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When we walk into his office, he’s sitting in the armchair next to the fireplace. His suit jacket is thrown over the arm and the first few buttons of his shirt are undone. It’s more casual than I’ve seen him in years.
“What’s this about?” I ask irritably. “Can’t this family meeting wait until I’m not entertaining your guests?”
“Soon enough, they’ll be your guests,” he intones without looking up from the flames.
Yasha looks over at me, eyes narrowed. The playfulness from a moment earlier is gone.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
He turns to us, his expression stoic as ever. “I’m dying.”
There’s a beat of silence before Yasha shakes his head. “What the fuck are you talking about, Papa?”
“Cancer,” he says. He points to his lungs and his stomach. “Riddled with it. The doctor says I have a few months left, if I’m lucky.”
All at once, it’s like a haze clears, and I can see him clearly for the first time in a long time. He looks gaunt—hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, pale lips—and his usually rigid spine is curved, almost like he doesn’t have the strength to sit up straight.
Growing up, he told me confidence was about projection. “People see what you want them to see.” I never fully grasped what that meant until now.
“Fuck that doctor,” I say. “We’ll get another opinion. There are at least ten of the motherfuckers guzzling our liquor in the other room. I’ll call one of them back here and—”
“I’m dying,” he snaps, leaping out of his chair. He moves quickly, but it clearly takes something out of him and he wobbles on his feet. Yasha lunges forward to help, but Father slaps his hand away. “Bah! Leave me alone, boy, I’m fine. It’s time to get my affairs in order.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No. You don’t get to just quit.”
“I’m not giving up. I’m passing the torch.” He steps forward and lays a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve prepared you for this, Adrik. You’re ready to lead the Bratva. You’re ready to be don. But—”
“But what?” I bark.
He smiles. “Suddenly, you’ve changed your tune.”
I grimace. “Was I supposed to be happy about this news?”
It’s the closest we’ve ever come to saying, “I love you.”
He nods. “You’re almost ready. There’s only one thing that must happen before I officially place the Bratva in your control.”
I roll my eyes. “Tell me who I need to kill.”
“You need to take a wife.”
I stare at him, waiting to see if this is his first ever attempt at a joke. No time like the present, I suppose.
But he only stares back, his eyes bloodshot and watery.
“A leader needs a wife,” he continues. “I needed your mother. She steadied me in ways that my lieutenants never could. Plus, she gave me the two of you. Heirs to carry on the lineage.”
I grind my teeth together. “I don’t need a single goddamn thing besides myself,” I growl. “I sure as fuck do not need a woman to lead. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Not all of them,” Yasha chimes in. “I’d know better than you, wouldn’t I, Adrik? You seem to have struck out on that front.”
There’s an edge to his words. Probably because he is already married.
Though he’ll never admit it, he’s hurt Father wouldn’t even consider him as an option for replacing him. Especially since Veronika is recently pregnant.
Yasha has already made an heir. He has all the pieces in place.
But I am the firstborn son. The Bratva is my right. And there’s not a single man on this planet who can take that from me.
Not even my own brother.
“This has nothing to do with her,” I hiss at him, refusing to say aloud the name I’ve kept buried in my past. “This is about me. I’m fine on my own.”
Father takes a deep breath. It rattles in his chest. “I’ve made my feelings clear. I will not change my mind. If you’d like to lead, take a wife. If not… I’ll burn this Bratva to the ground on my way out.”
Without another word, he strides past Yasha and me and into the hallway.
Yasha moves to leave, too, but first, he stops and claps a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve never had trouble finding a woman before. This should be easy enough for you. The real test is whether the woman you choose can survive the engagement.”
Wisely, he scampers out of the room before I decide to give him the beating he deserves.
As I walk back to my office, tension ripples through my body. My fists are clenched, my steps heavy.
I hear the sounds of the party still going on in the other room, but I know I won’t be rejoining the crowd. I’m not fit to be around people right now.
But when I cross the entryway, a man peels himself off the wall and stumbles towards me.
“Our gracious host!” the man slurs. “I thought you’d slipped away for the night. But it’s good to see you. Care for a drink?”
It takes me a second to place the man, but when I do, I realize how drunk he must be to think it’s a good idea to walk up to me in an otherwise empty hallway.
“Councilman Bowman,” I say through gritted teeth, inclining my head. “I actually did slip away from the party. I won’t be back. Goodnight.”
I move to walk past him. But as I go, his hand flies out to grab me.
Even if he weren’t drunk, I’d be faster than him. And since he is drunk, he moves like he’s treading through molasses. I snatch his hand out of the air and bend his arm behind his back, putting just enough pressure on his elbow that he can feel how close it is to breaking.
He yelps in shock, though his eyes are glazed over. He may not even remember this interaction in the morning. Perhaps I should give him some pain as a reminder…
“If you’d like to keep that hand, I suggest you never touch me again,” I snarl in his face. He reeks of booze. “Especially since I know you’ve used this very same hand to make deals with the Volandri mafia. And still you have the audacity to walk through my front doors? I’d call it bold if it wasn’t so fucking stupid.”
The man is shaking now, his body trembling. He may actually piss himself. Which would be amusing, if I didn’t know how much I paid for the rug we are standing on.
“Tonight, I leave you with a warning,” I tell him. “End your partnership with the Volandris and I won’t end your life.”
Before he can say another word, I throw him to the ground and stomp away.
I meant what I said to Yasha earlier: I don’t have the patience for any of this shit.
