Page 110 of Fractured Ties

“Could always build,” Konstantin suggested as though he could read his brother’s mind. “You’ve got the money for that.”

More than actually.

“I could,” Kolya agreed. “She still might find something.”

His brother glanced over at him with curious eyes. “Is living with a woman really as difficult as everyone says?”

“What?”

Konstantin shrugged. “Difficult, yeah? Fickle, even. I wouldn’t know. I’m curious.”

No, Kolya supposed Konstantin wouldn’t know much about living with a woman beyond their sister Viktoria, and that had only been as long as he’d been required to live under the same roof. It wasn’t like Konstantin made much time for women beyond busting a nut—not that Kolya had been any different, so he didn’t have much to say there.

“It’s not … she’s good,” Kolya settled on saying. “A ray of fucking sunshine in the morning.”

Quite literally.

The woman woke up smiling.

Konstantin made a face. “I think you just lucked out, no? That doesn’t seem to be the norm.”

Possibly.

Kolya didn’t respond. He couldn’t, when his father just walked into the room, and everyone else went quiet. Konstantin was quick to notice Vadim, too, and reverted back to his previous stillness. Grisha trailed two steps behind Vadim, as usual.

It’d been two weeks since the hotel incident. Two weeks of Vadim ignoring Kolya and refusing to see his son. Two weeks of fucking nonsense.

And yet, his father smiled when he laid eyes on him. Vadim passed a couple of his men who had stood from the long table to greet him without as much as a hello in their direction. He came to the end of the table where Kolya and Konstantin stood against the bookshelves. Directly behind the chair their father liked to sit in.

They were the only men Vadim would turn his back on, after all.

Funny how that worked.

“I haven’t seen you two around in a while,” Vadim said. “Working hard, I assume.”

Kolya’s teeth ground in an effort to stay quiet. Konstantin saved him the trouble of finding a suitable reply that didn’t include telling Vadim to go fuck himself with a metal spike. That would not have ended well.

“We’re always busy,” Konstantin said. “That’s what you like, isn’t it?”

The backhanded question probably seemed like it flew right over Vadim’s head to anyone else in the room. Kolya wasn’t as gullible, nor was Konstantin. They didn’t miss the familiar flash of annoyance in their father’s gaze.

But.

Money was on the table.

In envelopes, that was.

Several.

That changed everything.

Vadim nodded. “I do like it when you keep busy. You’re right. You stay the fuck out of my hair that way. Let’s begin tribute. Grisha?”

At the call of the man’s name, Grisha was quick to move around the table and scoop up the waiting envelopes from the men. Vadim, on the other hand, took his seat and didn’t pay his son’s any more attention for the moment.

Tribute went on as normal.

Money was paid.