Page 116 of Fractured Ties

So was the way of their entire fucking lives.

Nothing was soon to change.

“Risking us for a woman,” Vadim spat. “Again.”

Kolya was still entirely unaffected by Vadim, his anger, and whatever the hell he wanted to say. There were other things to handle. More important than this would ever be. He was sick and fucking tired of wasting time.

“If you’re done, I have other places to be,” Kolya murmured.

“Why?”

The volume of Vadim’s shout might have busted ear drums or broken glass. Who fucking knew? To Kolya, it just felt like a dull background noise in his already screaming mind. Funny, how that worked.

“Why, what, yeah? Be specific, Vadim,” Kolya said, entirely over pretending to behave for his father. “I can’t read your fucking mind despite how many times you’ve kicked the shit out of me for not being able to do exactly that.”

An uncomfortable shift moved down the table—touching each one of his siblings, but seemingly bypassing Vadim altogether. That was the thing about his father. The abuse Vadim inflicted on his sons was never really abuse to him, but rather, lessons for them to take into becoming vory and being his children. Nothing more, and nothing less.

“Why,” his father asked, “if the Albanians took the woman they wanted, did they turn around and also take Grisha’s son tonight?”

Kolya stiffened in his seat. Konstantin grew just as still across the table next to Viktoria.

Shit.

Grisha had one child—one adult son.

“Talk!” Vadim barked. “They should have got what they wanted, Kolya! Why take another man—my closest man’s son? Talk before I make you speak.”

Now or never, he supposed. After this, it would be impossible to hide from Vadim that there was more than one person coming after them and their organization. It just wouldn’t make sense to his father if the Albanians kept coming at them, even if they supposedly had what they wanted.

“The Albanians didn’t take Maya,” Kolya said, keeping his tone level. “Or at the very least, the men who have been ordering the hits on our men didn’t make the call for her to be taken. They probably don’t even know about it right now.”

Vadim eyed his son in that deathly still way of his. “Then who did take her?”

“Her brother.”

“He’s dead. We saw him be killed in the video the Albanians—”

“That was faked … or at the very least, it was faked for our benefit. Maya knew that wasn’t her brother.”

Vadim’s fist rhythmically clenched and unfurled over and over at his side. “How on earth would the Albanians not know that wasn’t Alexei? The man who wants Maya was the one who did business transactions with my brigadier, Kolya. They started with Alexei because of that. The Albanians ordered the hit on Alexei to start this whole thing. He was the first. He was specifically called out by them because of who he was.”

“But did they know who was under the hood?” Kolya asked back. “Or did they simply trust the word of Valbon, who said that’s who it was under the hood?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Perhaps because there’s more going on than what it seems like. Maybe we’re not the only ones being fucked around here, no?”

Vadim turned slightly to edge around the corner of the table. It brought him closer to Kolya than he was comfortable with, but there wasn’t much he could do except sit there and stare up at his father.

This was Vadim’s favorite place to be. Above them. Looking down on them. It gave him all the power and left them weak beneath him.

“What I hear you saying to me is that you knew Alexei was not actually killed by the Albanians, but you allowed me to believe that was the case, yes?”

Kolya opened his mouth to speak, but Vadim was quick to stop him with a raised hand, adding then, “What I understand from your words is that you believed there was a second issue coming for us but you had no issue with allowing me to believe we only had the main problem with the Albanians to concern ourselves with, correct?”

“You don’t actually want me to answer, Vadim. You know the answer.”

Fire and furry flashed in his father’s gaze as the man murmured, “You knew someone else was attacking us—me—and chose not to tell me. That’s what you did.”