Page 54 of Fractured Ties

He didn’t even need to ask what his father meant. It was the whole reason he had been called in, after all.

Kolya dropped the small, black duffle he’d been carrying to the floor and opened it up. Pulling out the documents he’d retrieved from Ivan’s Kozlov’s property, he grabbed hold of the bag as well, before stepping forward to set both items on his father’s desk.

Pointing to the bag, he said, “A little over one-hundred grand in assorted bills—not ours, either. Actual cash. And the paperwork to his warehouse, home, and whatever other properties he had a hand in. I assume they’ll make a decent profit when liquidated, or in the case of the businesses, they’ll continue to be profitable, yes?”

Vadim’s gaze drifted over the papers, and then the duffle before he came back to Kolya. “Is that all?”

“For this.”

“And the run-down on what happened two weeks ago?”

Yeah, shit.

He’d been hoping to avoid all those details, but Vadim wasn’t the type to skip or skim. He liked to know it all, regardless.

“All in all,” Kolya said, keeping his tone level, “it went well. There were just enough faces we recognized in the warehouse to make sure word made the rounds that the Boykovs doled out appropriate punishment. As you wanted.”

Vadim’s gaze narrowed. “And?”

“Anatoly happened to step in the way when a bit of the business was going down, and shit happened. The issue was cleaned up and it’s gone.”

His father quieted at that. “Stepped in how?”

Here, Kolya had to lie. He wasn’t about to explain the real reason why Anatoly died because that would lead into the discussion of Maya, and no.

“An incident between him and Ivan,” Kolya offered simply.

Vadim seemed to take that as gospel, but frankly, he wouldn’t have anything else to go on to call Kolya out on his lie. And after all these years under his father’s thumb, Kolya had learned how to hide his tells from his father when he did lie.

Not that it happened very often.

Vadim stuck a hand in the duffle to pull out a wad of cash and flicked through the bills as he asked, “And what about the animals? I know he had enough to make a small army.”

“All taken care of.”

“Meaning?”

“They’re not there.”

He didn’t think details were important on that end. Hell, who knew? Maybe some of those poor animals found their way to animal shelters that might even reunite them with their previous families—unlikely, but one could hope.

Hope.

He wasn’t the type for that.

Where had that come from?

Vadim didn’t allow for Kolya’s thoughts to wander for too long before his voice brought him out of his mind with a bang as he said, “There’s nothing else, then.”

“Nyet.”

“No?”

Kolya simply stared at his father.

Vadim stared back.

Finally, Vadim broke the silence by telling Grisha, “Leave us for a moment, yes?”