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Roman stuffed down his rage and took a seat in the other chair. He wanted a drink, but he didn’t need the distraction. The glass in his hand, the pause to drink, the bother about where to set it down when he wasn’t holding it.
His father was the worst kind of predator, one who could turn from genial to enraged in a heartbeat, one who immediately sought an outlet for his rage. Roman tried not to be present when his father’s darker impulses hit, and when he couldn’t avoid being present, he tried at least to be prepared.
He looked down at his bloodied knuckles. His body ached from the beating he’d taken during last night’s fight — although he’d prevailed in the end — but at least that pain was of his own making.
His own choosing.
It wasn’t inflicted by the hand that should have protected him.
Fighting was one of the few times Roman felt in control: the give of another man’s flesh and bones beneath Roman’s fists, the blood spurting from another man’s nose.
Roman might be hurt, but he would not be dominated, had never lost a fight.
He used to imagine the day when his father would become old and frail, when Roman might hold a pillow over his face untilhe stopped breathing or beat him like he did his opponents at Basil's.
But even as his father had grown older and frailer, that day had never come. At first, Roman didn’t know if it was because his connection to his father — like any child’s connection to a parent — was incorruptible or if it was because he was afraid of the wrath of Konstantin and his father’s other loyalists.
Finally, he’d figured it out. Roman wanted to take that which meant most to his father, his greatest treasure.
The bratva.
“Sit,” his father said, again without looking up.
Roman did.
His father set aside the papers in his hand. “We need to talk about Valeriya.”
“What about her?” Roman asked, but he already knew the answer.
“It’s time for you to marry,” his father said. “Vladimir is becoming impatient.”
“Perhaps Vladimir should marry,” Roman said.
His father’s expression hardened. “Making light of a serious situation is not the mark of a good leader.”
And forcing your son to marry a woman he doesn’t love is not the mark of a good father.
He forced himself to silence the words in his head.
“Or perhaps it is the mark of a leader who knows what he wants,” Roman said instead.
“And what do you want?” Konstantin asked. “Who else is waiting in line to marry the great Roman Ivanov?”
Roman clenched his fists, fighting the urge to punch the smug son of a bitch.
He wasn’t short willing women, and Kon knew it. He just didn’t want to marry. Didn’t want to torment children, a woman,like his father had tormented Roman, his younger brother, and their mother.
He forced his voice steady. “That’s not really the point, is it?”
His father sighed, used to their infighting. “I think what Kon means to say is, who else do you have in mind?”
Roman had a flash of dark hair streaked with burgundy, a soft laugh, the smudge of a bruise on a slender wrist.
Ruby.
“No one,” Roman said. “But that doesn’t mean I want to marry Valeriya Orlov.”
“And yet, we need capital,” his father said.
