One of Dmitry’s men chuckled.
“But you know, I have kids, and I understand how important they are, especially the girls.” Dmitry looked around the room. “I wanted until it was just us men here, no interruptions, no innocent lives.”
“I have five million dollars in a safe in my office. It’s yours,” Troy said flatly. He knew where the conversation was headed. If he could stave off any more violence, he’d do whatever Dmitry wanted.
“Bring me a piece of paper and a pen,” Dmitry ordered without taking his eyes off of Troy. “I despise what you stand for, but a man has a right to his beliefs. And if it was just about your warped sense of self, I would not be here. But when you chose to fuck with my money, our paths intersected. So, here I am, in the flesh. You should be honored.” He smiled gently.
“My son has nothing to do with this. He’s an innocent,” Troy argued.
Dmitry’s smile dropped. “Your son has everything to do with this. He helped you make the deals. He set them up. In my mind, he’s as much responsible as you.”
Troy shook his head in denial. “He only did what I told him to.”
“Well, you should have told him to pay me.” Dmitry’s right eye twitched. “All those guns I saw on the news when your son was down in Charlottesville a month or so ago, protesting to protect his fucking statute and terrorizing those people. Those were not my guns.” He looked over at Bobby for an answer. “Were they?”
Bobby ducked his head. Shivering under the vent’s cold air, he slipped his hands in between his legs and made himself as small as he could.
“Were they?” Dmitry asked Bobby again.
“No,” Bobby said quickly. He couldn’t bring himself to look Dmitry in the eye. The man looked inhuman with his sparkling blue eyes that glimmered like diamonds under the receding lights.
Gabriel was quiet, deathly still. He stood behind Bobby with his eyes trained on the swastika tattoo on the young man’s back. It brought back memories of his time in that Ukrainian Neo-Nazi camp, in that small cell, being beaten within an inch of his life.
“No, what?” Gabriel growled behind Bobby, squeezing the young man’s shoulder as he dug his nails into his delicate skin.
“No, sir,” Bobby answered quickly.
Troy was beside himself with fear and anger. Watching his son be subjected to Gabriel’s taunting made him want to jump up from the sofa and charge the dark-haired villain, but he was powerless.
“You don’t like Black people?” Gabriel asked Bobby. It was a sidebar, he knew, but Gabriel couldn’t help himself.
“Niggers are the reason that our country is so fucked up right now,” Bobby said sincerely. “Fuck’em. They are stealing our culture right from under us one protest at a time. We built this country, not them. No, I don’t like Black people. I hate them. They aren’t worth shit. The Jews are just thieves and the fucking hippies and lesbians and gays are a bunch of whining liberal pussies.” The young man recited his rhetoric without thought. It was clear that his father had had a profound impact on him over the years, teaching him to hate everything that didn’t look and think like him.
A smile crept across Gabriel’s face. Pulling out his Glock, he was about to put it to the back of Bobby’s head when Dmitry stopped him.
“Steady,” Dmitry said softly. He shook his head at Gabriel. “Not yet.”
Troy’s eyes bulged. Tears started to fall freely down his burning cheeks. Bobby was his only son. He had a promising future in front of him. It was his job to protect him and his fault that they were in this situation. He had to do something fast.
“He’s just a kid, just graduated from college for Christ’s sake,” Troy sputtered. “Leave him alone. It’s me you want. I fucked up.”
One of Dmitry’s men walked back into the room with a pen and paper in hand. He passed it to Dmitry and stepped back.
Dmitry took the paper and pen and walked it over to Troy. Setting it on the man’s lap, he felt the impending doom for the men approaching. “Write down the code to the safe. Then write down the name, number, address of your contact in Texas selling you these weapons under my nose.”
Troy picked up the pen and without a second thought wrote down the information. He didn’t need to access the severity of the situation. He knew that it was either give in or die. The television played in the background. A man in a fishing boat on the screen pulled a huge catfish out the water and smiled proudly as the camera zoomed in on his catch. “Now, that’s how you do it,” the man said with a southern drawl.
Troy finished writing and raised the paper to Dmitry. “It’s all there. The safe is behind the picture of my wife in my study. Like I said, it’s five million dollars in there. Cash money.” That was supposed to be his retirement score, now he prayed that it was enough to buy his son some time.
Dmitry took the paper from Troy and tore off the address information. Sticking it inside of his bullet-proof vest, he nodded. “Thank you.” He gave the piece of paper with the safe code to the same man who had brought him the paper. “Go to his study and get the money.”
Gabriel walked around the sofa and looked at the men crouched down. “What are we going to do with these three?” He saw the same swastika tattoo on their backs. Birds of a feather flocked together.
“Ask them if they have five million dollars,” Dmitry quipped.
Gabriel smiled devilishly and tilted his head. His mossy green eyes made contact with one of the men. “Excuse me. Do you have five million dollars on you by chance?”
All three men looked up with fear in their eyes. The answer was clear, thus their fate set. Gabriel shrugged at his uncle in mock disappointment. “I don’t think they have that kind of cash on them, uncle.”
Dmitry’s face was void of emotion. This was business, not personal. Collateral damage was a part of the job. “Well fuck’em,” he said, using Bobby’s words. He knew that Gabriel was going to enjoy it, but if a man didn’t get some pleasure in his work, what was the point in doing it?
“No!” Bobby screamed out to the top of his lungs.
Troy braced for the inevitable. He could sacrifice Bobby’s friends as long as he saved his son.
Gabriel pointed his Glock and pulled the trigger. He didn’t even blink as he cut the men down. They fell atop of each other in a small pile, still soaking wet from the pool. Blood splattered against the back of the fine upholstery of the sofa and down on the floor. Putting his gun away, he caught Bobby’s eyes, emblazoned with anger and smiled. “At least I didn’t use a car.”
Bobby sobbed into his quivering hands. “I’ll kill you,” he threatened. Those dead bodies used to be his friends and now they were just corpses. “I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Gabriel was not fazed by the threat. “Don’t be so dramatic.” He walked back over to Bobby and slapped him in his face. “Hey, stop crying. Don’t be a pussy…that’s for the gays, remember?”
Bobby sniffled, but quieted down.
Dmitry was bored. Getting down to business, he tapped his Glock on his pants legs. “Troy, I can’t let both of you live. It’s just not good business. So, I’m going to let you decide.”
Troy clenched his jaw and ducked his head. It was what he had expected the entire time. “I’m a father. You already know my decision. All I ask is that you take the money, but let my boy live. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“Dad,” Bobby protested. “Don’t.” He was too scared to take his father’s place and scared to death of watching his father die. It was an impossible decision.
“We all have to make a decision. I respect yours.” Raising his weapon, Dmitry cut through the theatrics and pulled the trigger. The bullet was quick. It pierced through the man’s chest and tore out of his back, lodging in the coils of the plush sofa.
Taking a final breath, Troy looked over at his son with hope until his eyes faded.
Bobby was beside himself. Crying out, he had to be held into the chair by one of Dmitry’s men.
Dmitry looked around the entertainment room. “This was a nice place. I’ll admit that. But we’re going to have to burn it to the ground so that your Nazi friends know I’m not fucking around about my money.” Putting away his gun, he walked over to Bobby, hiked up his black tailored slacks and kneeled in front of him. “Your father made a choice. He wanted to die with hope. So, I let him. But I can’t leave any witnesses. So, here is what I’m prepared to do.”
Bobby kept crying, ignoring Dmitry’s words.
Snapping his fingers, Dmitry got his attention. “Hey, pay attention. Stop all that crying, eh. It won’t help you anyway.”
Bobby wiped the tears and snot from his face. Dmitry continued, speaking slowly so that the young man could process his options. “I can shoot you or I can mute you. It’s your choice. What do you want to do?”
“Mute me?” Bobby asked with a frown. What the hell did he mean? What kind of monsters where they?
“No tongue. No fingers. But you get to live,” Dmitry reasoned. “Or I can just shoot you.”
“Pick your poison,” Gabriel said flatly from behind his uncle. “Make it quick though. We’ve got other shit to do tonight.”
Bobby frowned at Dmitry and spit in his face. “Fuck you.”
Wiping his face slowly, Dmitry stood back up as Bobby’s gaze followed him. He expected the man to hit him, but Dmitry didn’t waste the energy. From first sight, he knew the little prick was going to be trouble. He had an air of entitlement that would be shed easily.
Dmitry pulled a black, silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face again, then threw it in Bobby’s lap. “Cut out his tongue, cut off his fingers, then burn him with the house. Use his puny little body as the bonfire.” Winking at the boy, he headed out of the door satisfied. He had what he wanted. The money and a name. “Like father, like son. Just have to do shit the hard way.”