“Oh, no,” Kaz said, his gaze moving back and forth between the object on the edge of the counter and Violet’s confused expression. “This can’t be had, krasivaya.”
“I can’t help—”
“I do not give you a weapon for you to put it down and say you can’t use it. That’s not how that works, Violet.”
“Well, I don’t know how!”
Kaz just looked exasperated. “How … how on earth can you possibly not know how to work a gun?”
“I just … don’t,” she finished lamely.
“This can’t be had,” Kaz repeated, although it was more to himself that time.
Violet, still confused as fuck, watched as he pushed away from the counter and snatched his cell phone he’d discarded while he was pouring coffee. Still muttering, albeit in Russian, he typed in a number, turned his back to her, and put the phone to his ear.
She barely heard the faint murmur of someone answering before Kaz said, “What are you doing today, brat?”
Violet hesitated, almost positive she knew that word meant “brother.”
“Well, un-plan. I need something,” Kaz said. “Be here in twenty.”
Kaz hung up the call and spun around to face Violet. For a long moment, he just stared at her.
“What?” she finally asked, unnerved by his watching.
“I have to do something today. Rus will teach you.”
“Teach me—what?”
“Guns,” Kaz explained. “He’s a good teacher. He has patience when others don’t.”
That was that.
Not even an hour and a half later, Violet followed behind Ruslan Markovic as he opened the rusted, dented metal door of what appeared to be a shoddy, run-down warehouse.
Something dripped down from the hallway ceiling, and she squeaked when the water—Jesus, she hoped it was water—hit her shoulder.
Ruslan only laughed. “What, does this place offend your sensibilities, princess?”
Violet tried not to glare … and failed. “I feel like just looking at the door earned me the need for a tetanus shot.”
“Cute. Let’s go. Watch your step.”
Violet did as she was told, noticing how every few feet down the hallway, the floor dropped off a few inches. Like very large steps.
And then they weren’t in a hallway at all, but standing at the mouth of a large warehouse with a dirt floor, weapons of all kind lining the walls, and lights high above.
The strange security panel Violet had watched Ruslan punch numbers into on the outside of the building finally made sense. She had thought it odd a place that seemed so old and unused would need any kind of security.
What could possibly be hidden inside to keep safe?
Guns, apparently.
Many guns.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Ruslan asked, noting the look of wonder on Violet’s face.
“I don’t know if that’s the word I would use.”
“You’ve seen guns before, yes?”
“Not this many.”
“But you have,” he pressed.
Violet stared him straight on. “You might be surprised to learn this, but before I met Kaz, I had never even heard a gunshot before.”
“Huh.”
That was all he said.
Huh.
“Is that surprising?” she asked.
Ruslan shrugged. “No, more interesting than anything. Didn’t your father have guns in his house?”
“One—I saw it in his office. I don’t know about others. I never noticed.”
“You never noticed because he didn’t have them,” Ruslan replied just as fast. “Believe me, they’re hard to miss when you’re the kind of man who needs one close by.”
He waved at one of the many walls lined with all sorts of weaponry. “Pick a handgun. Might as well choose one you like because you’ll be taking it with you. The semantics of guns are essentially the same—load the clip, take the safety off, cock the hammer, and then the trigger. Simple.”
Violet still didn’t understand why she needed to know this at all. “What if I said I didn’t like guns?”
“Then this will be a lot harder on you than it needs to be. It’s non-negotiable. Pick a gun.”
Ruslan was not like Kaz, Violet was learning.
Kaz said he had more patience, but she didn’t think that was true at all. Or maybe it was the fact Violet had an entirely different relationship with Kaz than she did with Ruslan. She didn’t know the oldest Markovic brother all that well to begin with.
Clearly, Ruslan was not going to handle this situation with kid gloves.
Or Violet, for that matter.
Still hesitant, Violet moved toward the rows of guns when Ruslan waved at her as if he was shooing a frightened little dog away from his massive form. She looked over the wall that seemed to house the majority of the handguns, and she didn’t have a fucking clue what she was looking at.
When she reached for a particular one that was rather long with a brushed steel finish, Ruslan cleared his throat, stopping her attempt to grab the weapon.
Glancing over her shoulder, she asked, “What?”
“Not the Eagle. It’s got about ten pounds of weight you can’t handle, not to mention the kickback. Something smaller—try again.”
“But I like that one.”
“And I bet you like not having a sprained wrist, too,” Ruslan replied, sounding bored. “Pick a different one.”
Frustrated, Violet turned back to the guns. “Why don’t you just tell me which one to pick?”
“Third row down, fourth gun on the wall—all black.”
Violet pointed at the one she thought he meant, looking back to see Ruslan nod. She grabbed the gun off the rack and stepped back, feeling the weight of it in her palms and running her thumb over the grip on the butt.
“It’s a nine millimeter,” Ruslan explained, coming to stand beside her. “Common weapon for police, but it’s also easy to handle, simple to shoot, has good accuracy, and it won’t break your wrist when you fire it.”
She had no clue what he was talking about mostly, but he’d said simple.
She could probably do simple.
“Am I going to just … shoot at that stuff over there?” Violet asked, pointing at the rows of targets set up at the other end of the long warehouse.
Ruslan chuckled. “No. Now, you’re going to learn. Then, and only then, will you shoot.”
Fun.
Violet wasn’t entirely sure it would be.
For the next two hours, Violet learned how to disassemble, clean, reassemble, and load the nine millimeter Ruslan had told her to choose. After the fifth time of taking the gun apart, her hands were goddamn tired, and she was bored.
But he just looked at her from the side, his hands still tinkering with a gun he’d taken off the wall, and said, “Again.”
That was it.
Again.
By the tenth time, Violet was starting to understand why. The more she touched the gun, the more she asked about the different pieces and how things worked, and the more comfortable she felt holding it and possibly using it.
She wasn’t sure if that was because she understood the weapon—because she didn’t think she understood it at all—or because Ruslan was purposefully desensitizing her to handling it.
Either way, it was smart on his part.
Maybe she understood what Kaz meant when he said Ruslan was a good teacher.
“Shouldn’t I have those ear things and safety glasses on?” Violet asked.
Ruslan looked at her as if she’d grown two heads in the span of seconds. “God, why?”
Standing at the table about seventy feet from the targets made of paper with human-like forms painted on, Violet waved at the gun and bullets. “Because isn’t that, oh, I don’t know, safe?”
“No offense—I mean, take all the offense—but you’re not going to be wearing ear and eye protection when you shoot someone in the face,” Ruslan said, smiling in the oddest way.
“You’re patronizing me,” Violet accused.
“I am. Load the clip. Let me know when you’re ready.”
Still a little nervous, Violet shook the feeling off and did what she’d spent the last two hours learning how to do. It took no time at all for her to fill the clips with bullets and slide it into the butt of the gun until that audible, distinctive click sounded.
Not even bothering to wait for Ruslan’s okay, she flicked off the safety and cocked the hammer.
“Do you want to just stand there and think about it for a while or go for it?” Ruslan asked.
Violet gave him a dirty look. “You can stop that at any time.”
“No patronizing this time. I’m serious. The first time is going to be loud, you might close your eyes, though you should drop that before it becomes a habit, and your wrists might ache a little afterward. Hold it tight, keep it straight, and try not to flinch. That’s all. Take your time.”
Strangely, she appreciated his advice.
And gone from his face was that almost snide smile. He only looked at her, waiting.
“Loud, huh?” Violet asked.
“It doesn’t help that we’re inside, but yes, it’s loud. It’ll lessen. The first one is a shock.”
Violet pursed her lips, curious. “How old were you the first time you shot a gun?”
“Ten … ish,” he added, chuckling.
“That seems young.”
“It was. Enough about me.”
Taking a deep breath, Violet faced the targets and lifted the gun to aim, holding it tight with a two-handed grip the way Ruslan had showed her. Still, she hesitated before wrapping a finger around the trigger.
“All the time in the w—”
Violet pulled the trigger, and Ruslan had been right.
Entirely right.
She hadn’t been expecting the volume of the gunshot to be as loud as it was, and it made her both flinch and close her eyes. She hadn’t realized, despite being repeatedly warned to keep a stronghold on the gun no matter what, that the kickback on a small caliber, yet still powerful, weapon would be as strong as it was. Strong enough to bend her wrists back slightly and cause a bit of an ache.
Violet damn near dropped the gun on the table, but somehow, managed to easily set it down with shaking hands.
“I’m not doing that again,” she said.
Ruslan sighed. “Yes, you are.”
“No—”
“Non-negotiable. Pick it up. Do it again.”
Violet glared at the gun, both angry and a little scared that it had surprised and frightened her. “I don’t see why I even need to have one.”
“Because Kaz wants you to learn.”
“But—”
“You’ve been coddled a great deal, no?” Ruslan asked.
Violet blinked, stunned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Your father—his people. Even my brother, to an extent. They coddle you.”
Her hackles raised instantly. “I don’t think that’s the right word.”
“I think it fits just fine. And here’s the thing—I won’t coddle you. Pick the gun up, and let’s do it again. The more you do it, the easier it will be. This is important, despite how you may feel differently, and you need to learn. You can make that easy, or I can make it really hard.”
Violet almost had the nerve to ask exactly how Ruslan could make this whole experience harder than he already had, but she decided not to poke his monster when he was clearly playing nice for the moment.
“Fine,” she mumbled unhappily, picking the gun up again.
“Try one more time,” he ordered.
Strangely, Ruslan was right again.
It was easier the second time.
It wasn’t as harsh.
It wasn’t as shocking or frightening.
She knew what to expect.
Each round fired off a bit easier than the last until she knew the clip had only one bullet left to shoot.
“You’re a decent shot,” Ruslan praised, peering down at the target Violet had been aiming at.
Even she had to admit she’d done pretty well. Most of the rounds either hit the target paper or directly near it. Seemed her aim leaned a bit to the left.
“But not one kill shot,” Ruslan added quieter. “Trust me when I say you want the kill shot. When someone is coming at you and you only have the one chance to end it, you need to make that shot every time. Understand?”
“Practice?”
“Maybe …”
“Ma—”
Violet’s words cut off as a distinctive snap echoed, and she glanced away from the targets, looking at Ruslan who was aiming the gun he’d been fiddling with on and off directly at the side of her head.
Her world froze in that split second.
She wasn’t entirely sure why.
It was like every inch of her body, all the parts of her, suddenly zoned in on the barrel of the gun she was looking down. Her heart stuttered in its beats before leaping into her throat and lodging there. Her fists clenched tighter around her own gun pointed down at the table, and her back straightened.
“How easy this would be,” Ruslan murmured softly. “And it would be easy, Violet. All it would take was pulling the trigger and so many things just … go away. Maybe then my father would make his way back to where he should be, and my selfish bastard of a brother would pull his head out of his ass, hmm?”
Violet swallowed hard, unsure and wary in her heart.
She did not know this man at all.
Not that she knew the version of him she’d been chatting with all morning, either.
“You wouldn’t,” Violet said.
Ruslan smiled, cold and fleeting. “You have no idea. Now, you have one round left in your gun. I’d like for you to fire it.”
Violet, somehow in her fear, managed to sneer. “Afraid I might turn it on you?”
“You’d be dead before you blinked. Do as I said. Try for that kill shot this time.”
Ignoring the shake in her breath and the slight tremor in her hands, Violet didn’t see how she had much of a choice but to do what Ruslan wanted, given his gun was still cocked and pointed at her head. So she did what he wanted.
And when she aimed …
Her breaths came slower.
Her hands steadied.
Gaze zoned in …
She didn’t even feel the kickback that final time.
Ruslan looked to the side just as the bullet ripped through the chest of the paper human down the way. Silently, he lowered his gun, hitting the button on the side to release the clip.
It fell out on the table, empty.
“You don’t know me very well,” Ruslan said, never looking back at Violet, “but if you did, you’d know everything I said was a lie. I can’t stand my father, and I like him a great deal more when he’s gone, but I think I would love him if he were dead. As for Kaz—well, love is never selfish, Violet, no matter its form.”
Violet just stared at Ruslan, more unsure than she had ever been in her life.
“Seems fear works in your favor, though,” he continued. “You would have hit your target in the heart. Near instant death when it exploded in their chest. Ironic, yes?”
Though his last conversation with his mother hadn’t gone as planned, Kaz gave her a day to calm down before he returned, alone, to tell her of the wedding and details. She still wasn’t happy with him, but at least, her anger had cooled. And if he knew one thing, despite her uneasiness as to who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, Kaz knew that his mother would still attend that day.
Irina was still his mother, after all, and despite his hatred for his father, Kaz loved his mother.
His sisters, Dina and Nika, however, were fucking thrilled because a wedding meant shopping. He couldn’t even say for sure whether they were happy for him or just glad to be out of the house and happily swiping his damn card. But since they were out with Violet, that would at least give them a chance to talk to her and learn who she was.
He couldn’t ask for more than that.
Kaz, on the other hand, was working on his side of the guest list. There was not enough time to invite everyone—his family was extensive—but he needed at least a dozen key figures in attendance.
There was the Boykov family in Chicago—Konstantin having agreed quite readily and Kolya mumbling an affirmative before he hung up.
Of course, he would also invite the highest-ranking members of the Bratva, and a few others from neighboring states who he hadn’t talked to in ages due to their relationship with Vasily.
By the time he was on his way across town, Kaz had gotten all the answers he wanted … except for one.
Alfie Shelby.
Though he was notorious for playing both sides of the field, never allowing his loyalty to show for any one man, Kaz still considered the man a close friend. But in his newly appointed position, he wasn’t so sure that the way things stood now could go on for much longer.
It was different when Vasily was in the seat—he refused to do business with Alfie because of his neutral stance, but Kaz hadn’t cared. And even now, he still didn’t, but the men who worked under him wouldn’t stand for it, no matter how powerful Alfie was.
“Welcome home, Kazimir,” Alfie said from his position behind his desk. “It’s good to see you, mate.”
“You too, Alfie,” Kaz returned as he clasped the man’s hand in his own before taking a seat.
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
It shouldn’t have surprised him that Alfie knew about the wedding—there was very little that the man didn’t know. Even still, he doubted Violet had shared the news with anyone just yet, and he had only informed a select number of people, none of whom did business with Alfie.
“Who told you?”
Alfie waved his hand in the air as though the answer was insignificant. “A little dove, but that’s not important at the moment, is it? You’re here to discuss business, eh? Let’s discuss.”
“We’ve done good business together,” Kaz said, tapping his fingers against the arm of his seat.
“One-point-two million last quarter because of that arms deal, but who’s counting?”
He didn’t doubt the proceeds were as high as Alfie said—no one could do numbers like him. “And you understand why I can’t have my business tied with those who would try to take it from me.”
“Right, because you’re the—fucking hell, what’s the name your people call it—pakhan?”
Alfie wasn’t a man who was careful with his words so as not to offend—most of the time he was trying to offend someone—but Kaz had learned it was just that accent of his, Cockney he thought it was called. So he knew better than to let Alfie’s words get to him, but he could already tell by the way the other man was sitting a little straighter that his temper was flaring.
“I am. You know what that means.”
Alfie rubbed his jaw. “I know fuck all about your politics, mate—and I don’t care to know. Whatever feud you lot have against the other means nothing to me.” Alfie rested an elbow on his desk, pointing at Kaz. “Because while you two fuck about, money is lost in the process.”
“But as you said,” Kaz spoke up, already feeling that rush of annoyance overtake him. “That has fuck all to do with you.”
“Yet there you sit, in my fucking chair like a big man, expecting me to sever business arrangements for the sake of your fucking vendetta.”
The tension in the room was escalating, to the point that before he knew it, Kaz was on his feet. “There comes a time when you have to pick sides, Alfie.”
“Fuck off,” Alfie returned, slowly rising from his chair, his eyes blazing as he laid his fists against the wood. “Even if I were, who’s to say I’m picking your fucking side, Kazimir? The only thing your Bratva has shown me over the last year is that you care more about domestic bullshit than how to conduct business. I expected it from that cunt you call a father, but you were supposed to be better than that, yet here you stand.”
“Don’t insult me again. You won’t like how I answer.”
Whether he considered Alfie a friend was immaterial—it was a lesson Kaz had to learn. Respect was earned, not given. And if he wanted to keep it, that meant never letting someone insult him without consequence.
“And what exactly would you do about it? Run off to that fucking brother of yours, though I think he knows how to better handle a cock before a gun. Or maybe to the fucking Gallucci you have warming your bed—perhaps she’ll be worth more in name besides what she can do with her mou—”
Kaz had his gun out and pointed at Alfie’s face before he could finish the sentence. “Finish,” he said, his gaze never straying from Alfie. “Give me the opportunity to show you what it truly means to not give a fuck who you have to kill when it comes to the woman you love. Test me.”
No one, and he truly meant no one, pulled a gun on Alfie and lived to tell about it. He took the action as an act of war.
“This meeting can end one of two ways,” Kaz went on, aim never wavering. “Either we sit and discuss the new business arrangements between us if you agree to sever your ties with the Gallucci family, or I can leave and sever our own. We can either remain partners, or I’ll leave with you as my enemy, and they don’t last long. Make your choice.”
Alfie neither moved nor spoke, his expression unreadable. After another heartbeat of silence, Kaz was sure he had his answer, but then Alfie smiled.
“Then let’s discuss.”
Only Alfie could remain unbothered that a gun was in his face.
As Kaz put his gun away and took a seat, he remembered something Alfie had once told him around the time they met.
He respected the bold.