Boykov Bratva, Coming in 2019 from Bethany-Kris and London Miller
FRACTURED TIES
Book One
by Bethany-Kris
***Unedited and subject to change***
Chapter One
When one’s father sent someone to drag your ass out of bed after drinking half your body weight in vodka, you couldn’t refuse. Especially not when one’s father was the pakhan, and the stars tattooed on Kolya Boykov’s chest meant regardless of how drunk he still was, Vadim owned his fucking ass for life.
Or at least until death.
“Move your ass, Kolya,” the man outside his bathroom barked. “You know the boss won’t appreciate being made to wait on you again.”
Fuck.
Like Kolya needed a reminder, or something.
“I’m trying to take a piss, yeah? Shut that goddamn hole in your face.”
“Surly today, no?”
Kolya spat out a laugh that tasted like hatred, bitterness, and vodka on his tongue. Today, right. That was a goddamn joke when it was … Kolya glanced down at the Rolex watch adorning his large wrist. Four in the fucking morning!
Who called someone at four in the morning?
Jesus.
Tipping his head back to let out another frustrated growl, Kolya finished up his business, and took his sweet time washing his hands, too. The less time he had to spend in his father’s presence, the better. He swore Vadim pulled shit like this just because he could—because the bastard got a good rise out of pestering the living hell out of his sons—and nothing else.
The fist banging against the bathroom door all but sent Kolya’s blood pressure skyrocketing. “Working on getting my foot shoved up your ass, Anatoly.”
The fact the bull had been one of Vadim’s best men for longer than Kolya cared to remember didn’t really make much of a fucking difference to him at the end of the day. He would still make sure the man knew the taste of pain before Kolya ended his life.
With a smile.
Kolya took that whole kill them with kindness thing to another level.
“It’s not Anatoly, brat,” came a new voice.
Kolya’s posture softened a bit at Konstantin’s—his younger brother by two years—voice. But not very much. Konstantin, depending on the time, day, or his mood, could be just as irritating as anyone else in Kolya’s path.
Or shit, maybe it was just Kolya.
“When did you get here?”
“Two minutes ago,” Konstantin said through the door. “How long are you going to wash your hands?”
Kolya grumbled unintelligibly under his breath—until I’m decently sober. At the moment, he was pretty sure if he walked too fast, he might tumble over. Nobody needed to see all six-foot-four, and two-hundred-fifty pounds of him topple over because he wasn’t willing to admit he drank too much vodka.
That looked good on no man.
But especially not a vor.
And definitely not a Russian.
Fuck it.
Kolya shut off the water, and ignored the stinging in his hands. The water had been hotter than the devil’s ass, and turned his hands bright red in the process. Damn—like he needed more proof that he wasn’t the least bit up to par for a meeting this early in the goddamn morning with his father.
Vadim Boykov didn’t miss a thing.
He ate shit like misdeeds and missteps for breakfast.
Saw them as weaknesses.
And when it came to his sons?
Vadim was far worse.
It was as though the man expected ten times from Kolya and Konstantin what he demanded from other men. Someone else might have to jump when told to, but the Boykov brothers better damn well fly when Vadim even suggested it.
Twenty-six years under his father’s thumb had taught Kolya one important lesson about life, family, and vory: as long as you were a thief, none of the rest meant shit, and the less he expected from his father, the better off he would be.
That was, unless Kolya was expecting something like a slap to the back of his head, or some other form of punishment meant to cut him down a step or two, or degrade him enough to humiliate him. Vadim liked to think of that as teachable moments for his boys.
Dragging himself from his thoughts, Kolya yanked open the bathroom door, and found Konstantin leaning against the wall. Konstantin was peering at the glowing screen of his phone. He didn’t even glance up at his brother’s entrance.
“Got the call, too, I see,” Kolya muttered.
“Yes.”
Konstantin’s confirmative reply followed Kolya into the bedroom across the hall.
“Where did Anatoly disappear to?”
Konstantin tipped his head to the side with one of those looks of his, saying, “Said he wasn’t waiting on you anymore, and since I was here …”
Kolya chuckled dryly. “Fucking useless.”
“Funny.”
“Izvinee,” Kolya mumbled, “because nothing about this seems fucking funny to me, no? You like getting your ass up for Papa in the middle of the night, Konstantin, because I do not.”
“Funny,” Konstantin returned, “because Anatoly says the same thing about you.”
Yeah, well …
Kolya didn’t even bother to respond to that statement, instead picking up the pace to leave his place. His shitty little apartment in the Heights wasn’t much to look at, but it was good enough for him at the moment. It was close to his work, and easy access to everything else. A shitty part of the city, sure, but who the fuck was going to mess with a Boykov in Chicago?
They owned this fucking city.
The Boykov Bratva was well-known in the city. Most idiots just referred to them as the Russian mafia, but he attributed that ignorance to the fact the inner workings of the Bratva and their customs wasn’t exactly public consumption.
People knew to leave them the fuck alone, and stay the hell away. Which was exactly what Kolya enjoyed most about being who he was. He didn’t like people—he couldn’t even pretend to like people on most days. His disposition and last name afforded him the sanctuary of people keeping their distance because of those things, which meant he rarely needed to people at all.
That was enough for Kolya.
Unless, of course, it was his father.
Because it was Vadim.
That was really all Kolya needed to say.
“You need to upgrade from this apartment,” Konstantin said, glancing around Kolya’s darkened bedroom. “Live up to the standards of your name, no?”
Kolya rolled his eyes, and ground his teeth together as he pulled out appropriate clothing for a meeting with his father. No stupid fuck thought to meet Vadim in anything less a suit, or black clothes that could pass as dressier wear. “Don’t take cheap shots at my place, suka. Not all of us need to live in a mansion on the hills, yes?”
“I don’t live in a fucking mansion on the hills.”
“Yet,” Kolya returned.
He was looking at a house in Melrose Park, but buying something like that meant his sister, Viktoria, would probably want to have a housewarming party. And a party for a Boykov meant his father would be invited, and other people.
Not Kolya’s thing.
At all.
Kolya had already thrown on the black slacks, and left the black dress shirt unbuttoned when he passed by Konstantin on the way out the door. He’d button it up in the car because he had already wasted enough time. Vadim would be worked up enough as it was without Kolya adding to it.
“You should have splashed some water on your face,” Konstantin said. “Showered, yeah? You smell like you bathed in cheap vod—”
He punched his brother hard in the arm, a silent warning for Konstantin to back the fuck off before he got Kolya worked up.
Konstantin bared his teeth. “Mudak.”
Kolya laughed darkly as he headed down the dimly lit hallway with his brother on his heels. “Ouch, that hurts my soul.”
“Nothing hurts you,” Konstantin said when he moved ahead of Kolya to grab the door for him, “I don’t think you even have a fucking soul to hurt.”
“Nyet. I have a soul—I just down own it anymore.”
Kolya tossed the keys for his Hummer to Konstantin over his shoulder without even looking back. He heard Konstantin catch the keys, and smirked to himself. Sure, he ribbed his brother a lot, and the two were at each other’s throats more often than they weren’t.
But at the end of the day?
At the end of every single day?
Konstantin was still a Boykov. He was still Kolya’s brother, and Vadim hadn’t beaten enough lessons into his oldest son yet to make him forget it, either.
It meant something to Kolya.
At least for now.
“You drive,” Kolya called. “I’m not legal, brat.”
At least he was walking straight, though. That had to count for something. Maybe by the time they made it across the city to where Vadim was waiting with whatever fresh hell he was ready to lay at their feet, he wouldn’t look like he just woke up from a night-long bender.
Unlikely.
One could still hope.
Konstantin made a noise in the back of his throat. “Begging for Vadim to throw a fit, Kolya.”
Maybe he was.
Maybe he fucking was.
***
If there was anything Vadim Boykov loved more than money, and pliable, compliant men in the business of the Bratva, it was his theatrics. Sometimes, those theatrics came in the forms of lessons he liked to teach his men, and other times, it manifested in nothing more than Vadim showing off in a variety of ways.
Kolya never really understood his father’s need for those sorts of things, and he rarely found himself surprised by them anymore.
Walking into the Four Seasons hotel room to see two young ladies—likely a couple of years younger than him—dressed in what looked to be only short, white silk robes was nothing uncommon for Vadim. Both young women were draped over the four-poster bed, rolled onto their stomachs with their legs high in the air to give just a peek of their backsides beneath the robes, and overlooking magazines, or some other nonsense.
The sheer curtains on the four-poster bed had been pulled as if to shield the girls from the view of the men, but that was only for show, too. Vadim meant for the girls to be seen in the same way he demanded that his men didn’t look at them for longer than it took to notice they were actually there.
The women didn’t pay the entering men any mind.
Too busy pleasing his father with their games, likely. Pretty, young women were a favorite of Vadim’s, and he preferred to keep one or two on call for whatever his fancy was on any given day. Back when Kolya was a teenager, seeing this sort of thing had affected him much differently than it did now.
Back then, his mother had still been alive. Cervical cancer was the worst kind of monster because it took without care or concern, caused terrible suffering that couldn’t be appeased, and stayed hidden until it was already too late.
God rest my mama’s soul.
How someone as wonderful, sweet, and adoring as his mother had fallen for a man like Vadim Boykov was a mystery. Ana couldn’t have not known Vadim was a philanderer with a half of a dozen paid mistresses on call—serial, really. Like it was a disease the man couldn’t keep contained. And yet, Ana had never said a thing, or spoke out against her husband to her three children. Kolya only remembered his mother loving Vadim, and keeping his house like a queen should.
Now, though, Kolya barely felt anything at all when he walked in on one of these scenes. He saw them for what they were—another way for his father to show off, and extend his power by way of controlling his men in an unusual way.
Look too long at the girls, and a man might lose an eye.
Touch one, and well, maybe you didn’t need that hand after all.
Konstantin, on the other hand, was still young enough—or maybe he just hadn’t gotten desensitized yet to all of this—that these shows were not as easy for him to swallow like they were for Kolya. Under his breath in Russian, he said to Kolya, “If this isn’t some kind of shit. He’s got other rooms in here. They could be elsewhere.”
They could.
Vadim wouldn’t let them, though.
Kolya’s lips twitched with a grin that came out more like a sneer. Probably the closest thing to a smile that he could manage, honestly. He couldn’t remember the last time he genuinely smiled because something truly amused him, or made him happy.
Unless he was beating the hell out of someone.
Or killing them.
That usually made Kolya happy.
“Relax,” Kolya returned to Konstantin at the same quiet level. “Stop letting it piss you off when you know that’s something he can—”
“Do you have something to share with the rest of the class, Kolya?”
Kolya’s gaze drifted lazily to the man across the room. A good twenty feet from where the women were still pretending like the sheer curtains were doing anything to hide the fact they were still resting on that goddamn bed. Vadim stood next to the windows, haloed in the bit of ray of color the inverted ceiling lights provided over the heavy, dark drapes.
As usual, Vadim kept hold of a glass of vodka that might as well have been his third hand. A man could almost guess by the way Vadim was holding the glass if things would end well for him in a meeting with the man.
Tonight, Vadim kept a light grip on the glass which meant two things. One, he was pissed, and two, the glass could fly into any man’s face should he be brave enough to slight to challenge the man—even without meaning to.
Perfect.
It was only when Vadim kept a tight hold on his glass of vodka that a person should feel safe. It was for only that reason that Kolya decide to tread carefully with his father right then.
He still had a phantom burn in his left eyebrow from the last glass that shattered in his face, and took ten stitches from one of their paid doctors to keep closed. It had been made more difficult by the fact that Kolya’s face was constantly set into some kind of variation of a scowl, or frown. It was never relaxed enough not to strain or pull on the stitches.
“Well?” Vadim demanded. “I know you can speak, yes? I taught you how.”
Actually, his mother probably had.
Kolya didn’t correct him.
“I was telling Konstantin that the rug could use a clean.”
Vadim’s gaze drifted to Konstantin who only shrugged as if to neither confirm, nor deny, and then back to Kolya just as fast. “Hmm.”
Once his father’s gaze was off him again, Kolya relaxed slightly. Not a whole lot, though. Just being within a visual distance of his father kept him teetering on a very dangerous edge. That’s what Vadim wanted—that’s what he liked.
Kolya was not an exception to the rule, but rather, an example of it.
Vadim muttered something low to the man in the corner of the room using the wall as a leaning post—the only other man besides Kolya, Konstantin, and his father’s Sovietnik, Grisha. Anatoly, the bull that had come to drag Kolya out of bed for this meeting, was busy glancing at something on his phone, but still seemed to hear whatever it was Vadim said to him.
“Nyet, not yet, boss,” Anatoly said.
Vadim scowled. “Blyad. The suka seems determined to test my very gracious patience, no?”
Anatoly only shrugged in response.
Kolya was struck with a heavy jolt of irritation in that moment. He had taken two things from his father, though he hated when people had the audacity and nerve to point them out. One was his father’s disposition—reverently distasteful, constantly surly, and almost never pleasant—and the other was his features.
From the dark, short cropped hair to the sharp line of his jaw, the square-cut chin, and ice-blue eyes. Even the shape of their straight, thick brows—giving them both the gift of a persistently dismissive or disinterested expression—was the same. Even their large, muscular builds were similar, although Kolya had a good inch or two of height on his father now. Right down to the prominent cheekbones, and cleft in his chin, it was all the goddamn same.
Sometimes, he wished it wasn’t.
“Not sure gracious is the right word to use, yeah,” Konstantin muttered low.
Jesus Christ.
The little shit was doing his very best to test Kolya for all he was worth tonight in their father’s presence. It took all Kolya’s control and effort not to smirk at that statement. He sobered quickly enough when Vadim’s sharp eye turned on them again.
And just like that, the pounding headache from his drunken episode earlier was back at the idea he was going to have to put on his give-a-fuck suit for his father, and act like he gave a shit why he had even been called there in the first place.
“I have a job for the two of you,” Vadim started.
One that couldn’t wait until a decent time?
Kolya’s thoughts were testing his control, too, it seemed.
Konstantin passed Kolya a look, and then went back to his father. “Why are we taking the job?”
Wrong question.
“I give jobs to you,” Vadim stated, the cold gleam coming into his eye as he spoke, “but you do not get to ask me to justify or explain why I’ve given you them. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Konstantin said, stiffening a bit beside his brother.
“What job?” Kolya asked.
It worked to get his father’s attention away from Konstantin for the moment. Soon, the man would be able to go back to petting whichever pussy he preferred on the bed, and maybe he’d be in a better mood tomorrow when they had to meet up again.
But who knew?
“A brigadier has gotten out of hand—owes debts to someone after he’d already been warned on that end. Not only do I need you to collect something worthy of satisfying the trouble he’s caused … again,” Vadim added with a growl, “It would be helpful if you could make his lesson permanent. I’m sure they’ll be others around. Nature of his business, no? It’ll be a good reminder for them, too.”
Dirty work.
Kolya wasn’t even surprised.
“I can’t handle the issue personally since I have the Markovic Bratva arriving this morning, and will need to deal with Vasily.”
Kolya could hear the disgust in his father’s tone. Vadim made a decent effort to play nice with other organizations when the need arose, but that was about as far as it went. He didn’t make any effort to pretend to like them, though.
“But back to the brigadier issue, as I will handle the Markovics.” Vadim passed him another dismissive glance, adding, “Because you’re a captain, he won’t think much of you going in to his business. I would like it to be done with little fanfare on his end. He isn’t aware that I know of his misdeeds, and have been keeping track of them for a while, so he won’t be expecting this move on my part, nor will he be suspicious of you, yes?”
His father smiled.
It wasn’t at all friendly.
“Strip him of his stars while you’re at it,” Vadim added. “Really drive the point home for me.”
The upturned spider tattooed on Kolya’s right hand itched a bit, much like the stars on his chest stung at those words. To strip a man of his tattoos—before his death, no less—was akin to pissing on his grave while his grieving family looked on. And only another vor could do the job when the boss gave an order like that.
“Great,” Kolya said.
“Excuse me?”
Kolya checked his attitude that he hadn’t meant to let slip out. “It’ll be done.”
“Who’s the mark?” Konstantin asked.
“Ivan Kozlov.” Vadim nodded. “Now, get the fuck out of my sight.”
***
Konstantin was already reaching to shut the door of Kolya’s Hummer before he had even finished tugging on his leather gloves. Driving gloves, actually, but Kolya rarely used them for driving.
Killing, yes.
Not driving.
“Good to see you again, Kolya,” came a voice across the street.
Kolya eyed the figure leaning against his younger brother’s car. “You brought the Markovic shit along?”
Konstantin shrugged. “He was bored.”
Yeah, Kolya bet.
Kazimir—or Kaz, as he preferred—was the second oldest son of Vasily Markovic, the one Russian with all the pull in Brighton Beach, New York. Despite being the same age as Kolya, Kaz got on far better with Konstantin than the older Boykov brother. He was a cocky fucking thing—Kaz, but his father, too.
All the Markovics were, really.
Sometimes, Kolya thought it was Kaz’s cockiness and attitude that was going to kill him someday. That, or his goddamn mouth.
Kolya did share one thing in common with Kaz, although it was rarely ever a topic of conversation between the two whenever they were unlucky enough to have a face-to-face meeting. Kaz, like Kolya, was the son of a Russian mob boss—the son, as some liked to say. The one being looked at to move higher in the organization, and take over their father’s position when the eventual time came for it to happen.
The thought irked Kolya.
It was never a question if he wanted the position, simply a matter of him being given it whether he cared to have it or not. He’d never really given it much thought, but apparently, his thoughts wouldn’t make a difference at the end of the day.
Or, that’s what he was always told.
“Where’s Ruslan?” Kolya asked, referring to Kaz’s older brother.
“That’s how you greet me,” Kaz said, smirking a bit, “by referring to me as shit, and then asking where the fuck Rus is?”
Kolya fixed the straps on his gloves, tightening them until he felt the tell-tale pinch of the metal hooks biting against his flesh. “Ruslan doesn’t make me want to beat a lesson into him every time we meet up, pizda.”
Kaz bared his teeth at that comment.
A warning if Kolya ever saw one.
He knew the pussy remark would do it. Kaz fucking hated that shit. Kolya was the type to push a man’s buttons just because he knew the guy had one that was easy to press whenever the fuck he felt like it. Also, all in all, Kaz was decent people, and he could give it as well as he took it.
Kolya respected that.
Didn’t mean he had to be pleasant.
“Asking to go a round, no?” Kaz asked. “Thought the last time when I busted your mouth up taught you something, Kolya.”
Little shit.
“Can’t say it did, but I’m willing to let you believe that shot was something more than a miracle.” Kolya shrugged. “Maybe later, yeah? Business to do, Markovic.”
“Lucky you.”
“Or lucky you,” Kolya tossed over his shoulder.
“I get a fucking headache just listening to the two of you,” Konstantin grumbled, following to catch up with his brother. “Try to get along, yes?”
Kolya scowled. “This is me getting along, Konstantin.”
Konstantin tipped his head to the side, bowing to the matter. “Fine.”
“Anatoly is already in the place, then.”
“According to his last text.”
“Would have liked for him to be across the goddamn state.”
“Vadim wanted—”
“Vadim wants too fucking much from me,” Kolya snapped. “He could bend a bit to shit I ask for when it’s not very much to begin with.”
Konstantin opted not to reply to that, and instead, stepped up to the warehouse door to open it for his brother and Kazimir who had been quietly following behind the whole time. So was the Markovic way—they listened, and soaked it all in so they could use it later.
Smart, really.
“Blyad.” Kolya tossed his brother a look, seeing that Konstantin was tight-jawed, shadowed features, and dark eyes. It spoke of his irritation—probably at Kolya. “Let’s just get this done with, yes?”
“Fine by me, brat.”
Situated on the outskirts of the city, the warehouse Ivan Kozlov used for his main business didn’t look like very much on the outside. Steel walls, and a tin roof. Very few windows, although the place was certainly large enough to be a good three or four floors high. Kolya knew there were a few windows on the upper floors on the north and east sides of the building, but certainly not low enough for someone to look into, and see something.
Up above the entrance doors—ones Kolya had only walked through maybe twice before, as this wasn’t his scene when he much preferred the other side of the Boykov business—a security camera zoned in on his face.
He gave it his best fuck-you-smirk.
Complimented by his middle finger.
Inside, the first thing to greet the three men was a long, darkened hallway. The smell coming through the corridor reminded Kolya of dirt, decaying something, and rotting hay.
Not surprising, considering …
“What’s this place for?” Kaz asked.
“Fights,” Konstantin replied.
“Fights?”
“Animals,” Kolya uttered low. “Ivan’s got a sick thing for that shit. Vadim said nothing because—well, fuck, look at this place, yeah? Tucked away, never been raided, and illegal animal fighting hasn’t been touched on in the news cycle in a half of a decade.”
“Brings in decent money from it, too,” Konstantin added.
“Except for lately, I suspect,” Kaz put in.
Kolya shot the man a look over his shoulder. “Da. The boss says he owes debts, so that money is coming from somewhere.”
“Vadim only steps in when it comes from his pocket, or he knows it’s going to,” Konstantin muttered.
“Quiet.”
The two men hushed under Kolya’s warning as they neared the door at the far end of the hall. He didn’t need for their discussion to be overheard by whoever was watching the first set of inner doors. It was only because of his previous two visits to the warehouse that Kolya knew basically what to expect once he got a little deeper into the place.
Twenty-thousand square feet of hell, that was.
The door opened before Kolya could even knock on it. The man waiting on the other side kept a firm grip on an AR-15 like it was going to do something to Kolya if he looked at it the wrong way. It was only once the man actually took a good look at who was standing there that he backed off a bit, and dropped his gaze to keep it from meeting a higher ranking man’s.
“Kapitan is in the bar,” the man said, referring to Ivan, clearly.
Kolya didn’t bother to acknowledge or respond to the guy, instead, stepping through the door and moving forward with his brother and Kaz close on his heels. Another corridor, although slightly less dark this time, led them to a second set of doors.
This time, Kolya did need to knock.
A slate on the door was opened just long enough for the man to see who was waiting behind it before it was slammed shut, and the trio was ushered in right after. Into the bar section of the warehouse, that was. if someone wanted to call the dirt-floored section a bar. Frankly, the only liquor Ivan was known to keep on hand was vodka, and spirits. He might occasionally bring in a bottle of wine if someone was bringing a woman of any importance, but even that was a rarity.
Women didn’t tend to look kindly upon animals being made to fight to either survive, or die.
A couple of old pool tables—although in better condition than the chairs and tables—sat along the far side of the large room. The bare bulbs hanging overhead kept the room just dim enough that someone might be able to pretend they were somewhere else.
With a flick of his wrist in the direction of the pool tables, Konstantin and Kaz strolled off to what would look like nothing at all. Harmless in their corner as they shot the shit, or played a bit of billiards. Kolya knew at least ninety-five percent of his brother’s attention would be on him, and he’d be ready to step in when needed.
Regardless if Konstantin was pissed off, or not.
Some shit never changed.
Kolya found the man of the hour—probably his last hour, too—sitting at the far end of the bar talking to another man he recognized. Anatoly and Ivan were what looked to be three-quarters of the way deep into a bottle of vodka, and a discussion they didn’t want other people overhearing.
One in Russian, too.
Kolya kept his footsteps light as he approached.
“And what do you plan to do with that fucking thing?” Anatoly asked. “You can’t keep it here, comrade.”
“Can’t get rid of it, either,” Ivan muttered, his Russian slurred a bit from his drink. “Do you know how much money it brings when we take it out of the cage? I’d be fucking stupid to—”
“You recognize then when you’re being stupid, no?” Kolya asked, sliding into the stool beside Ivan’s. “Hard to believe, all things considered.”
The man swung around on his stool to face Kolya with a drunken gaze. At the same time, Kolya waved two fingers over his shoulder for whoever was down the bar to bring him a drink. Or come take a fucking order for one.
Behind Ivan, Anatoly gave a subtle nod.
“Kolya,” Ivan greeted, “since when you do you make your way to my part of town?”
“Since tonight.” Kolya drummed his leather-clad fingertips to the worn bar, and gave Ivan a look from the side. “Seems I’m needed down this way, unfortunately.”
“Thought you weren’t the type to—”
“Could I get you something?”
Kolya stiffened.
That voice.
Soft, and sweet, yet bubbly and friendly.
Not at all what he expected to greet him when the bartender made his—no, shit, apparently her—way down to serve him. It was something about the fact there was a woman here … a woman with the softest, sweetest tone he had ever heard … that made him hesitate.
And tense.
A knot of stress pulled his shoulder blades together.
Still, he looked at the woman.
Pixie-like in her features, the top of her head would barely reach his chest. He could probably use her fucking head as an arm rest when he was standing beside her. Her tiny button nose accentuated the rest of her dainty features. She had small lips, pink and uncolored by makeup or stain, that smiled even though he found hesitance and uncertainty in her blue eyes.
And blue.
Damn, so blue.
Like the ocean right before a storm.
Or a sky on a cloudless summer day.
But her hair was pin-straight hanging over her shoulders, and jet-black.
Like the darkest night.
Like tar.
Like his soul.
She wasn’t particularly dressed up, but she wasn’t dressed down in her outfit, either. Simple straight-leg, tight jeans and a bohemian-style blouse. It told him she had dressed to look appropriate, but not draw attention.
He didn’t blame her.
The only attention a woman like her—delicate, beautiful, and sweet-looking—might find here was the bad kind.
Kind of like him.
Because, yeah, Kolya noticed her.
Something he didn’t do.
“Maya, stop standing there,” Ivan barked, drawing Kolya’s attention away from the woman, “and make yourself useful, yes? Go do anything else but be near me.”
“Sorry,” the woman—Maya—whispered.
Quickly, she scurried off.
“I wanted a drink,” Kolya groused, shooting Ivan a glare.
Really, he just wanted Maya to come back.
So he could tell her to run.
Ivan waved a hand, and didn’t even realize with that action and his next words, he just made Kolya’s hesitance to kill him with a woman near null and void altogether. “The cunt will come back—my daughter doesn’t know how to listen. It’s why she belongs in the den with the rest of the mutts.”
Oh, yeah.
And the fact Maya was the man’s daughter just made it worse, too.
Beyond fucking dead.
Kolya’s favorite knife—a black Obsidian blade his brother had given to him when he turned sixteen—was pulled from the sheath at his ankle in his next breath, and sliding along Ivan’s throat before the man could protest, or blink.
“You asked the wrong questions, suka,” Kolya murmured, reverting back to the familiar feeling of numbness and nothingness. “You should have asked why I came here first, and then I could have let you beg for a bit. Now, you’re going to learn pain. The boss says hello, in case you wondered, and it’s time to pay up.”