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It’s gone as quick as it came.
“Piper will be living here on the property as Benjamin’s caretaker. I don’t take his care lightly, as you know—”
I hear a soft snort from Piper’s direction that I choose, for her sake, to ignore.
“—so anyone who makes her job more difficult will be removed.”
I meet the eyes of my men, ensuring each of them recognize what I’m saying. Thankfully, we all work from the same dictionary.
Translation:touch her and I’ll kill you.
I’m about to move on when Piper steps around me. Her hand ghosts over my forearm, a remnant of her ingrained training, no doubt. Fuck knows she feels no compulsion to be polite to me.
“I did already meet some of you as I came in this morning,” she says, lighting up the room with a warm smile. “As I said then, I’m a grown woman. If anyone is making life difficult for me,Iwill deal with them.”
She doesn’t need to make eye contact for me to realize that she’s speaking directly to me.
If she wasn’t such a nuisance, I would truly admire her guts.
Pavel is sitting in the chair across from Piper. His eyes rove over her, and my lip curls in distaste.
I should have given her a uniform. Like a king-sized sheet or a two-person tent.
Instead, she’s in a pair of wide-legged trousers that hug her small waist. The shirt clings to her sweat, so I can make out the lacy strap of the bra she definitely wasn’t wearing when I saw her last night.
While my men admire Piper, I can feel my father watching me.
I didn’t tell him anyone would be coming to live in the house. Before he walked into the entryway a moment ago, he didn’t know she existed. I sure as hell don’t owe him an explanation, but he’ll ask for one. Especially now that she’s publicly talked back.
So much for scaring her into submission.
“Wait for me in my office, Piper.” I shift in front of her and address the room. “My men and I have a situation to deal with.”
She doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t need to. I feel her leave. It’s like the air kicking on in a stifling room. Finally, I can inhale.
When she’s gone, I turn to face my men once more. “I meant what I said. I’ll kill you all.”
There’s a nervous chuckle, but my father isn’t laughing. “That’s why we’re here, Timofey,” Sergey says. “You’re feeling homicidal lately. I hear you murdered an Albanian gunrunner.”
“If you want an apology, Otets, you won’t get one.”
“I don’t give a damn about an apology and don’t insult me by assuming I have use for one,” he barks. “You know better than anyone: I don’t want apologies; I want explanations.”
“Everything is permissible with the right justification,” I say, parroting back something he taught me years and years ago.
When Sergey took me in, I thought he was going to be no better than the string of decrepit foster parents I’d had before. They pretended to want what was best for me, but they were in it for the stipend check. When I proved to be too much trouble for the payment, they sent me packing.
I didn’t have high hopes for Sergey as a father, even if his mansion was a far cry from the shacks I was sent to before.
But old habits die hard.
I gave Sergey my worst: sneaking out of my room, stumbling home drunk as the sun came up, and stealing money out of his office to fund all of it.
When he caught me stealing, I expected him to shove my scant belongings into a trash bag and ship me back to the CPS office the way all the others had.
Instead, he stood back and crossed his arms.“What do you need the money for?”
“Drugs,”I fired back, even though I was just going to buy a case of beer.
