Vassili
How the fuck do I respond to her? Zariah turns her head away from me. She takes my lack of willingness to fuck faces as if I’m dismissing her. I went from slamming my cock into a different pussy a day, sometimes more, but my wife satisfied me in ways I cannot begin to explain. I can’t just slobber her face down today. Shit, I didn’t even know I was starving until Zariah became mine. But with my parents on my mind, I am in the wrong headspace for PDA. Because I’m amped up on adrenaline, and maybe because I’m paranoid like my fucking father about a few things.
Zariah starts to sway to the music. She snaps her fingers, closes her eyes. All the restraint in the world is holding me back from her right now. No need for ass shaking, my girl is too fucking beautiful just being herself. She doesn’t even know that it’s the little things that send my cock to a heavy rise and my heart drumming in my chest.
“Dance with me?” Zariah asks out of the blue.
Fuck, can’t say I don’t dance because Natasha jiggled around even as she crawled to music. I do dance, but in the few years that Zariah and I have been back together, we’ve only attended the VIP section in clubs. And I would bash a man’s skull in for looking at her at The Red Door. There’s never been a time we were dancing in the lounge when it’s been open to the public.
My eyes keep zipping around. Really, have I gone paranoid, obsessively anxious like Anatoly? Someone is here…
Zariah glowers, expecting an answer. She doesn’t know that I’m scanning the room with my peripheral vision because that would lead to more questions. Like the truth. So I take the dick way out…an excuse. “You don't know the words to the song. We don't know the words. Why dance?”
There. In the side, left corner, a man who resembles one of my many brothers sits, nursing a shot glass. My muscles tense.
Zariah rubs my bicep. “Vassili, baby, dance with me.”
My eyes lock onto hers. “I don't fucking dance.” My voice is hard as ever, iced over due to hate from a past life. And dammit, I need to see what this guy wants. “Okay, love?” My mouth tips at the edge to soften the blow.
Yet Zariah cuts her eyes, and glances away from me.
Yuri slaps a hand on the table. “tchyo za ga`lima, kazen!” What the fuck, he asks in Russian.
“Po'shyol 'na hu.” My middle finger goes to the air as I toss back my beer.
As if on key, my cell phone vibrates in my jean pocket. I pull it out.
“Is that my mom?” Zariah asks. She'd left her phone with her mom and Natasha, since her mother’s cell won't hold much juice.
“It's…” I glance at the screen. Anatoly. “Nobody.”
“Nobody,” she breathes the word.
“Hey, Zar,” Taryn cuts in and saves the day. My wife’s mouth was set for a comeback. She says, “There’s a new bartender, let’s see if we can get a good old’ fashion Cosmo? Beer is not my fancy.” Taryn lifts up her empty glass. The girls rise and head toward the bar.
“That your pop?” Yuri asks.
“Dah—yes!”
“So beside being a fucking `khu i—dick, is Zariah aware that the two of you are talking again? Because I’ve seen you just about pawing Zar’s pus—” he stops and gulps. Changing his phrase out of respect. “I’ve seen you two go at it, Vassili, many times. So is that why you’ve hardly touched her tonight?”
I rub the scar along my jaw with my thumb thinking about how Anatoly called me seven months ago. The first thing out of his mouth was ‘disrespect.’ That the MMA fighter, Louie the legion Gotti, disrespected me in the cage by placing me into submission and tearing my patella. I laughed at his ass until he promised that The Gotti only had seconds to live. Meaning that one of my brothers with a particular motherfucking set of skills was probably a hundred yards away from Gotti’s kitchen or living room or somewhere the fighter had to be in plain view. After calming Anatoly down and saving Gotti’s life, the piz’da and I continued to talk.
“Tell her,” Yuri warns.
I shake my head, and respond to my cousin, “Nah, she doesn't need to know.”
“He came to you with a peace offering… you declined,” Yuri says of the unnecessary ass hit on Gotti. He shrugs. “This is the longest period of time that you and Anatoly have talked to each other. He wants something.”
No shit! I’m aware of exactly what that mudak wants. “Okay, okay? What the fuck, Yuri, am I stupid now?” I bark, still keeping an eye on the guy in the corner. There’s a shadow masking much of his face, but the resemblance is all too familiar.
“First, you didn't want Zariah around me. Me. I’m more than blood, Vassili! I’m your brah! We are like brothers. Then my pops, Malich, and the family were off limits, okay, I saw that coming. Zariah loves Malich and the family now. But now Anatoly is in your ear and you’re acting… Will your morals slip with him, too?”
The man stands up. My hand comes up into the air, and Yuri stops talking. This idiot thinks I’ll up and allow Anatoly to come around my wife and kid one bright sunny ass day! Fuck that! And he’s too stupid to realize that I’m about to tear this motherfucker across the way a new one. “Do I need a lecture from you, Yuri? Nyet—no.”
I glare through Yuri. Then I start toward the hallway that leads to the restrooms where the man in jeans and a hat just went. He has to be one of my brats—brothers. Anatoly keeps popping up. If this is my blood, he’s getting the blood bashed out of him.
In the hallway, my pace slows down. There’re two guys between me and the other Russian. There are lines leading to both the men and women’s restrooms. With my hand in a fist, I bite my knuckles and glance over my shoulder. The girls are sweet talking a new bartender for some sugary ass drink. From their location, they’d be able to see me bash this mudak’s head in.
There’s a door reading ‘Cozinha’ which means kitchen in Portuguese, with arrows that implicate it swings open, a few yards before the crowded restrooms. When the doors swing open I cock a grin. The line shuffles forward.
“You should tell her,” Yuri says over my shoulder.
A deep breath funnels into my lungs. Shit, he followed me over here. “What?”
“You and Zariah are in good until your dad sneaks his ass into the States. He has you worried and treating Zariah like—”
In a few quick steps, I’m around the two people between the other Russian and I. My palm stiffs the side of his shoulder and he goes stumbling into the kitchen.
My left hook goes out, targeting his nose. It’s powerful enough to slide him across the room. At the last instant, I raise my elbow. My bone catches the face of the Brazilian line chef who is holding a butcher knife to the side of my face. His jaw is reset. He’s out cold, hitting the ground so swiftly that his knife hardly began to clatter to the ground.
Fuck, there are seven more where he came from, all ready for war.
“What the hell?” Yuri asks behind me as he catches an angry dishwasher with a jab to his eye.
“This guy is my—” I slam my foot into my enemy’s chest. The Russian’s eyes widen. But his gaze isn’t dark like mine—ocean blue. And come to think of it, he doesn’t look shit like me. He is no family of mine. This mudak isn’t even Russian!
The man is a serious golden color and his voice is off when he clutches his chest and says, “What the fuck, mate!”
He’s Australian. His dialect, the confusion on his face, all of it is pure comedy.
“I thought I knew you,” I tell him, as I press my arms against the shoulders of another Brazilian chef and take a knee to his junk. Fuck it, they have weapons. I’m playing dirty. The knife in his hand falls.
“Oh, I thought I knew you, too,” the Aussie chuckles, with effort, while regaining air into his lungs. “You’re the fighter, Karo?” Now, he’s gripping a frying pan in one hand. I brace my forearm, but he slams the damn thing right over my left shoulder. It sends another man clear out.
In seconds, all three of us have taken out the guys in the kitchen.
“I’m the fighter.” I shrug, taking a deep breath, licking the blood from my busted lip.
“Okay, wanker, can I get your autograph, and mind telling me what had you acting like a fuckstick?”
His choice of words goes over my head. I was in the wrong and this is as close as we get to an apology on my part.
“Sure.” I shrug, grabbing a tab and a pen from the apron of one the servers Yuri just put down.
“Dah, I’d like to know, too?” My cousin smooths the lapel of his suit.
We chat for a few minutes as the Aussie tells me his girl is in their hotel room sick, so he came down for a drink, at least I think he said that. He tosses words out like spiffed and chockers and I pat his back.
A waitress heads into the kitchen and she stops in her wake, sees all the guys on the ground, and then glances at the three of us. She grabs a plate on the counter and goes back to her business.
“We better get the fuck outta here, before they wake up,” Yuri says.
“It was fun, mates,” the Aussie heads for the door.
I start for it.
“Brat, I’m not gonna waste my fucking breath again, but tell her that Anatoly is coming around.” Yuri’s shoulders lift in defeat.
Without responding, I press my hands against the kitchen door, and allow it to swing open.
Nothing, aside from my marriage, is off topic. Yuri always understands where my head is at. He was a little bitch when I told him to stay away from Zariah, but in the end, he respected that. And he was right, Zariah did love the family—the half that Anatoly uses his fucking puppet master antics on from across the ocean. My uncle’s side of the family is closer to me than anything. Malich has always been more like a father to me. His sons, especially Yuri, are more brothers than that of the football team of half siblings I have.
For the longest, I couldn’t give a fuck about my father. Anatoly held me under the same regard. But after losing my belt to Gotti, my father wanted to intervene. And I haven't told Yuri the extent to Anatoly's interest in my life these days.
It has nothing to do with him.
And it sure as hell doesn’t have anything to do with Zariah because unlike her willingness to meet and greet with Malich, Yuri and the rest of them, she will never be crossing paths with my father. I won’t allow it.
I just have to get Anatoly Resnov out of my fucking face.