White Night

Chapter 5

You hear about the guy on Noble?" Mauro Romano's deep voice at the other end of the phone asked the question casually, but there was nothing casual about the timing of Mauro's call.

Nikolai had made it through the door in time to barge the girl's mother out the way and answer the phone. Now he fought to control his breath; his life depended on this performance.

"Yeah. Heard it was near a construction site."

Mauro didn't respond. He was an A+ student of his brother, the Don, at letting you make your own mistakes, getting you to say dumb things to fill the silence, but Nikolai wasn't about to start panicking this late in his career.

"Anyone you know?" Mauro asked.

"No. Just some guy, probably drugs or gangbanging."

"Huh." Mauro deliberately left the response hanging in the air, but even if he didn't believe him, he'd still need proof Nikolai was lying and the Don's permission to act. Nothing would happen this week, and he only needed four days.

"The Don wants you to find the meth lab and wipe it out."

"This week?"

"No, next damn year. Yeah, this week," Mauro spat back.

Shit, not now, not this week.

Nikolai gnawed at his bottom lip. "I understood everything was to be quiet this week."

"There's too much product on the street. The Don wants it shut down before our stuff comes in."

"Okay."

"You need help?"

He didn't need to think about that one. Did he need capos from other territories coming in, the boss' son Celso in his face, crawling all over his territory and asking questions? About as much as he needed the corpse at the construction site and the asshole the cop hadn't found yet...

"No, no, I got it."

"Get it done." The line went dead.

Screw you, Mauro.

Mauro saw him as a bastard and treated him accordingly, never showing him the basic respect shown to those of Italian blood. No "How you doing?" or "How's the kid?"

Nikolai had lost his father to Romano crossfire when he was a kid. Not made—never to be a made man—he'd busted his ass for the Romanos for a decade, but his parents were Russian and that excluded him from anything except a tiny territory and a life spent chasing gun-happy rivals and collecting pizzo.

It would all end soon.

He smiled at the thought of Katya's upcoming play. She'd been practicing so hard, cuter than he could handle in her little costume. The change would be hard on her initially, but then he would have hours to spend with her and there would be a warm ocean, blue sky and colorful flowers everywhere.

His thoughts turned colder as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. So much to do now: dispose of his clothes tomorrow, get the car detailed, keep tabs on the cop.

Changing his clothes, he threw them into the open drawer of the nightstand and a half-full water glass followed them in. He cursed heavily and retrieved the glass. Galina was a good mother but a shitty housekeeper.

Traveling back toward the stairs, he checked in on his sleeping angel. His world changed the day she was born. She wrapped her tiny hand around his finger and Daddy's heart melted, but he would let her rest now. Angels needed their sleep too.

He returned downstairs and waved the water glass under Galina's nose. "Think you could clean these up during your busy day?"

"Probably," she said, her eyes not leaving her TV soap.

Probably.

She was a mouthy bitch, but he knew she would clean them up. He would find no more water glasses.

"I need money for Katya's play and groceries. I cook knish tomorrow."

His shoulders sank as he peeled off the notes. She was a good cook at least. He'd need to keep his strength up, with a body at a construction site, Romanos up his ass, a meth lab to find, and White Night to finalize, without getting caught by Mauro. It was impossible with the street's eyes and ears—but soon White Night would blind and deafen it.