Page 65 of Dark King Daddy

“Wives are always calling.”

“Yeah well these ones are calling to say their husbands should not die for Orlov cargo.”

I looked at him.

He held my gaze without flinching. That was Nikita. He delivered bad news with the same smooth precision he delivered good news, and you were expected to handle both with equal composure.

“Who’s on dispatch?”

“Yuri Markov.”

I called him. He answered over the sound of a reversing truck.

“Pakhan.” The title came awkwardly. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m told the drivers are refusing loads.”

“Yes. I’ve got three waiting here now.” He lowered his voice. “They came in. They want to work. They just want to know who’s going with them.”

“Are they giving you trouble?”

“No.” His answer was immediate. “One of them was on the convoy. The other two saw him come back.”

I looked at Nikita. “Get him the escort assignments.”

He nodded and began typing.

“Nikita’s sending you names and numbers,” I told Yuri. “Have the drivers speak to the men riding with them.”

“Thank you.”

“How’s Denis?”

A pause. In the background, the reversing alarm stopped.

“He complains that your men won’t let him go anywhere.”

“Good.”

“Yes,” Yuri said. “It is.”

Someone called his name.

“I should—”

“Go.”

I hung up the call, and Nikita said, “One more thing. Yevgeny Kozlov.”

Kozlov. One of Father’s veteran captains. Twenty years in the organization. Controlled a significant piece of the Sokolov trucking infrastructure in Queens. Old-school. Loyal to Lev personally rather than to the family abstractly.

“What about him?”

“He’s been making calls. Urging the other captains to push for separating from the Orlovs before Anton drags us down. His words.”

“He said that?”

“To three captains and two dispatchers. All five reported it within an hour.”