Roza spreads out a map of New York, and as a group, we run again through what Feliks told me the night he arrived in Italy. Brighton Beach. Coney Island. The docks. Little Odessa—everything that used to be mine, it’s all Dragan’s now.
Ilya fills in the legal side of the thorns in our side: unannounced IRS audits hampering our businesses, union disputes hamstringing our workforces, permitting issues suddenly cropping up everywhere we’ve tried to build or expand. It’s all Dragan, pulling strings, f*****g with us in every way he knows how.
As they talk, I trace the familiar streets with my fingertip. My territory has been reduced to a few scattered blocks. But what catches my attention isn’t the map—it’s my own hand.
Rock steady. Not a tremor in sight.
I toy with my Glock, checking the ac
