“What’s going on?” He sinks back into the chair. He could try to run out of the office, but he’d have to get past me, Yogi, and Boris. Chances are damn near zero.
“How’d you get the product, Yosif?” I ask, done fucking around. Charlotte is home alone on a Saturday afternoon, and I’d rather be taking her to the pool on the roof of the building she doesn’t know about yet than dealing with this bullshit. But betrayal can’t go ignored.
What little color that’s left drains from his face and he swallows hard.
“Don’t fucking lie, either. Just fucking tell me. Where’d you get the product, and how have you been doing this?” I keep my voice level, but if he lies things are going to get loud in here.
He stares at me hard. It’s so quiet, I can almost hear his brain rifling through ideas of how to get out of this.
“Ivan?” I jump to the biggest worry I have.
His eyes beg me not to make him say it.
“Ivan has someone on one of our distribution crews?” It’s going to be like pulling teeth, getting him to betray his uncle.
“I needed the money, Nikolai. The medicines are so expensive. And the insurance… she has no papers, Nikolai. She couldn’t get papers to get insurance.” He rushes out his reasons for betraying my family.
“Ivan hooked you up with someone that works for us?” I press forward.
He blows out a hard breath and closes his eyes. “He… he hooked me up with someone. I meet him once a month and take whatever he gives me, then I go sell it to dealers. Ivan… shit!” He leans his head back and takes another breath. “My uncle set it up, but he didn’t… I mean… he didn’t take any cut for it, Nikolai.”
“No. Because he’s probably getting a cut from the guy he hooked you up with. You’re family, Yosif, and he feels for your situation. It’s his sister after all.” I’m no longer concerned that Ivan’s love of his family gets in the way of his emotions. The fucker doesn’t have any.
“Who’s the guy, Yosif?” Boris asks quietly. “We need the name.”
Yosif rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “She’s my mother,” he whispers. The agony in his voice is the only thing that saves him. He’s young, his father ran off when Yosif was still a toddler. His mother is all he has, except for Ivan—and he’s done nothing but make his problems a hell of a lot worse.
“I know,” I say. “But I need a name, Yosif. That’s how you survive this. You give me the name.”
He looks up at me, eyes red and tears still clinging to the edge of his eyelids. “Ivan will kill me, if you don’t.”
“Your uncle isn’t a problem. You don’t tell him we talked, and I won’t tell him we talked.” I need to get to my father first, explain everything that’s happened. And somehow tell him that his best friend, his closest friend that he’s seen as a brother for most of his life has been betraying us all.
“The guy’s name is Scott Vesler,” he says and leans forward, cradling his head in his hands.
“How long, Yosif? How long have you been stealing from my family?” I ask.
“Three months.”
I nod.
“But Ivan’s been doing this for years,” he offers.
My blood runs hot. It’s not just Scott Vesler I want to get my hands on. I want to know how nobody saw this happening. How the fuck did Ivan get away with skimming product for years without anyone seeing it?
“Okay.” I walk over to him and put my hand on his head. “Okay. Remember, you don’t talk to your uncle. You don’t do anything until you hear from me, understand?”
He looks up at me. “Yes. I get it, Nikolai. I promise.” As if that’s good for anything anymore.
“Yogi will take you home. Is your mother staying with you?”
He nods. “Yeah. We have a home nurse there now; she takes care of her.”
I look at Yogi. “Make sure the nurse is paid for the next month, then get the payments taken care of. Have the bills sent to me. Get it all squared away.”
Yosif makes a sound, like he’s about to sob, but he gets it together.
“Nikolai. I can’t thank you enough. I can’t… I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He grabs hold of my hand, but I pull it away.