Page 92 of Lord of the Underworld

"You hide cookies from yourself?" he asks, his lips twitching.

"Well, these are the really good ones, the oreshkis the Blossom Bakery makes down the street," I explain. "If I don't hide them, I'll eat all of them in one day."

He pauses, framed by multiple shelves of neatly stacked boxes and cans. "Won’t you just remember where they are? How does this stop you?"

"My sweetheart, it's like you and your rotating codes," I say. "It requires some fancy brain work. Plus, it keeps me busy, and if I forget, instead of getting a shock, there's a reward once I remember."

He shakes his head, and I hear that low, rumbling sound in his chest that I've come to recognize is his chuckle. "I'll go to my meeting, and you enjoy your cookies," he says, kissing me as he presses the hidden panel, opening the elevator doors.

Before the doors close, Vadim looks at me and gives me a sudden smile. A full, open one. It's startling because smiles are so slow to grow on his face. But this one makes me think of the boy he must have been before he was forced into grim adulthood at fourteen. I'm grateful I got to see it.

I hope he'll smile like that for me again.

Looking around the pantry, feeling a little misty, I go through all my standard hiding spots until I find the cookies hiding behind the rack of dried pastas.

Vadim…

"The Turgenev Bratva wishes to show its appreciation for your support that day," I say, "by distributing to you the first five shipments of the ghost guns from our Chicago facility." That's a little painful giving up fifty million dollars’ worth of the weapons, but they deserve them.

"Yes!" Viktor Balabanov erupts, raising his glass to me with a grin. "I've been wanting to get a look at your design. I was merely too polite to ask."

"You? Polite?" Vladimir Bukharov laughs heartily, throwing one of the grapes from the fruit tray at him.

Nikolai, who's acting as host, shakes his head. "Thank you, Vadim, but it's not necessary to give the Vasiliev Bratva anything. We are your allies."

"Oh, I don't know," Kirill drawls. "A token of appreciation is always welcome with the Volkov Bratva."

Lukyan Kuznetsov - who is already Pakhan of his Bratva - watches everyone laugh and talk excitedly about the guns, his finger idly circling the top of his glass. He's so quiet and observant that he makes me look almost loquacious. His past is even darker and harsher than mine, in many ways. So, I understand.

"Honest question," Vladimir changes the subject from their oral masturbation about the ghost guns. "Has anyone's father, their Pakhan, been unhappy with our meet ups?"

Kirill shakes his head. "I suspect my father is exhausted, running the Bratva and keeping up with my 28-year-old stepmother."

There are a few snickers, quickly smothered.

"The time for an iron-clad alliance between us is now," he continues, ignoring the snickers, though I know he won't forget who made them. Kirill loves to hold a grudge. "We can move past all the backbiting and endless insults our families have passed down for how many generations?"

"This is the right step," Nikolai says. "After what happened to Vadim, as powerful and terrifying as you are, Angel of Death Junior," he says, with a teasing edge, which quickly dies off after he sees my expression. "This can happen to any one of us. One of the syndicates next time, or a mafia. They can never be allowed to doubt that The Six won't intervene on the other's behalf."

We talk for a while longer, though the conversation turns more towards women and weapons. I check my watch and groan quietly, finishing my drink. Lukyan gives me a sympathetic glance. Finally, as the afternoon sun is sending its last rays over snowy Moscow, we all rise and say our farewells.

"This is good," Lukyan says, shaking my hand. "We have the beginnings of a strong alliance here."

We're standing by the windows while some of the others are making plans to meet up at a sex club owned by the Balabanovs.

"Some might blame me for my wife stepping in to what they claim is the private business of other families," I say.

His lips thin as if he's tasting something sour. "Chush' like that deserves to be exposed and the men ridiculed for it," he says sharply. He's a widower with a little girl, and I know he's picturing her as he says it. "Let's talk soon," he says. Nodding to me, he heads out first, tall and angular in his dark overcoat.

Soon, Nikolai and I are the only ones left, standing in the entryway. "A favor, if you would?" I ask.

"Of course," he nods. "What do you need?"

"To speak to your mother."

***

Chush' - Russian for bullshit