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“Fuck,” I say. “My father is here.”
I fumble with the door, my hands shaking. The box of watches still sits open on the bed. I don’t have time to hide them back in the drawer.
Dom stares at me, and I feel weak. So fucking pathetic. I am dead. My father will surely kill me for this. I stole from him.
If he doesn’t kill me, he’ll take me back to Russia and put me there. Back in that basement, in the dark, with the rats and the spiders and only the dog bowl of water and food for sustenance.
My longest time in there was three whole days. I feel as if I am going to cry, and I can’t do that in front of Dom, and certainly not in front of my father. It will only make him angrier.
“Wait a minute.” Dom puts his hand on my shaking one, stilling me. “Tell him they are for him.”
“What?”
“Tell him the watches are a gift for him. He’s still going to go apeshit, right? But say it was a present for him and you were waiting until you had the twelfth watch to give it to him.”
“It makes no sense,” I say urgently. “I still took his money.”
The footsteps are walking along the hallway now.
“Yes, but to buy him something you felt he could keep forever. Do it, Kill. I don’t think he will be quite as angry.”
The door bangs against the wall, and my father’s massive enforcer, Igor, fills the frame.
My father pushes him aside and stalks into the room. He’s huge, too. Six feet five. Muscular. Broad. His hair is darker than mine, an ash brown, but with some gray at the edges now. His skin is olive, and his eyes blue. Women fall at his feet and say he’s handsome as the devil himself.
He’s also as evil.
“Father,” I say.
I have to force myself not to look at the watch box.
Dom had closed the lid just before they arrived.
“Do you know what upsets me?” my father says in Russian. No hello or anything.
“No, Father,” I say.
“It’s not the stealing. There is honor amongst thieves. It’s the lying. The cowardly inability to own up to your own shit. Did you think I’d never find out? Huh?”
I don’t speak, and he punches me in the face. Pain explodes, and I double over. Fuck me, I think he broke my nose.
“Sir, you can’t do that in here.” Dom steps forward.
My father eyes him. “Looks like someone already tried to teach you a lesson, young man. I guess that lesson didn’t sink in. Perhaps you are in need of a reminder, da?”
My father backhands him so hard Dom goes stumbling against the wall. Nataniele is not going to like that.
Igor turns on Dom, and fear flares through me. I hate seeing my friend hurt, and he’s already suffered one beating recently. What will another do to him? He could end up with lasting brain damage, or breaking an already fractured rib might puncture a lung. I’d never forgive myself if he was seriously injured or worse because of something I did.
“Dom, get the fuck out of here,” I groan through the pain.
He hesitates, glancing between me and the two older men, clearly torn. He doesn’t want to abandon me, but perhaps he realizes he can help me more by leaving than staying. He slips out of the room, and I don’t blame him. No point him getting killed, too.
My father snorts laughter. “You are such a disgusting piece of shit, Kirill, even your friends run out on you. Such a disappointment. You have nothing of me in you, and all of your cunt mother. I can’t believe you were the only son God gave me. Your one-hundred-and-ten-pound sister is more of a man than you are. You make me sick. You are so pathetic.”
Igor joins in. “Was that your boyfriend? Is that why he tried to defend your honor?”
My father grabs my balls and twists so hard I bite down a scream. “Do you like boys, son?”
