Niko and Roman are forced to flee to Bohan after their apartment and taxi company are burned down by Dimitri’s men. After Niko denies the allegation, a firefight ensues, allowing Dimitri and Bulgarin to escape. When Petrović threatens retaliation, Dimitri convinces Niko to assassinate Faustin in order to make amends, but later betrays and brings Niko before his former employer Ray Bulgarin, who accuses him of stealing from him a few years earlier. Not bothered by Vlad’s murder, Faustin hires Niko, who quickly discovers Faustin’s true nature after being ordered to kill the son of Russian crime lord Kenny Petrović. N retaliation, Niko and Roman are kidnapped by Russian mobsters on orders of Mikhail Faustin and his deputy Dimitri Rascalov. While carrying out jobs for Roman, Niko makes his first criminal contacts, including Yardies underboss Little Jacob, whom he befriends, and Vlad Glebov, Roman’s Russian loan shark, whom he eventually kills upon learning he slept with Roman’s girlfriend, Mallorie. Upon arrival, however, Niko discovers that Roman’s tales of riches and luxury were lies concealing struggles with gambling debts and loan sharks, and that Roman lives in a dirty apartment in Broker and runs a small taxi company.
Niko Bellic, an Eastern European, arrives in Liberty City aboard a cargo ship, the Platypus, to reunite with his cousin Roman, pursue the American Dream, and search for the man who betrayed his unit in a war fifteen years prior.
