Vassili
My eyes close for a fraction of second as I process the past hour. Grigor and Semion had me convinced that the man in the Maybach being guarded by that dog faced fucking cousin of mine was my father. Anatoly doesn’t exit from hiding without heavy security. Hence, my assumption that Anatoly was in the backseat of the car.
A familiar scent hits me. It’s of lemon, fir cones, and black currant, the scent is a favorite of Putin, and my father, forcing my frown to deepen.
I kiss Natasha’s soft cheek. “Don’t play nice with grandpa,” I tell her, recalling the first time Anatoly came to my neck of the woods. We were at a daddy-daughter day at the park near our home. She was on a swing when three SUVs pulled up.
Zariah knows nothing about that.
She never will.
We enter the dining room. There’s a China cabinet to one side, in the middle is a fortress of a table. Crystal goblets, silver chargers, and other trinkets give the table a posh home magazine feel. On each side of the lengthy, custom made table, three men stand. My eyes cut to their holstered guns. Then my wrath directs to my father. At the park, he was incognito with a red wig. Yet wearing one of his usual colorful suits. Today, he swapped the bright blue suit for a canary yellow one, with an even brighter blue silk tie. Enough jeweled on his fingers to certify him as a real bitch. Fucking idiot.
“Bring her here, bring her here,” Anatoly clasps his hands together. “My little Chak Chak,” he says, having given Natasha the nickname of a Turkish dessert, which is deep fried and drenched in honey, and a staple with Russian tea.
“Cha… Cha!” My daughter trades teams instantly, chubby fists pumping in the air.
“Moy syn—my son!” Anatoly snaps at me. “Bring my granddaughter. I wasn’t invited to her first birthday, have some common decency. Let’s save the ‘you’re disappointing me’ for later. Unless you’re ready to agree with the only proposal on the table?”
“Nyet. I’m good with disappointing you, it’s the norm for us,” I snarl. Though I cuss in front of my child, I place my hand over her ear, the other is trapped against my sweaty ass shirt. She has this habit of picking up words that are said in emotion—or lack thereof. “Have I ever made it seem like I give a fuck about your psychotic requests?”
His hard eyes match my glare, and then they soften while he holds out his hands for Natasha. “Chak-Chak, are you walking yet?”
“A couple of steps.” I turn to one of the men. “If those guns go from any of your waistbands, you’re all dead.”
The man’s gaze falls to the floor.
“Pah!” My father scoffs. “Semion is about the only one of these fucks who doesn’t care for your threats.”
“Good, Good. Make him your legacy.”
“My nephew?” He considers the idea with disdain, ready to argue, but I place Natasha on her own two feet, and take both of her hands. Again, I want to tell her not to play nice, but she’s pressing off from her knees and attempting to hurry to the piece of a crap of a father of mine.
His praise for my daughter curdles in my ears. Though I cannot recall being so young, I remember my sister, Sasha. Out of all my father’s children, Sasha and I had the same mother. Anatoly did not glance her way much of the time he came over. And no matter how hard I tried to make it up to Sasha, she chose the lifestyle my father got rich on. Drugs.
With my support, Natasha takes heavy, shaky steps down the length of the table to her grandfather.
“I like black people,” Anatoly’s words come out of nowhere. “Can’t say this for your wife—beautiful shape— but this girl, my Chak Chak is the perfect color.” He tugs out of his suit, and places his arm next to hers, they’re both a golden complexion. “Fuck, I could sunbath for days and not obtain this flawless hue. Girl, you are 24 karat gold.”
She laughs at his disgusting comments. My father holds out a velvet box. “Chak Chak, this is for you.”
He opens it, and the diamond earrings inside are so ridiculously large that she’ll tumble attempting to walk with them in her ear. The moment he leaves, those go to.
I sit on the chair next to him, and pull out my cell phone. It’s almost two pm.
“Vassili,” my father says my name, in a testy tone, when I assumed he always took great pleasure in saying ‘my son’ just to irritate me.
I toss the phone on the table. “You afraid I’ll call America’s Most Wanted?”
He’s paranoid. Natasha stands in his lap and pulls out his handkerchief in a matter of seconds. Next, she goes for his tie. I smile as he gulps.
“Chak-Chak, too many people want to kill me. Not you, too?” He smiles at her, with a million-dollar row of veneers, while removing his tie from her tight fists.
“Cha… Cha… Daddy!” She shouts.
This mudak proceeds to gift her with all of his attention. “I have too many kids, sweetheart. Shit, you aren’t even my first grand baby, but you are the most important one. You belong to moy syn. You are princess of the bratva, yes you are.” He laughs.
“She isn’t princess of the fucking bratva, Anatoly.” I sit back in my chair. “What do you want? I have shit to do.”
With his tie removed, my father addresses me again. This time, the usual pure anger in his eyes is knocked down a few notches. “You and I have a business to run.”
“Oh, you’re going legit now? I may need a new manager if Yuri keeps slacking off.” I am far from comedic, and my carefree stance slithers beneath his skin.
“How’s The Red Door?” He mentions the lounge that I own in honor of my dearly departed sister, Sasha.
“Good.”
“I see Resnov Vodka is still the prime seller.”
“I have a contract.” I grunt. “The family vodka is about the only legacy that I give a fuck about, Anatoly.”
“Return my girls to The Red Door.”
I shake my head, not even wasting my breath with a response.
“What do you want, Vassili? The last time I came to California, didn’t I tell you that there’d be consequences of noncooperation.”
My hand slams against the table. The sturdy wood splinters. “You do not threaten me!”
Natasha jolts, her cute little face puckers into a frown. And then she bursts into tears.
The men become tense. Each one easing his hand along the butt of his gun.
“Pull them out, and die,” I growl through tensed lips.
“Chak-Chak, your otets—father is a very bull-headed man. He is blood of my blood. He will get passes, trust me, beautiful, no one in this world will touch a hair of his head or your head.”
“Or my wife’s.” I argue.
“Or your mothers of course, what sort of man would I be?”
Our eyes lock onto each other’s. This motherfucker murdered my mother.
“I had nothing to do with it,” Anatoly reads my mind. “I loved your mother, Vassili.”
Tears burn against my eyes. My knuckles are numb. I glance down at them. Their also ashen gray due to holding them into tight fists. My breaths come short, as I think about all the crap my mother was put through by this man. He made her weak.
I hated her.
I still have him to hate for it.
“You removed all the girls from The Red Door, Vassili. Make your father happy for once and return them,” his tone is callus. “You’ve had ample time. No, you’ve had more time than necessary. I was sick for a while, so you have had more time than necessary to stop being stubborn. Do it now, before something happens.”
“Dah, I’m aware of the repercussions of my actions. If we weren’t family, I’d be dead. If it makes you feel any better, Malich was the one who handled anything that had a connection to you. He ensured that the cunts were safe, and the rich old fucks kept coming. All the mistrust you have for your baby brat—brother is bullshit. Malich plays into the rules where one must do what they’re parents asks, or their older brother, in your case. But I give respect where respect is given. And I can’t’ recall a day in my life that I gave a fuck about you.”
“Vassili,” he breathes heavily, still cooing into Natasha’s ear as she cries against this neck. “I tried so very hard with you. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that you, and that other fucking girl were always so much like your mama. But they are both dead now.” He says of Sasha and his first wife. “You are moy syn,” he argues through gritted teeth. “Mine.”
“Sasha. Do you even recall your own daughter’s name?”
“Daughter’s names? Hmmm, I don’t recollect many of them by name, no.”
“So, I allow you to sex traffic your high-end prostitutes at The Red Door. What’s next?”
“You head it, instead of Malich. I don’t need my little brother, Vassili. I sure as fuck don’t need my nephew. Semion gets a snug wee bullet to the skull when you become king. Contrary to how you perceive things, everything I have ever accomplished was for the benefit of my first child.” He kisses Natasha’s head as she snores softly.
“I’ve been thinking.” I stare at him for a beat. “If we took this moment in time and dissected it. Tore it away from the image of the man who had my mother tied to a street sign in our hometown and had a sign of vulgarities strung around her. If we took this precise second and forgot about the families you’ve had murdered, the whores you had strung out or given “the world to” in order to fuck other rich old fucks for money. What would we have? Anatoly, what kinda man are you without the power and fear?”
He rubs Natasha’s back softly, and I swear the glare he gives me tells me that she is the only safe person in this house. Blood is slamming through my veins. But I won’t fight him. My child is here. There was a day when I would fight my father fist for fist, only to be stopped by multiple guns to my head. In his warped mind, me being his first born is like my golden ticket to act like any other over-privileged white American boy. I can play fool. Cuss him. Fight him. Just like those Facebook home videos that some people think are funny and tear my fucking heart out because in another world you respect your elders. But not him. He’ll go toe to toe with me no problem. He’ll let me push the limits.
Nobody else can. Malich will suffer. Yuri and Igor will be marked. I continue with, “so what kinda motherfucker are you without the team, huh?” I glare through him, realizing he had to have sent the email. It would be too coincidental for him to come two days after. I’d ask him, but the mudak is a liar.
He bestows a loving kiss at the top of Natasha’s head. “The kind who gets shit done.”
“I’ll think about the bitches, okay?” I lie. Because motherfuckers like him just want attention.
“Returning them to The Red Door?” His eyebrow cocks in hope. When I nod, he asks, “What’s to think about? I’ve lost a mill a week, fucking with you for over a year, Vassili.”
“Then you continue to lose a little longer.” Until I speak with Malich and we come up with a plan to get rid of you for good.
***
“I want out,” Malich’s response is amplified through the speaker of my car radio. “The moment Zariah kicked my old ass out of The Red Door—”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was. She has balls. I love and respect your wife, Vassili. She’s just like my…” The confidence in his voice fades for a moment. “You’ve got a good girl. Gets shit done. I got the boot from The Red Door. You removed all the illegal crap. Now, I want out. Should’ve done it years ago.”
“Dyadya,” I call my uncle in Russian. My hands are tightened on the wheel as I head down the street near Zariah’s job. “I can’t put you in this situation. I’ll sell The Red Door. Besides, the second we opened for business I had nothing to do with the place. I spent millions having it designed just like Sasha dreamt.” I almost laugh at the thought. “The constructor said the place would be perfect. And then I turned pussy and couldn’t step into the place. Shit, you ran the day to day business and the whores until I bucked up enough to actually venture inside. Zariah just made me get rid of them, clean the place out, ya know? I still don’t have much to do with it.”
“You’ll sell The Red door, Vassili?” He asks in the fatherly disappointment that I learned from him. “All because of Anatoly?”
I glance into the rearview mirror, Natasha is gnawing at her teething ring. “Yeah. Fuck him. I purchased that place for Sasha’s memory, but my little sister will live in my heart.”
“Vassili, your cousins and I will be okay. I might play the part for Anatoly, and I promise you that I have never fucked over my brother, but he has to understand that when he runs an organization, he either gains loyalty or fear.”
I slap down the handle that turns the left blinker on. “Malich, I understand. You always say that there’s no ruling with both.”
“No, son, there is not. One day his men will turn on him. But the crew who runs his West Coast Operation won’t allow him to do anything. We are Resnovs, Vassili. Boss of all bosses or not, your father won’t harm any of us unless we have betrayed him. We’ve done nothing but retire. So what, it leaves a chair open in the big 7. Anatoly owns the big seven.”
“But you have a voice.”
“Did you just hear me? All the mudaks sitting at the table have no say. The seven chairs are bullshit, Anatoly rules. Do what you intended, tell the fool no for the umpteenth time, and make him understand that you will not return on your word. Keep The Red Door, one day when your glory days in the MMA cage are behind you, you may want to manage it yourself. Don’t give it up.”
Fuck, am I giving up? “Alright,” I reply, sliding into a parking spot at Billingsley Legal.
***
Inside the building, we are made even further late due to the workers who stop to speak with Natasha. I can’t take but five steps before another secretary or assistant says something.
“Oh, did you do her hair?”
“Yup.” I reply.
“You are getting good at this.”
“Thanks!” I respond once more.
“Natasha, you are the prettiest little girl in the world.”
Another one says, “She’s spoiled rotten, that’s what she is. Pretty little doll.”
My glare tracks just above the cubicles to the far side of the building, where a man is standing at the door to Zariah’s office. From this angle, I can’t place his face.
I’m half way there when Samuel comes from his office. “Vassili, Natasha, some of my most favorite people.” I shake the man’s hand and he takes Natasha. “We still on for Sunday dinner?”
“Long as my steak is ready.” I nod.
“Alright, Alright. I’ll bring the meats, you bake the cake?”
I chuckle. Samuel is a fan of my Russian cake. It all happened due to Malich, his love of food started a friendly competition. I made Sasha’s favorite.
“Not too loud, Sam. Nobody has to know about our arrangement. But as long as you haven’t forgotten about how I like my steak, I got you.” I hold up lunch that I bought.
“You head on in Zariah’s room. I think Natasha has a few more autographs to give out,” he grins.
I turn to walk away. Damn, I can recall the day when Samuel Billingsley tried to get my cousin, Igor Resnov, to turn snitch on the rest of my family. Can’t believe the same man gave me a chance, with someone so important to him. Zariah.
The doorway to Zariah’s room is empty.
At the sound of her voice, my pace falters “Oh God, this is soooo good, Tyrese. Almost makes me feel bad for not recalling who you are.”
“Well, we have time to catch up,” comes a response that has a little too much interest in it.
“Yeah right, this place is very busy,” she responds just as I step into the room.
There’s a black man sitting on the chair across from hers. The mudak is entirely too comfortable in her presence.