Vassili
Aside from the boulder that must’ve fallen on my head, I wake up on day three, away from my family, and on a bed of clouds.
The mattress I’m lying on is halfway to the ceiling, and that’s speaking volumes. I’m on the third floor of my father’s home, and the walls soar high.
I touch a hand to my skull. It’s bandaged.
“Fuck,” I grunt, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. They’re dangling because of how far I am from the floor. The room around me is fit for a king. Real gold wallpaper, antique furniture. Silk slippers are on the ground. I shove my feet inside of them and head to the door.
Once open, I’m stopped by a guard, with the barrel of his gun to my face.
My lips are in a tight line as I warn, “Move. Before you regret it.”
He lowers it somewhat. “I’m going to tell your father you’re up. Okay?”
“He isn’t the boss of me, neither are you.”
The man starts to pull a walkie talkie. My hand slams against the barrel, angling it over my shoulder, and I jab straight for his nose. Too easy.
“’Tchyo zag a ‘lima—what the fuck!” He screams, gripping at a waterfall of blood coming from his nose.
I snatch the walkie talkie. “Anatoly, can you hear me?”
“My son, you’re up. I’m in the mud room.” His tone is friendly. Sometimes he gets like this when angry. Either the punch I tossed rewired his brain, or he’s in a psychotic episode.
In fifteen minutes, I’ve made it to the basement. The room is cave-like, with dome shaped walls, and even more shimmering 24 karat gold on them. My gaze shades to the darkness of the area. At the far side of the room, past a steaming jacuzzi, is my father, with his usual horde of model-type cunts. This time, they’re in a mud bath.
One kissing his face, the other massaging mud into his back, not sure what the third is doing, her bare ass is to my face and she’s down low, probably sucking his cock.
The kissy face chick moves, and I can see that Anatoly’s eye is sealed shut, like Zamora’s was the day Yuri and I came by her place in Atlanta.
“I’d offer you some pussy but,” he gestures to his face. “My son, I regret never having attended one of your matches. That hook of yours, boy, oh boy! Semion, take notes your ugly motherfucker.”
My cousin eyes me.
“Where the fuck is Grigor? I’m surprised he got to me before you.”
Semion grunts. “He was closer. I would have tried to kill you…”
Anatoly cuts in, “and I would have had to put your ass down like a fatted cow, Semion.”
“Damn, kazen, we should switch parents. You’d be in my spot. Then that ugly face of yours might not look like a dog’s ass, since you wouldn’t have had to spend your days being jealous.”
He lunges for me. The men around him stop him.
I don’t flinch.
“Let him go,” I say, smiling at Semion.
“Nyet.” My father waves them away. “The two of you can play later. You all leave now. Vassili, step into my office.”
He gestures toward the mud jacuzzi. The women wave me over.
“I’ll pass.”
When everyone leaves, aside from his whores, Anatoly says, “You’ve gotta stop exciting your cousin. If he hurts you, I’ll kill him, Vassili. And Semion is otherwise indispensable.”
Semion hurt me? I grunt. “So, you’re being a father today? How will you handle Grigor? He hit me.”
Anatoly shrugs. “Grigor is my favorite. He gets as many passes as you do for being firstborn.”
“Them make him your successor.”
“Nyet. Grigor is pale. Skinny. Looks like that Twilight vampire fuck.”
I glare at him sideways. “Who?”
Anatoly groans. “Bitches, the most beautiful ones wrap you around their pinkie. One I use to have, she loved the Twilight Saga, I’m just saying… whatever, right? You aren’t here for movie trivia. Maybe I’ll never die? It costs me a mil a day to look so good. It’s this drink I have. The maker says it’s almost like the stream of eternity. You know I’ve been sick?”
“So, you say. But I’m not here to feed you borscht and nurse you back to health, either.”
“That’s what these women are for, my son.” He kisses one. “But truly, I was dying until I drank from the stream of water.”
He is delusional. I take on a wide-legged stance and ask, “Did you allow some Italians to shoot up your brother’s home?”
He laughs, the girls do, too. “I’m appalled that you think so little of me.”
“Did you?” My shout is amplified by the structure of the cave, the women jump.
“No.” Anatoly offers a smug frown.
“Then how?”
“Must have something to do with that public official, Albert Bertolucci. He died a few weeks ago.”
“What was he up to?”
“The guy was gunning for sanctions. Bertolucci wanted to increase the requirements for international claims at the ports in the area. One of the seats of the seven owns a steel company in Italy.”
I rub the old scar along my jaw. The Seven Chairs or whatever the fuck he’s referring to has been mentioned before. Malich always said that Anatoly wanted him to have a seat. Even with all power, it was best to have Resnovs take every seat. Semion’s mother has a seat. The rest of my father’s siblings do. There are about three seats that aren’t claimed by Resnov’s. But each seat is claimed by billionaires.
“Then why didn’t the guy handle it?”
“He’s a bitch, all paper no balls,” my father huffs.
I shake my head. “And Bertolucci’s family retaliated? You’ve had powerful men murdered around the nation. Seems like this one—”
“His family thinks they’re the mafia or something.”
“Did you hear about this quest for retaliation! And why, why did they go after Malich’s family, not yours?”
“What the fuck do you mean, yours? Vassili, you are moy syn—my son. You are my family!”
“Make me believe you.”
“Does my word not mean—”
“Shit. Anatoly your word doesn’t mean a motherfucking thing to me.”
Anatoly stands up from the mud bath, and slaps a hand against his chest. “I had nothing to do with my nephew’s death!”
I stare at him like I have the eyes of a new man. One who doesn’t have a history with this psychotic bastard. One who never hated his mom for running away from a monster like him. Now, I’m second guessing my father’s manipulative ways. Maybe Anatoly didn’t remove his blessing from Malich’s family. Those Italians have always feared us…