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She has plans for this dresser. Hopes.
Grumbling, I grab the crumpled instructions and smooth them out on my lap just as my phone rings.
I wedge my phone between my chin and shoulder as I wrestle with the tissue-thin paper. “What?”
“Good to hear from you, too, my friend.”
The voice stops me cold. I stand up, glancing at the door and window like he’ll appear any second. “Why are you calling me, Pavel?”
“I want to meet with you.”
I bark out a laugh. “Would you like me to handcuff myself beforehand? Or maybe I’ll save you the trouble and put a gun in my mouth.”
“I want it to be civil,” Pavel says. “It will just be two pakhans handling business.”
“Whatever business you need to discuss, you can do it over the phone.”
“Don’t be so afraid, Yakov. I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m smart, not scared,” I fire back. “Smart enough not to get lured into a death trap by a little poke to my pride. Say what you need to say before I hang up.”
Pavel sighs. “I want a truce.”
“Of course you do. Because I’m winning.”
“You think I care about a couple of clubs?”
“You’re the one calling me and asking for a truce,” I remind him. “That’s the act of someone who knows they are losing.”
“Losing what? Do you know why we’re fighting, Yakov? Because I don’t. This isn’t our fight. It never was.”
“Spoken like a man with no other options. If you had a way out, you wouldn’t be asking for a truce.”
We have him exactly where we want him. If Pavel had pulled this humility schtick a couple months ago, things would be different.
“I have a way out. Plenty of them. But I’m trying to take the path with the least amount of bloodshed. If we don’t change course, a lot of good men are going to die.”
“Don’t play noble now,” I snarl. “Not after you broke into my mansion and threatened my fiancée. Any unnecessary bloodshed will be on your hands, not mine. I was going to let you slink away and carry on your family’s battered name, but you couldn’t let it go. You didn’t know when to keep your head down.”
“You’d just killed my brother. I was grieving. Isn’t there some kind of window for that sort of thing?”
“That window snapped shut the moment you took that picture of Luna. I don’t take kindly to threats against my family.”
“What about promises of safety?” he asks. “If I promise to never touch another member of the Kulikov Bratva without provocations, would you agree to the same for the Gustev Bratva?”
Fuck no. Never. Not when I know what Pavel is capable of.
“Based on what? Your word?”
“It’s all I have,” Pavel says.
“And it’s mud at this point, don’t you think?”
“I never made you any promises, Yakov. Up to this point, you’ve dealt with my father or my brother. I saw how going against you turned out for them. I have no interest in following in their footsteps. I never wanted any of this, anyway. I never even thought I’d be in this position. I didn’t think Akim could—I thought he would lead until we were both dead. But here I am.” He sighs, sounding decades older than he is. “I’m the only member of my family left and I want to take a new path. I want to choose peace.”
Bull-fucking-shit.
It's a nice story Pavel is spinning here. If I had even an inkling that a word of it was true, I’d consider it. I want peace. I don’t care about Pavel.
