Christopher Golden - Sons of Anarchy - Bratva

“We didn’t play along,” Jax said. “The shooting started, and then the other Russians showed up.”

“What other Russians?” Piney rasped. He’d been frowning from the moment the gavel had gone down, but for once Clay didn’t blame him. Opie could take care of himself, but no father wanted to hear about Russian Mafia shooting at his son.

Jax and Opie told the rest of the story, trading off details. There wasn’t much to tell. A couple of minutes later, the table fell silent for several seconds, until Jax turned expectantly to Clay. Exactly what Clay had been waiting for—that moment when Jax acknowledged who held the gavel.

“This stays at the table,” Clay said. “I know you all thought we’d settled our Russian problem for a while. So did I. Now it looks like the Russians may be having a turf war.”

“Do we bring Galindo up to speed?” Jax asked, scratching thoughtfully at the blond scrub of his beard.

“On what?” Clay said, scanning the table to make sure they all understood his reply. “We don’t know shit at this point. Chibs, if this is gun-trade business, could be our friends in Belfast heard something.”

Chibs had been born in Scotland but grown up in Belfast and had done stints with the British Army and the RIRA before some ugliness forced him to leave Belfast. He still had enemies in Ireland, but the old connections remained in place—unpleasant as they could be.

“I’ll reach out to Connor Malone,” Chibs said. “See what he knows.”

“We should talk to Lin, too,” Bobby said, that perpetually worried look on his face. “If the Russians are making a new play, could be Lin and his crew already know.”

“I’ll give Lin a call,” Jax said, nodding.

“Do it,” Clay instructed. “Report back.”

He glanced around the room. The Chapel was sacrosanct, everything discussed at the table considered private unless it was voted otherwise.

“These assholes may be nothing to worry about,” he said. “A bunch of Bratva dogs fighting over table scraps, hoping their masters in Moscow notice and carve them off a bigger piece. They keep shooting each other, that oughta distract them from worrying about who put Putlova in the ground. Just the same, keep your eyes open, watch each other’s backs until we figure out who’s giving the orders on either side.”

Clay scanned their faces again, making sure nobody else felt the need to weigh in.

“All right, then,” he said, banging the gavel. “Adjourned.”

Jax left the others in the clubhouse and went outside, swinging the heavy door shut behind him. The air grew close when they were in church, jammed in that meeting room. There were a lot of guys, now, and that was good—it made the club strong.

As he strode to his bike, he dug into his pocket and tugged out his cell phone. Calling Lin might be a waste of time—the Russians wouldn’t have asked permission from the Chinese before they started their civil war—but it was possible Lin had heard something. If the Russians killed each other off, that was all for the better, but Jax worried about collateral damage.

He reached out to Lin.

Footfalls scuffed the parking lot behind him and Jax turned, still skittish from the attack that morning. He must have looked ready to fight, because Chucky held up his hands—what was left of them—in immediate surrender, just to make sure Jax knew he wasn’t a threat.

As if Chucky Marstein could ever have been a threat.

“Whoa, Jax. It’s just Chucky.”

“You think I wouldn’t recognize you?”

Always nervous, the bald, goateed little guy seemed more agitated than usual. “No, no. I thought maybe you’d gone, ya know, rabid or something.”

Jax cupped the phone in his hand. “You came out here for a reason.”

“Sorry, yeah.” Chucky rolled his eyes at his forgetfulness. “You’ve got a call in the office. Lady sounds pretty upset. Urgent-like.”

A frown creased Jax’s brow as he started walking toward the office. “You get a name?”

“No,” Chucky said, catching up to him, “but if it helps, she’s got some kinda accent. English, I think. Maybe Irish.”

Jax slid his phone into the inside pocket of his cut, Chucky completely forgotten. He stepped into the shade of the office and saw the phone on the desk, old-fashioned corkscrew cord all tangled. His mother, Gemma, had inherited his father’s share of Teller-Morrow, and most days she could be found in the office. Jax was grateful she wasn’t there now or she would have been the one to answer the phone. During his time in Belfast many years past, JT had gotten involved with a woman named Maureen Ashby. Jax had a half-sister whose existence he’d only discovered when he’d made his own trip to Belfast. Any woman with an Irish accent calling the office of Teller-Morrow and getting Gemma on the phone would not be well received.

Jax picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Can you talk, Jax? I didn’t know who else to call.”

Maureen was a woman with sharp edges, but he’d gotten along with her well enough while in Belfast. She reminded him of his own mother, though Gemma would have crucified him if he’d ever said it aloud.

Hearing Maureen sound this desperate and afraid made Jax very nervous.

“What’s up?” He glanced back at Chucky, alarm bells going off in his head. Only one thing could have made Maureen Ashby lose her cool. “Something happen with Trinity?”

“Girl’s gone missing,” Maureen said. “Off the radar. I’ve left her twenty messages. Haven’t heard from her in more than two weeks and now—”

“What do you mean, two weeks? She lives with you.”

“Not for months she hasn’t.”

“Hang on,” Jax said, growing more frustrated than worried. He turned and ushered Chucky from the office. When the little guy had gone, he sat down at the desk. “Start from the beginning.”

“There’s no beginnin’, Jax. She’s off with them Russians, and I figure if anyone can find her, it’s you.”

Jax pushed a hand through a thick scruff of his blond hair. “What Russians?”

Given the events of the day, just asking the question made him nauseated.

“Five months ago, it was. A whole Russian delegation shows up—Mafia bastards—wantin’ to do business with Brogan, Dooley, and Roarke—”

“The Russians didn’t come to Belfast uninvited,” Jax interrupted.

“Do I bloody care if they were invited?” Maureen snapped. “They were here doin’ business, that’s all I know. Roarke had a friend among them, as much as Roarke has friends.”

A dreadful calm settled over Jax, the same feeling that always descended on him when things took an ugly turn. It felt like sinking into quicksand and simply throwing his hands up, letting it drag him down, knowing that once it had swallowed him, things would only get worse.

The Irish Kings—the ruling council of the Real IRA—had entertained a visit from some faction of the Bratva. It made a sick kind of sense. Jimmy O’Phelan had been the RIRA’s man in California, handling the illegal gun business and the relationship with SAMCRO. He’d tried to cut SAMCRO out by directly approaching the Russians, but he’d gone completely rogue, making a mess big enough that the Kings not only gave their blessing for him to be killed… they rewarded SAMCRO for carrying out the hit.

Now, if Maureen knew what she was talking about, the Russians had made an appeal to the Kings after Jimmy O had been killed. Jax needed to know more—needed to know how that visit had gone and what it meant for the relationship between SAMCRO and the Irish—but Maureen hadn’t called to talk business or the politics of criminal enterprises.

“One of the Russians—a strong-arm fella named Oleg Voloshin—he followed Trinity like he was in orbit around her.”