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“You got it, Mr. Antonov.”
Once she’s firmly shut my office door, I pick up my phone with a heavy sigh. I don’t want to deal with this right now. I’ve made it perfectly clear that I want nothing to do with him. I hold the receiver to my ear and hiss, “I told you to stop calling.”
“I’ll stop calling when you agree to meet with me,” Konstantin says casually, his Russian accent so thick it takes me a moment to register his words.
“That’s never going to happen. Fuck off.”
“Now, now, Misha,” he chides. “Is that anyway to talk to your beloved uncle?”
“You’re no uncle of mine.”
“Blood is blood. You will always be a part of the family, regardless of how many miles stand between us.”
“This is your last warning,” I snap. “Stop calling me. Don’t harass my family. We’re never going to accept your offer. You were the one who banished our father.”
“My little brother Lev made the mistake of betraying me,” Konstantin says calmly. Maybe a little too calmly. “The rules of the Antonov Bratva must be upheld. I should have killed him on the spot for trying to turn me into the police. He got away easy.”
“My father died because of you,” I hiss. “I was eight when your men chased us out of Moscow.”
“Let bygones be bygones, Misha. I need you and your brothers to come home. Join us once again. It is your birthright to rule at my side.”
“What part of fuck off don’t you understand?”
Konstantin chuckles. It’s a gross sound. Wet, and all too throaty. “Your success, your company… You owe it all to me.”
“Our success is due toourhard work. You made sure you had no hand in it when you chased my father out of Russia at gunpoint.”
“You must think clearly, Misha. Think of all the things we could achieve together. The Antonov Bratva and the information CyberFort could provide… We’d be unstoppable.”
I lean forward in my seat, anger licking at the nape of my neck. “I won’t tell you again, Uncle.Stop. Calling.”
Slamming the phone down on its receiver, I sit back in my chair, fuming. Konstantin’s been calling non-stop ever since he got out of jail four months ago. He’s been serving time for an impossibly long list of crimes. I was too young to understand why we had to leave Russia in the middle of the night in a panic. Mother was still pregnant with Luka, and the twins were only six. At the tender age of eight, my father declared me the man of the house.
I didn’t know what was happening. All I knew was that we had four plane tickets to New York. Our father didn’t come with us. We never saw him again, but even at that age, I wasn’t naive enough to hope he’d survive. I know he’s dead, likely gunned down by his own brother.
I’m not ashamed about our lineage, our family legacy. As far as I’m concerned, we’re two separate families who happen to share the same last name. I won’t accept any of this Bratva bullshit. My brothers and I are businessmen, pioneers in the tech field, not tatted brutes with a penchant for violence.
Three sharp knocks sound at my door. My youngest brother, Luka, steps in.
“You okay?” he asks gruffly.
“Fine,” I lie fluidly. There’s no need to tell him about Konstantin. My brothers don’t need to know about that maniac. I’ll deal with him alone.
“You ready to go?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Where?”
“We’re treating the interns to lunch, remember? It’s a yearly tradition.”
I take a deep breath. Right, I’d almost forgotten. It was Dimitri’s idea to take the new hires out to lunch on their first day to boost morale, because once we put them to work, it’s noses to the grindstone. I normally don’t mind company outings, but…
But this timesheis going to be there.
I stand slowly. There’s really no avoiding Aurora. I can’t spend the next year hiding in my office just to avoid the chance of an awkward encounter. Besides, she’s in the unique position of knowing that I don’t hide anything at all.
“Let’s go,” I tell my brother.
Chapter 7
