Ilya's POV

Cuffing the arms of the new dress shirt Val has brought me, I feel a semblance of control returning back to me. The effect of anaesthesia has completely worn off by now, the mind numbing drugs finally out of my system. Hate the stuff with a vengeance, that was the reason I didn't want to come to the hospital or go into the OR in the first place. You're unconscious and vulnerable. Two things that get you easily killed in my position of work.

Tucking in the ends of the shirt to my black pants, I turn around to Val who is standing by the door of the hospital room. His now straight, slightly red nose reminds me of watching the doctor set it back in place before blacking out.

She drugged me.

I run my tongue against the back of my teeth. Even the thought of it brings my anger to the front in a blinding hot blaze. The memory of her casually waltzing into my room and checking up on me like she had every right to drug me and keep me here makes me want to roam the hospital until I find her and put her over my knee until I hear her lips scream out an apology.

Only then will I have her beneath me and take her until all she can remember is my name. Even now the memory of her so unaffected by me, refusing to learn my name makes the blood in my veins run scorching hot. I don't even know her first name and she has been in my every thought since waking up, when there are more pressing matters to attend to.

Shrugging on my black blazer I walk out of the barren hospital room, with Val following me close behind. Anthony is standing on guard at the door and falls in to step beside Val at my back as I start walking down to get out of the hospital.

A female nurse stands up from the giant desk sitting in the middle of the corridor. "Sir, you can't just leave, if you don't want to complete the ongoing treatment, you need to sign a refusal form!" She shouts behind me as we walk past.

I reply without slowing down or looking back at the woman. "Dr. Whitaker will take care of it for me." A small smile pulls at my lips at imagining her annoyance when she learns she has to sort out those forms. That's the least she can do after drugging me.

We exit the hospital and Val opens the door of the car waiting for us up front before getting in after me, Anthony gets in the passenger seat in the front and I see Pierre's green eyes looking at me from the rear view mirror. I only nod my head an inch, a concession I only give to my closest men to show I acknowledge their presence and still being alive after yesterday's ambush and then he turns his gaze to the road and we are off.

"How many?" I ask Val as I watch the scenery of busy New York zip past us as we drive to Manhattan's Upper East Side to my house. Val doesn't need me to explain to understand my question.

"Six men." His answer makes my jaw clench. That bastard Matteo Moretti didn't only take my shipment for himself, he also managed to kill off six of my men. If we hadn't pulled back because of Val, maybe we wouldn't have lost millions of dollars worth of merchandise but the body count could be higher as well.

"Any casualties on the suppliers' side?" I ask. The business partner we had been working with for this deal is an old established yakuza in Tokyo. The man in charge is called Jiro 'The Cobra' Fujimoto, named after his clan the Kobura, meaning 'The Cobra'. I had spent months setting up deals talking to them, to arrange this handoff and a month waiting for the heavy cargo ships to dock in New York. Now the barely there thread between the yakuza and my bratva was threatened by Matteo's ambush, if it already wasn't destroyed completely.

"They lost a good deal of men as the italians took over the cargo ship." Anthony says from the front. Running a hand through my black hair, I reorganise my thoughts. I have men to bury, an italian mafia to retaliate to and a yakuza boss to answer to. And I'm already behind because a certain beautiful doctor decided to drug me for eight hours. Releasing barely restrained tension through my body with an exhale from my nose, I watch as we pull up to my house.

The giant house is a sign of wealth on all accounts that fits in with New York City's Gilded Mansions. The exterior is white, an irony to all the filthy blood deals that take place inside of it. I walk up to the mansion with quick strides, itching to get into my office and start sorting out this mess.

Grigory, my butler and housekeeper greets us in the hall with a small bow, his short cropped greying dark hair, neatly combed back as he falls into step beside me as I walk down the marble halls to my office.

"Zdrastvuyte Mr. Mironov. You have been getting calls from Japan all night." Grigory informs me as I open the wooden double doors to my office. I can already feel a headache forming from all the shit that needs to be done. I settle down behind my desk as Val and Anthony stand before my desk waiting for orders.

"Have you eaten anything Mr. Mironov?" Grigory asks from his spot next to the door.

"Nyet." I say as I pull out my laptop from the locked drawer and open it up.

"I'll bring something up right away sir." Grigory says and then disappears through the door.

I turn my gaze to Val and Anthony. Anthony is the one that has the computer skills to match some of the best hackers in the world so I first turn to him. "Anthony, make sure the payment we had moved to an offshore bank account is returned back on our main account." Since the exchange was going down yesterday, I had transferred the payment for the deal moved so it couldn't be traced back to us afterwards, but now the guns were gone and I wasn't about to pay millions for nothing.

Anthony nods his head and disappears out the door. I turn to Val as his brown gaze looks at me impassively, waiting for my instructions. "There is a rat. Find it."

He nods and disappears too, away to hunt whoever it is that dared to betray me. I've worked hard to keep the deal that was supposed to go down yesterday under wraps, but it seems someone is feeding information to the Italians.

When I find out who that rat is, they are going to be begging for a god that won't answer their prayer.

Opening the secure line for my communication to The Cobra yakuza, I start the call. It must be close to midnight there since the time difference is thirteen hours but the call is answered on the third ring.

"You better have a good explanation for this Mironov." The man spats from across the screen. The dark haired, fair skinned asian man staring angrily back at me through the screen is no other than Jiro Fujimoto himself. The leader of the Cobra yakuza.

Taking a deep breath to summon the calm so I don't snap at him, I take a second before replying, "The Italians have intercepted your cargo, we were ambushed." I ground out between my teeth. I don't like answering to anyone, especially to another boss who would love nothing more than to feed off of my weakness.

"Do you have any idea how many men I lost?" Jiro half shouts. I narrow my eyes at his tone but he continues on, "On top of that I've lost my merchandise with no payment in return!"

Of course I wasn't planning on paying now that the guns were missing. If the short end of the stick ended up falling on Jiro's lap, that was his problem. His men should've fought the Italians harder to protect their wares.

"Did anyone else knew about the deal?" I ask him, my cold voice breaking through the screen but doing nothing to diminish the anger in Jiro's eyes.

He understands my implication right away, "I don't have traitors among my men. You Russians love to brag about your deals more than anyone. Look in your own clan before making assumptions about mine." He spits and I have to clench my fists until the knuckles are white to not let my anger get the best of me.

There is no way of knowing if the leak was from my end or from somewhere else, but if it's within my men, I intend to find out.

"I expect payment Mironov. I lost millions worth of merchandise on this deal." Jiro threatens.

"Maybe your men should have put up more of a fight." I say cooly.

His nostrils flare in annoyance. "New York is your territory. You should've had more control over your enemies."

The implication that my bratva is weak sends a cold wave of anger through me. "You're not getting paid until I get what I'm owed." I grit out.

"Then get your merchandise back from the Italians yourself. I already lost too many men at this shit show. I'm not sending more." Jiro says and the screen goes black as he hangs up on me. It takes me a couple minutes of silently staring at the now black screen of my laptop to let go of the anger coursing through me.

Grigory knocks on the door and steps in with a tray in his hand, placing the food next to me on the desk. As I start eating, I look up to see him still standing there with his hands clasped before him. "What is it Grigory?" I demand.

"It can wait until after your meal sir." He says and continues standing there. I wipe my mouth with the cloth napkin. My patience already on thin ice from the last couple of hours.

"Spit it out."

He doesn't argue again. "After yesterday's events, Yuri Ivanov was wounded severely. He is currently residing in one of the guest rooms with Dr. Beaumont tending to him sir."

I nod at him. "I'll take care of it. You're dismissed."

Grigory bows before leaving my office. I turn around in my leather chair to look out of the windows overlooking the gardens. The bright afternoon sun illuminating the perfectly cultivated lawn in great detail. I stare off into nothing in particular, the silence letting my mind run amok.

I don't plan on making an enemy from the yakuza after spending months to gain their trust. I'll pay back the italians for this and get my merchandise back and then pay Jiro Fujimoto for the guns. I'm a man of my word, and if the deal still takes place, there is no need to step back from the agreement. This was supposed to be the first of many dealings I had lined up with the yakuza, a powerful source from the Asian continent. Moretti is going to regret the day he thought he could cross me.

Getting up from behind my desk, I walk out of my office and climb the stairs. When I reach the wing of the house where the guest rooms are, one of the rooms has the door ajar and I walk over to step inside.

Yuri Ivanov is lying down on the king sized bed with Dr. Leopold Beaumont sitting in a chair beside him. Dr. Leopold is a fairly old man I hired a couple years ago who was, at the time, running his own private practice in downtown New York. During those years, either the strain of looking after so many patients of the bratva who were prone to getting injured or the stress of the work has aged him significantly. His balding head of white has lost more hair, the wrinkles behind his spectacles deepening.

His tired eyes turn to me as I walked further into the room, the old man jumping to his feet. "Mr. Mironov, glad to see you're in good health." He says as his trembling hands push his spectacles up his nose.

"How is Yuri?" I ask as my gaze falls on the young member of my bratva. He's also my distant relative. He's only 22, but he's been among our ranks since he was 18 and yesterday not only was he severely injured but we had lost his older brother, Nikolai.

At the mention of his name, the light blond haired Yuri opens his blue eyes and turns to look at me from under the covers. "Ilya." He makes out weakly. I walk over to his side and stand by his side, his skin colour is a sickly pale white with a sheen of sweat covering his skin. His lips has lost all colour and his hair is plastered to his forehead.

"Da brat." I place my hand on his shoulder gently.

Even though he's weak from his wounds, his eyes take on a fierce hatred. "I will pay back those Italians for taking my brother from me."

I nod back at him as I pat his shoulder. "You can, if I don't make them pay first."

He vehemently nods his head in determination, making me proud to share my blood with him. I take my hand away from Yuri's shoulder and turn to Leopold. "What is wrong with him?"

The old doctor takes out his round glasses before wiping them at the end of his cream coloured shirt. I can see beads of sweat running down his forehead in either nervousness or tiredness. Both reasons making Val's judgment for not bringing me back to the old doctor to get treated valid. "He has lost a lot of blood before I got him stitched up. He had two bullet wounds, one in his shoulder and the other in his leg." Leopold explains as he raises his glasses back onto his face.

I look back at the my young cousin who is drifting off to sleep once again. It's obvious whatever Dr. Leopold is doing to treat him isn't working when in comparison, I feel like I wasn't even shot merely a day ago except for a slight ache on my side. Yuri needs another doctor, and it's a good thing I know exactly where to find one.

I had to divide this chapter in half because it was so long.

But don't worry! I'm immediately posting the next one!

Love youu 💙