Stolen Heir: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (Brutal Birthright Book 2)

MIKO

CHICAGO

I’m sitting in my office at the back of the club, marking down numbers in my ledger.

I’ve got two nightclubs running now, as well as three strip clubs. They’re all profitable in their own right, even this one that I only opened a few weeks ago. But that’s not their real purpose. It’s a way to wash money.

Any industry with plenty of cash payments is a good receptacle. Laundromats, used car dealerships, taxi services, restaurants . . . they all serve as a basket in which to dump legitimate profits, as well as the illegal money earned through drugs, guns, larceny, and women.

In the old days, you could open any empty storefront without even bothering to stock it with equipment. Al Capone had a storefront like that, right here in Chicago. His business card said “Used Furniture Dealer.” Now, forensic accounting has gotten a lot more sophisticated. You need an actual thriving business.

The end goal is to get your dirty money into the bank. You do it slow and steady, with daily deposits mixing dirty money and clean. It’s best if your illegal cash makes up only ten or fifteen percent of the total.

You’ve got to be careful, because banks are fucking rats. If they notice that your little pizza parlor is suddenly doing a million dollars in business, or if they see that your profits far exceed the checks you’re writing to distributors, they’re going to report you to the IRS.

But once the money is in the system, then you can send it anywhere you like. Offshore tax havens, large-scale real estate, brokerage accounts . . .

My assets are in the eight figures if you add them all together. But, looking at me, you’d never know it. I keep a low profile, and I force my men to do the same. You get lazy, sloppy, and flashy, and you draw the wrong kind of attention.

I run the Chicago Braterstwo now, with my brother Jonas. He’s my brother by covenant, not by blood. We’re the adopted sons of Tymon Zajac. I worked for Tymon for ten years. He taught me, trained me, and mentored me.

My biological father died in Warsaw. I don’t know where his gravestone sits. I don’t care. I’ll never set foot in Poland again. I don’t even like to think about it.

Tymon brought me here, to America. He told me we’d build an empire larger than the entire wealth of our homeland. I believed him. His dream became my dream. It gave me something to live for.

For a time, we thrived. We began to take over this city, block by block.

But we’re not the only gangsters in Chicago.

We found ourselves in conflict with the Colombians, the Russians, the Italians, and the Irish.

We crushed the Colombians, taking over their drug-running pipeline. That’s when the money really started flowing in, funding our other operations.

Then the DOJ did us a favor, cracking down on the arms trafficking run by the Russian Bratva.

Which left us free to attack the Italians, specifically the Gallo family. But Enzo Gallo wasn’t as old and complacent as we expected. His sons put three of our men in the ground, buried under the foundations of their high-rise on Oak Street.

Before we could strike back, the Gallos formed an unexpected alliance with the Griffins, Irish mafia royalty at the pinnacle of crime in Chicago. The Gallos married their only daughter to Callum, the Griffin’s only son.

It was extremely unexpected. Like an alliance between Israel and Palestine, or cats and dogs.

That was, perhaps, when Tymon made a mistake. He wasn’t a man prone to mistakes. But in that moment, he acted rashly.

When Aida Gallo and Callum Griffin came poking around one of our clubs, we drugged them and brought them back to an old slaughterhouse on the west side of the city.

It was an impulsive decision, not planned out. It was done on Tymon’s orders. Still, I blame myself for what happened.

I had an AR trained on them both. I should have gunned them down without hesitation, then and there.

Instead, they escaped down a drainage pipe.

It was a humiliating mistake. I knelt down in front of Tymon, expecting him to mete out punishment. In ten years, I had never failed him so badly.

He ordered the rest of the men out of the room.

I closed my eyes, thinking he would bring his machete down on the back of my neck. That is justice in our world.

Instead, I felt his hand resting on my shoulder—heavy, but without anger.

I looked up into his face.

In all the time I’d known Tymon, I had never seen him show hesitation or weakness. Suddenly, he looked tired. He was only fifty-eight years old, but had been through a dozen lifetimes of blood and toil and struggle.

“Mikolaj,” he said. “You are my son and my heir. I know you will never fail me again.”

I had long since lost the ability to feel anything like love. But I felt the fire of a loyalty stronger than love. Tymon spared my life twice. He would never need to do it a third time.

I felt reinvigorated. I planned to work with my father to crush the Italians and the Irish. To take our place once and for all as the rulers of the city.

Instead, a week later, Dante Gallo murdered Tymon. He gunned him down, leaving him to bleed out in the gutter.

I’ve yet to take my revenge. It shames me, every day that passes.

I have two factors to consider:

First, my men. The Griffins and the Gallos combined are a powerful force. They command the loyalty of dozens of Irish and Italian families. If I attack them directly, I can’t hope to succeed. Not yet, anyway.

Second, I want them to suffer. I could kill Callum or Dante. But what would that accomplish? I want to break the entire empire down. I want to drive the two families apart. Then pick off their members one by one.

To do that, I need to find their weak point. Their vulnerability.

So I’ve been watching and waiting. Letting them think the Braterstwo are defeated, that they cut the head off the snake when they killed Tymon.

In the meantime, I run my business. I keep my territory secure. And I amass more money and power by the day.

There’s a knock on my door. It’s Jonas. He enters without waiting, carrying a crate of Żubrówka, Polish vodka. He pulls out one of the bottles, showing me the bright green label and the single blade of bison grass swimming in the pale amber liquor.

“Just in time,” he says, grinning. “We were about to run out.”

Jonas has a broad frame, packed with muscle, and thick black hair that he combs straight back from his forehead. His eyes are so dark that you can’t tell the pupil from the iris, and his eyebrows are straight slashes that go up at the outer edges, like Spock. His personality is the opposite of Vulcan, however. Jonas isn’t logical. He’s impulsive—quick to laugh, and quick to brawl. He doesn’t think things through. Which is why I’m the boss, instead of him.

It’s what Tymon wanted. Not that it matters—now that my adoptive father is dead, I won’t be second to anyone, ever again.

“What’s the total liquor sales this week?” I ask Jonas.

“Fifty-seven thousand,” he replies proudly.

That’s up twelve percent from the week before.

“Good.” I nod.

“There’s one thing, though,” Jonas says, frowning.

“Hold on,” I reply.

I tap the shoulder of the girl who is currently kneeling between my legs, sucking my cock. Her name is Petra. She’s one of our bartenders—one of our best, actually. She’s as skilled with her mouth as she is with her hands. It’s a pleasant accompaniment to the tedious task of balancing the books. But I don’t usually cum. As hard as she works, my cock only seems half-alive, like the rest of me.

“You can leave,” I tell her.

Petra stands up from behind the desk, brushing off the knees of her tight black pants. She’s wearing a corset top, half unlaced to show her generous cleavage. Her lipstick is smeared around her mouth.

Jonas smirks, realizing we weren’t alone in the room. He eyes Petra’s breasts, and then her ass as she leaves the office. Not like he hasn’t seen it all before.

“How is she?” he says. “I haven’t had the pleasure yet.”

“She’s fine,” I say shortly. “What did you want to tell me?”

Jonas turns serious again, getting back to business.

“I think one of the bartenders is stealing from us.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been weighing the bottles. We’re short thirty-eight ounces.”

“Are they heavy pouring?”

“No. I put regulators on the nozzles.”

“Then they’re either giving drinks to friends or pocketing the cash.”

“Somebody is,” Jonas agrees.

“I’ll watch them tonight,” I tell him.

“Perfect,” Jonas says, smirking once more, and folding his arms across his chest.

“What?” I ask him, annoyed.

“You gonna put your cock back in your pants?”

I look down at my cock, still smeared with Petra’s lipstick. I’d already forgotten about the truncated blowjob. I tuck myself back in my trousers, scowling.

“Happy now?” I say to Jonas.

“Sure,” he says.

We head out onto the floor together.

The night is just getting into full swing—guests lined up at the bar, the dance floor becoming crowded, every booth full.

I look around at the busy, bustling space and I see money, money, money. Waitresses stuffing cash into their aprons, handing patrons drinks marked up by four-hundred percent. Bartenders swiping credit cards again and again, each swipe another infinitesimal addition to the wealth of the Braterstwo.

The walls are covered with grass-paper, the booths upholstered in rich emerald velvet. The lights are a dim, watery green, with patterned shadows that make it appear as if the patrons are walking through tall grass.

This club is indeed a jungle, and I’m its king. The customers pay homage to me without even knowing it, as I drain their wallets drink by drink.

I take a position at the corner of the dance floor, pretending to watch the clientele. But really, I have my eyes on my own employees. In particular, on the bartenders.

There are four behind the counter of the main bar: Petra, Monique, Bronson, and Chaz. All are fast and flashy workers, hired for skill and sex appeal. I’m not ruling out the women, but I already suspect the men. Petra and Monique make a staggering number of tips from the lonely businessmen in the area. Bronson and Chaz do pretty damn well for themselves too, but in my experience, there’s a masculine greed that won’t allow a man to be satisfied with three hundred a night.

A good bartender is like a juggler and a magician all in one. They’re chatting with the customer while simultaneously flipping glasses, agitating shakers, and pouring twelve shots in a row. They make money disappear and alcohol rain down. They’re always doing ten things at once.

It takes a practiced eye to see what they’re really up to.

In twenty-eight minutes, I’ve spotted the thief.

It isn’t Bronson, with the bulging muscles and frat-boy charm. He slips a free drink to a giggling blonde, but he still rings it in, using his own tips to cover it.

No, it’s Chaz who’s the tricky little fuck. Chaz with the silver rings, hipster beard, and man-bun.

That egotistic little shit has two separate scams running at the same time. First, he’s taking payments from three or four customers at once, carrying the cash over to the till and pretending to ring it all in. But as his fingers fly over the screen, I see he’s only ringing in nine out of ten drinks, counting on the volume of transactions to hide what he’s doing from anybody watching.

Then, something Jonas hasn’t even caught: Chaz has a bottle of Crown Royal he’s snuck into the building. It’s a top-shelf liquor, eighteen dollars a pop. Any time a customer orders it, Chaz pours from his own bottle that he’s set on the shelf in place of my liquor. Then he takes the entire payment and drops it directly in his tip jar.

In the time I’m watching, he steals about seventy-six dollars. By my rough calculations, that means he’s skimming over nine hundred dollars a night.

I motion to Jonas, calling him over.

“It’s Chaz,” I tell him.

Jonas looks over at Chaz and his shit-eating grin as he pops the top off four bottles of Heineken, sliding them across the bar to a quartet of rowdy college girls. Jonas’s face darkens. He takes a step forward, like he’s going to grab Chaz by the shirt and haul him over the bar right then and there.

“Not yet,” I say, laying a hand on Jonas’s chest. “Let him finish his shift. We don’t want to be short-handed tonight. Grab him on his way out, instead.”

Jonas grunts and nods. A scuffle breaks out over by the bathrooms, and Jonas heads in that direction to make sure the bouncers break it up.

I lean back against the pillar at the corner of the dance floor, arms folded in front of my chest. The satisfaction of catching the thief is already fading away. My mind is turning back, as it always does, to the nagging problem of the Griffins and the Gallos.

Right at that moment, a girl walks into the club.

I see a hundred gorgeous women every night, dolled up in their tight dresses and heels, faces painted, hair freshly coiffed, skin dusted with glitter.

This girl catches my eye because she’s the opposite of that. Young, fresh-faced. So cleanly scrubbed that she almost glows. Her light-brown hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail. Her eyes are wide and innocent. She hasn’t tried to cover up the spattering of freckles across her nose.

She’s wearing a lightweight wraparound sweater, and under that a pale pink bodysuit, almost the same color as her skin. Odd attire for a nightclub. Her friends are dressed in the usual crop-tops and mini dresses.

As soon I see her, I get a rush of adrenaline. My muscles tighten like coiled springs, and I can feel my pupils dilating. I imagine that I can smell her perfume, light and sweet, over the scent of smoke, alcohol, and sweat.

It’s the reaction of a predator when it sights its prey.

Because I recognize this girl.

It’s Nessa Griffin. The cherished baby girl of the Irish mafia. Their little darling.

She’s wandered into my club like an innocent gazelle. Foolish. Lost. Ripe for the taking.

It’s like a sign from heaven. But I don’t believe in heaven. Let’s call it a sign from the devil, then.

I watch her as she weaves her way through the club with her friends. They order drinks from frat-boy Bronson. Bronson flirts as hard as he can as he mixes up their martinis. Even though his attention is directed more to Nessa’s blonde friend, Nessa still blushes and can’t meet his eye.

Nessa takes her melon martini and sips it awkwardly, unable to keep from making a face, even though it’s mostly juice. She only drinks a quarter of it before setting it back down on the bar.

The blonde is still giggling up at Bronson. The other friend has struck up a conversation with a skinny nerdy-looking guy. Nessa gazes around the room, shy and curious.

I’m staring at her openly. I don’t look away when our eyes meet. I watch her expression, to see if she knows who I am.

Her cheeks turn pink, deeper than the color of her top. She looks away, then sneaks a glance back in my direction, to see if I’m still staring. When she sees that I am, she spins all the way around to put her back to me, taking another hasty gulp of her drink.

She’s totally ignorant. She doesn’t know who I am. This is just the behavior of an awkward girl, who prefers to hide in the middle of her more confident friends.

I stride back toward my office, intercepted by Jonas right before I reach the door.

“Where are you going?” he asks, noting my hurry.

“You’ve got the floor tonight,” I tell him. “I have something else to attend to.”

“What about Chaz?”

I pause. I was looking forward to seeing that slimy little fucker’s face when he realized he was caught. His smug smile fading away, replaced by fear, then abject terror. I was going to make him beg and plead and piss himself before I took my payment out of his hide.

But now I have bigger fish to fry.

“Take him down to the basement at the end of the night,” I say to Jonas. “Break his hands. Then dump him off back at his flat.”

“What about the money?” Jonas says.

“I’m sure it already went straight up his nose.”

There’s no way that little shit dared to steal from me just to put the cash into a savings account. He’s got a habit.

Jonas nods and heads back out into the club.

I enter my office and rifle through the top drawer of my desk. I pull out a GPS tracking device: about the size, shape and color of a penny. I slip it into my pocket. Then I go back out to the floor.

It only takes me a moment to spot Nessa Griffin. She’s dancing with her friends, swaying to a remix of “Roses.” I’m not the only one who’s watching her now. She draws the eye of men and women alike, surprisingly sensual as she dances. She seems to have forgotten her shyness, lost in the music.

It’s all too easy to sneak up behind her and slip the tracker into her purse. She’s so oblivious that I even let my fingers trail through the ponytail hanging down her back. Her hair is fine and silky, cool to the touch. Now I really can smell her perfume, light and clean: scents of lily, orchid, and plum.

I’ve walked away again before she’s noticed a thing.

Now I’ll know everywhere she goes.

I’ll follow her. Stalk her. And take her at my leisure.