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PROLOGUE
VADIK
I knew those bastards would show up.
It’s not enough that my parents are dead, burned to crisps in a house fire that flamed so fast and hot they couldn’t even reach their bedroom door.
It’s not enough that my Uncle Mikey—formerly Misha, before he fooled himself into believing people would think he was American with a more Anglo-sounding name—is gloating in the corner, face wet with crocodile tears, counting the money he’ll make taking over my father’s club. And his wife in a brand-new fur coat even though it’s too warm outside for a light jacket.
Nor is it enough that the two shots of whiskey I threw back to help me get through the day are churning in my stomach like toxic sludge.
To make matters even shittier, the Yegorov faction had to show up, as if they care that my parents are in closed coffins because they’re burned so badly they can’t be put on display. As if they’re mourning that the head of their biggest rival faction—the one led by my father—is now dead. As if they give a shit about expressing their condolences to my brothers and me.
They’re having their best day of the year on what is undoubtedly the worst of mine.
My parents deserve to be honored today, not surrounded by a bunch of greedy, gloating bastards.
Hell, Papa was not my favorite person. He was volatile and selfish. And my poor mother put up with more of his shit than any woman should have to.
And then there were the mistresses, one of whom is making her way through the receiving line toward my brothers and me, rivers of thick, black mascara running down her fake tan face.
All faults aside, he was still my fucking Papa.
“Told you they’d show up,” Kir says, not bothering to lower his voice.
The receiving line, a hideous formality the funeral director recommended, twists out of the room, the end nowhere in sight, leaving my brothers and me to robotically shake hands with the throngs of people who’ve come to pay their respects.
I have no doubt most of them owed my father money and are stopping by only to ensure he really is dead.
I’m half-tempted to open his coffin so these fuckers can see his charred remains.
Yup, he’s dead, folks. But that doesn’t mean your debts are released.
“Oh, Vadik. I’m so very sorry.”
I’m eye-to-eye with the manager of Papa’s club, Dominika Federova, a ‘friend’ from the old country who came to the US around the same time my parents did.
A coincidence?
Hell no.
When he was alive, Papa never admitted Dominika was anything to him aside from his formidable club manager—and I will give the woman that much—she’s always run things with an iron fist. But it would take a fucking idiot to not see there was more there.
But, as much as she would have liked to, for all the years she was his mistress, Dominika was never able to displace my mother, a Mrs. Grigory Alekseev. She might have fucked my father six ways from Sunday, but it was never enough to drive a wedge between him and hisrealwife—Mama. That’s because, in our world, marriages are business transactions. And Mama’s family connections are what helped my parents come to the US and finance Papa’s rise to the top of our Bratva faction. In fact, if he had lived long enough, he would have become thePakhan. Not that he wanted to be that high up in the organization. He was quite happy managing the day-to-day in his own local faction.
That was Papa. Ambitious, but not enough to make enemies.
Or so we thought.
While Dominika never had a chance at becoming Papa’s wife, she was given the opportunity to have a career. To make money. Which was probably better for her, in the long run.
After all, if she’d been in bed with Papa the night of the fire, she’d be lying in the coffin right next to his.
“Nice of you to come, Dominika.”
She wipes her tears, smearing more mascara across her cheeks. Why do Russian women of her generation wear so goddamn much makeup?
“Vadik,” she says, lowering her voice and moving closer to my ear, “what… what will become of the club?”
