Page 89 of Fractured Ties

“You feel like mine. Why wouldn’t you be?”

It seemed simple enough to him.

Kolya was a very black-and-white kind of person. He may have lived his life in shades of gray—on the edges of what society saw as wrong—but he wasn’t that complex. Things either were or they were not to him. He felt something or he didn’t.

He wasn’t about to color it up with bullshit.

Maya sighed. “Like that.”

Kolya smiled faintly. “You did say this morning that I could do whatever I needed to keep you safe.”

“That wasn’t exactly—”

“That’s how I took it.”

Maya rolled her pretty blue eyes. “You’re insufferable.”

“It’ll be two very small stars—it’ll barely hurt at all, no?”

“Lies.”

Kolya chuckled. “Scout’s honor, Maya.”

“And you’re not even close to a scout, thank you.”

“But you’ll do this for me, won’t you?”

She gave him a look. “I will because you asked me to.”

Kolya nodded. “That’s my girl.”

He didn’t miss the way she smiled at that, either, even if she did try to hide it by spinning around to show him her back.

“What is that doing in here?”

Oh, good.

His sister had finally come out from the backrooms.

A person couldn’t miss Viktoria Boykov, what with her platinum blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, and delicate features that, Kolya thought, reminded him a great deal of their dead mother. Vik was tall, but not willowy, considering she dressed in such a way that reminded every man around her that she was very much a woman who enjoyed being looked at. Sometimes, it made Kolya want to hurt people … but again, none of his business. He stayed out of it.

Or tried.

She had started drawing shortly after their mother died. Her childlike scribblings turned into real art, and then drawing eventually turned into tattooing. Although, one wouldn’t look at Vik and think, tattooist. She didn’t have visible ink—but for the cursive B on her index finger for Boykov—and Kolya wasn’t all that interested in asking if she had ink where someone couldn’t see.

Vik knew she had a fucking attitude, too, and was quick to use it whenever someone thought pointing it out might shame her into toning it down. It never did—she just got worse.

She’d smile if someone called her a bitch—proud as fuck. And then gut them with words right after.

Currently, she was standing next to the counter with the cash register sitting on top, and glaring at Sumerki who was behaving in his spot next to Maya.

“It’s my dog,” Kolya said. “He is not a that, Vik. Since when do you work in a shop?”

“A friend needed an extra hand. Mind your business, no?” Vik’s gaze narrowed into slits when she peered back at her brother. “And that can’t be in here. It’s against the health code.”

“He stays,” Kolya returned. “And don’t call him that again.”

“You—”