Bratva Boss’s Secret Triplets by Bella King
Chapter 11
Rebel
I’m up before the sun is even though I know I need sleep. It’s difficult to find time to rest my body when the world turns regardless. There’s always someone out there working harder than you, sleeping less, and achieving more. I’ve built this mafia family on blood, sweat, and sacrifice, and I’ll be damned if I ever let someone get the better of me.
I wake up early to beat the competition. I’ll never let another man win.
I roll out of bed, running through my morning routine as quickly as I can. One minute in the shower to scrub the sleep off my body, two minutes to get dressed in a crisp new suit, and another two minutes to grab a coffee and cigar before I’m out the door.
Five minutes after I wake up, I’m starting my day. Nobody else is up beside the night guards. They’ll be the only other human beings I’ll see until around five when the early birds start to emerge from their homes. Until then, the world belongs to me.
The city is so eerie and otherworldly in these early hours. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would walk the streets of my city in Russia before anyone was awake, all noises absorbed by fresh snow as I stepped quietly through it. The sky was always a dusty shade of orange-pink from the light pollution, but it was the closest thing I had to an alternate reality where I was the king of my world, the most powerful person alive.
And here I am again.
The first place I drive is to the OB-GYN clinic to check if anyone is there yet. At this hour, the only people who would be working would be the cleaners, but I doubt they’d show up before five. It’s more likely that it’s vacant, which will give me the chance to snoop around a bit more before I head to April’s apartment.
I take my time driving, listening to the news on the radio. There have been two more shootings down by the dock, likely related to Saint Gray Mafia, but the police don’t know that. They largely ignore what happens around here because they can’t control it. Deaths are reported sometimes, but nothing ever comes of it.
My car slowly cruises past the clinic at first. I usually make a few passes to ensure that nobody’s keeping a lookout for unwanted visitors, but I only make one this time. The place looks completely empty, and I don’t want to miss my chance to poke around before someone arrives.
I make a u-turn at the light and roll back toward the building, pulling into the parking lot of a salon directly behind it. From there, I can see the back of the clinic. There aren’t any cars parked there either. Nobody is here yet.
I would’ve at least thought they’d use a guard, but maybe they’re inside. If I didn’t already know they were stealing drugs from here, I wouldn’t suspect it. Maybe they want to keep it as discreet as possible, opting for less security but more anonymity.
The problem with that is that they’ve hired squeaky rats like Alan who will spill their guts if they think it’ll keep them alive. There’s no loyalty, and that’s going to cost the Saint Gray Mafia. I’m going to tear them down slowly, and then all at once.
Younger guys are easy to recruit because they’re displaced in the world and need a sense of purpose. Unfortunately for them, their inability to keep their mouths shut when it serves them makes them easy fodder for guys like me. It’s just business. A shitty business, for sure, but a business nonetheless.
Speaking of businesses, the clinic I’ve arrived at seems just a little too well-maintained and pristine to be a not-for-profit organization. The possibility of illicit drugs filtering in and out of the place surprises me even less. Of all the people you’d expect to be altruistic and selfless, doctors should be at the top of the list. Yet here we are, fighting for a piece of the endless but precarious fortune that illegal drugs can bring.
Instead of approaching the front doors like an idiot, I decide to scope out a side door that appears to only have badge access. It’s still early, and the only staff here are likely guards and housekeeping, but it will be shift change in ten minutes and one of them will need a cigarette sooner or later.
I keep my car hidden in a more secluded portion of the parking lot as I wait for some indication that it’s safe to proceed without giving myself away completely. There’s “doctor” affluent, and then there’s “high-profile organized criminal” affluent, only one of which can pass through clinic doors after-hours without suspicion.
After fifteen minutes or so, a skinny white guy with dreadlocks and stretched earlobes emerges from the side door, disappearing onto a cluster of bushes to smoke just off the clinic property. If he heads back inside, I’ll follow close behind him and check the place out. If not, I’m sure there’s a decent list of twenty-something degenerates with a habit that I can follow.
Eventually, the dreadlocked guy drops his cigarette and stamps it out into the pavement without picking it up and disposing of it.
I swiftly but quietly exit my car as he begins to head back inside, careful not to slam the door behind me as I tend to do in the daylight hours.
As I approach the door behind him, he turns around and scans me head to toe, obviously trying to recall whether or not he’s ever seen me around here. I must not be familiar to him or he just doesn’t care, because he lets me in without a word, even letting me go in before him.
Definitely getting mixed signals from this guy, but he isn’t my problem. I need to figure out what’s going on here.
A clinic dedicated solely to pregnancy and childbirth is almost too safe of an establishment to traffic drugs from. Who is going to point at a man who makes miracles happen and accuse him of being a lowly drug peddler? There's hardly any danger in the game at that point. It’s almost disappointing.
The hallways in the clinic are immaculate, blindingly shiny marble floors stretch in every direction without stopping for so little as a crack or discoloration. The artwork on the walls is actually good, not the second-hand impressionist bastardizations I’ve associated so closely with healthcare waiting rooms.
The clinic belongs to Dr. Ryan, so his name is the one I scan the walls for as I come across a row of ornate plaques next to room numbers. If I can just break into his office and check shit out, I should be able to form a better plan of attack with more notice and manpower. My work is cut out for me, all I have to do is find ground zero.
From what I briefly skimmed on the clinic website, the hours of operation are from nine to six, which gives me two hours before he should be here. I scan the walls as I pace through the hallways looking for the correct office number, growing increasingly frustrated by the needlessly complex labyrinth of rooms and lobbies and nurse’s stations until I find it: “Dr. Ryan, M.D., Obstetrics and Gynecology”.
My pulse jumps ahead of itself as I steel my nerves for the search for contraband. I quickly glance around the surrounding area for suspicious individuals, but before I’m able to even open the door, I hear two voices emerging from around the corner.
“Mark, stop! You’ll get us caught!” says a giddy, young female voice.
“I thought that was part of the thrill for you,” replies a slimy male voice, presumably Dr. Ryan’s.
Fuck.
I quickly head toward a supply closet, but all of the doors are badge-access only. I’m a rat in a hole unless I can find my way out of this maze before anyone sees me and gets suspicious. An obnoxious giggle trails behind me as the two disembodied voices follow close behind. I find a half-assed shelter in a nearby stairwell to calm myself before I make my escape.
Primally familiar moans and subtle laughs are exchanged between the two adulterous lovers as Dr. Ryan pushes the young woman into the door, opening it and disappearing into the darkness without turning the lights on.
I could groan from frustration, but that would give me away. I must stay silent and get out of here. It’s too dangerous.
The door closes behind them, oblivious to my presence or my intentions.
Before I’m able to slip out the nearest emergency exit, three security guards round the corner, keeping me still and breathless as they case the hallways for what I can only assume is me. After scanning the surrounding area for any other pleasant surprises, I disappear through the maze again, somehow ending up on the wrong side of the clinic and having to walk the outer perimeter of the building to find my car.
I feel defeated and a tad foolish. I’ll have to get my intel some other way.
