“Two. My name comes off the blacklist. I’m back in New York, and I don’t plan on leaving again until well after you’re in a box.”
He narrows his eyes at me and lifts his chin slightly, which I take as a sign to continue.
“Three. I marry your daughter. Right now.”
At this last one his face breaks into a cold smile, his dim green eyes flicking to me with something like satisfaction. I guess he’s familiar with negotiating about his daughter’s weddings after four — no, make that five, after today — failed engagements.
“You want my seat on the Council.”
I shrug. “Everyone does.”
He presses a tongue to his cheek and I see the insults flash through his eyes. Probably something about my father being a nobody or my parents being unmarried. I know the way Maksim’s brain works, seeing the world in outdated hierarchies.
“You might think you have a foolproof plan, Aleksandr…”He says my name like it’s a piece of shit on the bottom of his shoe.I can tell that I’m in for a lecture. Maksim has always loved the sound of his own voice.
“…but of course, no scheme can change the fact that you are a simple brute. Marrying my daughter won’t change that, either. You’ll gain a Council seat, but you’ll have no idea how to use it. Is that what you want? Think carefully. I could make you a very rich man.”
These fucking people. Trying to tell me I don’t know what I want. I bundle my hands into fists.
“Your money doesn’t interest me.”
“It should. Money can be very useful, when you’ve got it.”
His words drip with disdain. I’ve been nice, until now, but rage starts to simmer beneath my skin.
That patronizingcunt.
“You have no idea what I’ve got planned for you, Maksim.” I haul him out of his chair by the collar of his shirt and smash the butt of my gun across his forehead, satisfied at the flash of fear in his eyes. He flinches when I lean close to his face to spit the words. “This is only the start. I will take you for everything you are worth.”
I release him back into the chair, but my fists remain clenched.
“I knew it. No plan of yours would be complete without violence. You know, don’t you, that you’ll have to keep control of your emotions if you want to sit on the Council? It’s all about building relationships, Aleksandr.”
I blow a breath out my nose and take a lap of the room. I’m itching to get started on Maksim properly, but I don’t want to jeopardize my plan, not right now.
Wait until I’m named as the successor, officially, and then I can make the old bastard suffer for what I went through in Siberia. The freezing nights, the mind-numbing drugs, the utter humiliation, the terrible company, all of it.
Maksim Bryusov is going to pay.
When he speaks again, the mocking edge is gone from his voice. This is a business negotiation.
“The problem is, she’ll never marry you. She won’t marry anyone, as you saw today. Natalia is… Independent. Single-minded. Stubborn to the point of foolishness.”
“So I’ve heard.”
I’ve covered every eventuality, but Natalia is the one variable I couldn’t plan for.
She’s known for two things: jilting her fiancés at the altar, and the rumors that she has the body of a goddess. She’s an enigma. Locked behind closed doors in the Bryusov household since the age of eleven, with private tutors going in and out and a few appearances at family dinners or parties, where she never seemed interested in speaking to anyone. Nonetheless, there are several true believers in Natalia Bryusova’s attractiveness down at the docks, despite the exclusive invite lists to her weddings.
I have to reluctantly admit that the rumors may have been correct. The woman who ran out of the Romanov wedding is nothing but an angel. If angels had bodies that made you want to sin.
“Did you ever consider giving her a fiancé who didn’t have something to hide?”
“Everyone has something to hide.”
Too true, Mr. Bryusov.The thought of what I’ve left behind in Siberia tugs at the corner of my mind. I push the thought away.
I raise an eyebrow and gesture to the files. “Evidently.”
