The Dysfunctional Affair

Brother #3

"You were very quiet during dinner," my mother commented.

"Yeah, I have some interesting information," I told her. We were currently cleaning up the dinner mess. The others were in the living room, trying to behave as if the world were normal.

"About what?"

"Oleg Borisovich is involved in this mess," I told her. She put down the plate she was holding and looked at me. Her face was unreadable, but the corner of her eye twitched. I waited for her to say something, but she remained quiet. "Mom?" I asked after a few minutes.

"I am thinking about who I need to call," she responded quietly.

"Vasilii has already been called and Vlad is on his way here," I told her.

"If that man lays one finger on any of my children, I will cut his balls off and stick them in his nose," she said very calmly.

"You know, you and Telisa will have to stay here until we get this sorted out," I told her.

"No I do not. That man will not hold me hostage with a threat. I'd like to see him try to come after you again. I couldn't do anything about it while your father was alive, but now that he's dead, I can do whatever I want to Oleg Borisovich." My mother took in a deep breath. "Telisa, let's go to my house and leave the kids to work on this mess. We have wedding plans to attend to."

Telisa smiled and hugged Zeke. She walked over and hugged me. My mother also hugged me. They both left.

"That did not go as planned," I said after I heard their car pull out of the drive.

"Does anything ever go as planned with our mother?" Liam asked.

"Well, no, but I thought this would go a little better than it did." I looked at him. "Do you think she'd kill him?"

"Oh yeah," Liam said.

"Maybe we should have taken her passport," I thought for a moment. "And chained her to the plumbing in the spare bathroom."

Liam's phone went off. He looked at it and smiled.

"Kenzie and Vlad are both here," he stood up.

"Kenzie and Vlad are together?" I asked.

"Vlad went to Spain today," he said.

"That's like an eight hour flight."

"On a commercial airliner, you're right. On a private jet, it's a little shorter."

"Who has a private jet?" I asked.

"Vasilii," Liam answered. Of course he did.

"How did this all get planned so fast?" I asked.

"Well, when you called Vasilii, he called Vlad. Vlad called Devlin, Devlin called me, and then mom called all of us to tell us about your wedding. So, I used that as my excuse to come home. By the time you called us, Vlad already had a plan in motion."

We all went outside. Kenzie and Vlad were getting out of a rental car. Vlad was smiling, however, that didn't mean much. My brother was terribly optimistic about everything. We seemed to live in two different worlds. In mine, everything that could go wrong, did. In his, everything that could go right, did.

"Amanda Reed is in custody," Kenzie said. "And after having a long talk with Vasilii before she was arrested, she's agreed to turn state's witness on the mob. You two are free and clear, sort of."

We all went into the house. The dogs sprang to life at seeing Vladik, their hangovers seemed to be improving. I handed Vlad a bottle of Pamprin and told him to give one to each dog. It worked wonders on hangovers. He looked at me strangely, but did as I instructed. The dogs didn't even seem to notice that he was feeding each of them a pill and not a treat.

Kenzie laid out the course of events. Alex and I had moved Amanda and given her a new identity, which she had promptly ditched. She'd had six others already in her possession, all supplied by a man named Viggo Bronson. I had questions about who tortured their children with names like that, but I kept them to myself. Viggo was a Dutchman who forged papers for a lot of criminals. He could be linked to several organized crime syndicates.

Since she had stolen money from the mob, she first went to South America and ingratiated herself with a cartel. With their protection and new papers, she'd moved to Spain to help them traffic drugs in and money out of Europe. However, this had gotten her in some hot water, as the Russians controlled a good portion of the drugs and money flowing in and out of Europe.

That made me think of more questions. Particularly, I wouldn't have minded if they brought back the show Deadliest Warrior and did Russian Mob v. South American Cartel. Gangs and the Italians had nothing on Russians and cartels.

At that point, Vlad took over, explaining Oleg Borisovich had supplied information to Vasilii about Amanda Reed, just to get her out of the way. Of course, Oleg had expected Vasilii was looking to kill her, not turn her over to the authorities. Now, he was pretty sure Oleg was feeling double crossed as one of his aliases had left Russia an hour before Vlad and Kenzie had left Spain. My stomach flopped at that statement.

Anthony and Vasilii were looking for him. Vlad was pretty sure he was coming this way. Devlin agreed, because somehow, Oleg Borisovich had gotten wind that Alex and I were involved in this fiasco. Probably because Vasilii had contacted him, but turned the woman over to the police instead of killing her. The NSA was on high alert for his presence in the US, as was Homeland Security.

After they finished, it didn't take long for Zeke to start making calls. He arranged for the handymen to come over immediately and fix the front of the house as well as the security system. I sat, numb, in a chair.

Over the years, a few big, bad wolves had come my way, most of them Russian Mob. However, they didn't scare me. Not like Oleg Borisovich, who had pulled the strings of the Russian Mob to try to have me killed on several occasions.

"We need to protect Ivan," I blurted out.

"It's being taken care of," Vlad said. I was pretty sure Vlad was CIA. I was also pretty sure Devlin worked for the NSA. They would have friends in high places. "However, he's never come after us, just you and Alex. You're women and killing women is more damaging to the Russian family structure than killing men."

To some degree, this was true. Starting in the early 1900's Russian women had gotten used to not having Russian men around. There was the Russian Revolution, World War I, World War II, Soviet leaders who liked to kill people, and poverty. In this sense, the death of a Russian woman was more damaging to the family structure. However, those days were largely behind Russia, and the value of women was being reduced some. To our misfortune, Oleg Borisovich had grown up during the Soviet era, not the new Russian era.

However, the good news was that my family had never intended to kill Oleg Borisovich. The bad news was that my family had never intended to kill Oleg Borisovich. This created mixed feelings for me. If he was dead, the Russian mob would leave me alone. However, I hated to think that my family were murderers. Even Anthony was family at this point.