Page 25 of The Bratva’s Captive Flame

"That's why I can't use my own people to fix it. Whoever it is sees me looking, they go underground, or worse, they make a move I don't see coming. I need a man with no stake in any of it—someone I can depend on." Sergei has to get my point now. The people around me aren't credible. Everyone is a suspect at this point.

"I'm retired, Demin," he says. "I got out of that game a long time ago… I have new life now, man."

"I know."

"I fix boats now. I have a dog." He chuckles again, though I highly doubt a trained killer like himself hasn't dabbled a bit. Once sin is in you, you never get rid of it.

"Bring the dog."

He laughs at that, and I know I have him. "Berlin," he says. "That's where you are now?"

The amount of relief I feel is ridiculous. I'd like to think Mishka or Bart could help me root this out, but on the chance they're a part of this, I can't take the risk.

"So you'll come?"

"You know you're my brother, Dem. I've got you."

"I'll have a car meet you at the airport, no names on it, nothing that ties back to the family. You'll come in as private security I hired off a recommendation, somebody to tighten up the house. Nobody needs to know what you really are or what you're really doing here." I lean forward. "How fast can you move?"

I'm no fool. Mishka and Bart may well remember him and they might know exactly why I've hired him, though they’ll never know he's doing countersurveillance.

"I can be there day after tomorrow." He pauses, clearing his throat. "Demin, if I find it, and it's high up, you understand what that means. I'm not gonna soften this for you because you don't like who I find."

I've thought of that, and I'm not fond of that idea, that one of my most trusted men may be double-crossing me. But a traitor is a traitor. As much as it may hurt to see them put down, I'll have to do it.

"If I wanted it softened, I'd have called someone else." I close my eyes a moment. "Find me the truth, Sergei. Whatever it costs. I'll deal with it once I know."

"Day after tomorrow," he says, and the line goes dead.

With that worked out, I know my next order of business. Sebastian wants this new operation up and running in just over a week and I've not gotten anywhere with my new chemist. My gut tells me Isabela is just being soft on him, and I want to test what his limits are. I know as well as anyone that it's sometimes necessary to apply pressure, but I have to be careful or that old man will snap.

Octavio's room is dim when I let myself in, the old man sitting up in bed with the tray still mostly untouched beside him. He watches me come in warily, fear in his eyes while I assess him. When Isabela spoke to him in that compound, she spoke in Spanish, and Dr. Weber says he doesn't speak a lick of English or German, so I can assume he knows no Russian either. It's good for him that from working deals out with the Solanos, I know a good amount of Spanish now.

"We haven't spoken properly," I say, pulling the single chair around and sitting where he can see me. "You and I…" His face shows only a hint of surprise, probably at my Spanish. "So I'll do you the courtesy of being plain, which is more than Solano ever gave you, I'd guess."

The man is a mute, stoically watching me. Though his eyes darken a little, like he's hardening his resolve inwardly to resist my requests.

"Two nights ago, I sent eleven men into a Cartel compound to pull you out of it. I spent money most men never see in a lifetime. I took a bullet in my own side." I tap my ribs once. "I did that so you and your daughter would no longer belong to Javier Solano. That part is done. You're out. He'll never touch either of you again."

"And now," Octavio says quietly, "you'll tell me the price." He lifts his chin indignantly, the same gesture I've seen on his daughter dozens of times already in the two weeks I've known her. She looks and acts so much like him.

If he has half the fire she has, I'm probably going to end up at a loss here.

"Now I tell you the price." I meet his eyes without flinching. It's always obvious when a man has worked with men like me before. He's got a spine, but he understands the costs. He's not negotiating with me. He's testing his chain, like a pit bull who runs to the end only to be jerked back. Octavio Cruz wants to know where the chain ends and the beatings start.

"You cook for me the same way you did for Solano, except you'll be fed properly, housed properly, and treated like a man instead of an animal. Your daughter stays safe and comfortable under my roof. You grow old somewhere warm with the knowledge that your family is protected."

"No." He doesn't even wait a full second before answering me, and his eyes lock on the only window in this room, as if he's escaping the prison I'm keeping him in by simply seeing the sky.

"Think carefully before⁠—"

"I have thought." He may be a frail old man physically, but he is one stubborn son of a bitch. "All my life, since the day Solano found out what my hands could do, I have belonged to someone. I have made poison for men who beat me. They threatened my daughter and took everything I was and ground it down to a recipe." He lifts his chin again. "I am an old man. I have not many years left, and I won't spend them doing the only thing in my life I am ashamed of, no matter how soft the bed is."

Sitting back, I study his defiance. I'd be lying if I said some part of me didn't respect it. It's the same iron that runs through Isabela, a refusal to bend that's been making my life difficult since she snuck into my life.

"I admire the speech," I tell him. "I do. But admiration means nothing in my world. I need a chemist, and you owe me a great debt." When I sit back, folding my hands carefully over my lap, he stiffens. "And perhaps your daughter will be the real victim here if I don't get payment."

Something flickers in his eyes, fear for the first time, but it isn't fear for himself. I see exactly where it goes, and I file it away. This is useful information.