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EPILOGUE
Roman stepped into the brownstone’s foyer and drew in a breath, steeling himself for what was to come.
He didn’t want to be here.
“Roman.” Vera, the housekeeper, strode down the hall toward him with her arms open.
She was an imposing woman, tall and thick, with severe gray hair that was always pulled into a bun and a stern face. No one in the world gave better hugs.
“Vera.” He wrapped her in an embrace and kissed her cheek. “How is Jake?”
Vera had been a fixture in the house for as long as he could remember. Her five-year-old grandson had broken his arm climbing a tree two weeks earlier.
“Ack! He’s fine. Ready to climb another tree.” She swatted at Roman with the dishtowel in her hand. “Like you.”
“Kids,” Roman said.
“Maybe you’ll have some of your own one day,” Vera said. “You won’t be so cavalier then.”
Roman barked out a laugh. “When hell freezes over.”
Vera grinned, displaying one gray tooth up front. “Famous last words.”
Roman looked at the stairs. “Is he in his office?”
Vera’s nod was somber. “He’s waiting for you.”
Roman’s chest felt heavy, his dread like a lead weight, but he started for the stairs anyway. What choice did he have? He’d been summoned.
“Roman?”
Roman turned to look at Vera, her features twisted with worry.
“He’s in a mood.”
Roman nodded and continued up the stairs. When was his father, Igor Kalashnik, pakhan of the New York bratva, not in a mood?
The stairs wound to a third floor, but Roman stopped at the second. At the end of the hall, Dima and Boris, two of his father’s primary bodyguards, stood outside the double doors to his father’s office. Roman had no doubt, Konstantin would be inside, whispering in his father’s ear, feeding his worst impulses.
Same as it ever was.
Not that Roman’s father would have been a good man without Konstantin. Igor had always been a vile, hard man. It had been like having a run of barbed wire for a parent, and Roman had spent his childhood trying not to be sliced to ribbons.
But Konstantin exacerbated the problems that already existed, and Roman had learned the hard way to maneuver carefully around him whenever possible.
He nodded at the guards, straightened his suit jacket, and knocked on the wood-paneled door.
“Enter,” his father barked from inside.
Roman opened the door and stepped into the room. It was darker in here, the rich velvet curtains partially drawn againstthe sunlight, several table lamps lit, as if it were midnight instead of three in the afternoon.
“Father,” he said, closing the door behind him.
His father sat on the Chesterfield sofa reading a sheaf of papers. He didn’t look up as Roman entered the room, didn’t acknowledge Roman’s presence, but Konstantin eyed him like a hawk from one of the wing chairs adjacent to the sofa.
“Kon,” Roman said with a nod.
The other man blinked blandly, like Roman was only a mild curiosity.
