6. Fyodor
CHAPTER 6
FYODOR
I can’t decide if my sons are idiots or if I’ve just spoiled them beyond sense, but either way, this is my last-ditch attempt to fix it. So I need to live by my decisions, no matter the cost.
“Pakhan,” the boy who drops off my drink speaks the title as a sign of respect, but it grates on me to have to admit I am no longer in charge.
Six months. That’s how long I remained Pakhan of our section of the Bratva after moving to this city, and every day since I made the choice to step down, I’ve wondered if it was the right one.
People move around the club, preparing the last-minute things they need for the auction. This is the first time I’ve had any hand in trading skin, and I have to remind myself that watching over my sons isn’t the same as being involved in their enterprise.
A mix of bright red-and-white lights turn on one by one, changing direction until they are pointed just right, with the microphone in the middle. The employees find their places while a line of preselected men wait outside to enter.
The secondary coatroom has been converted into a sort of transition room where the girls will go after they’re auctioned and wait until the money is exchanged. My sons have told me all of the details, including the fact these girls aren’t kidnap victims. Of course they’re not willing participants, but they’re whores and addicts, destitute and without anyone to protect them. None of them are nice clean girls plucked out of their beds, so the cops won’t be banging down the doors with pictures printed on milk cartons.
I know my sons well enough to know that’s the eventual direction all of this is heading. Their bullshit speech was too specific not to give away their interests. I meant to make them strong, but I believe I accidentally made them cruel too, not just in necessary actions but also in their spirit.
I can’t seem to completely break the habit of hovering over them, though, and worrying about them like they’re boys. Their mother died young, so I suppose I had something to make up for. Then the second bitch I married molested my eldest son. It fucked the boy up, so I definitely had something to make up for after that.
They’re not soft—I beat them too often for that—but I don’t know that they have a true sense of consequences either. How would they when I’ve always cleaned up their messes? Have they ever had a reason to think through their next few moves? Not until I decided to step down a few months ago and handed the reins over to them.
The deal I made with the Bouchards, the competing crime family in the area, was a good one. There couldn’t be a better time to let them test the waters of power and see how they can handle it. I was certain they would rise to the occasion. Well, something has risen, and it’s not my hope for tonight’s events.
I’m tired, old, and uninterested in running the Bratva. I’d rather give this to them and let them have something of their own in this world. Things are good now, and at no small price. The conflict with the Bouchards got bloody, and a lot of good men were lost on both sides, but now that’s over, and we have a solid line to the port.
My sons don’t see it exactly the same way, though, and I worry their greed will be their undoing.
I drink a glass of Stolichnaya. My first wife and true love, Sne?ana, came from the area in Latvia where they make it. I drink it often just to feel like she’s near me. When she first passed, I chased the warmth of her kisses with the burn of the alcohol. But my love has been gone for a long time now, and nothing in this world feels like her touch. I stopped drinking to excess a long time ago since it only made things worse for all of us.
The setup is almost ready now. Both my sons move around the room. Big boys, just like their father, at six foot four and six foot six. With their shoulders back and the confidence in their voices, you might not think a father had anything to worry about, but they’re too impulsive and too destructive.
I make eye contact with my eldest son as he’s instructing one of the girls. He points and waves her off before he heads over to me. I can’t help but roll my eyes. Irakily is typical for an eldest son—hungry for his place in command, bossy with his brother, and always ready to question his father. He’s been that way since he was a boy.
“Papa.” He stops at the edge of my table. “You know we’re selling the girls in just a few minutes. I’m about to bring in the men.”
“What’s your point, son?” I watch him over my glass as I take a sip.
His face turns a slight shade redder, and I’m disappointed such a simple question would get a rise out of him. He would do a lot better if no one ever saw a reaction from him. I learned that from the Bouchards too. Our enterprise lacks subtlety.
“My point is that I know you don’t like it. Maybe you should go home. Drink to Mama’s memory there.” He speaks in Russian both to keep our conversation private and to kiss up to me. I’ve never acquired a taste for English, preferring the shapes and sounds of my mother tongue.
“It’s not a matter of what I like, Irakily. I want to keep an eye on the situation.”
“The situation doesn’t need your eye, Papa.”
“After what happened last week with the exchange at the port? You know the Bouchards will cut us off if you’re firing weapons over there, yet you pulled out your gun.”
This is an old discussion now, but the anger twists his expression like another round will change my view of things.
“Another fucking mistake you made. You don’t expect me to keep honoring this deal. Do you?”
I raise my eyebrow at him, tempting him to say more about my supposed mistakes. We were running out of men, losing a war that didn’t need to be fought, and the deal I struck secured us money, peace, and connections.
“Perhaps I’d like to see that my business doesn’t fall within the first year it rests in your hands, and you will honor that deal.”
I’ve worked too hard to see everything go to shit because my sons have gotten greedy. This territory may be newly under our control, but a few hours east of here, our enterprises are thriving.
His fists tighten, and he thinks hard about arguing, but I have not been an easy papa, and those lessons don’t fade easily. I’ve beaten this boy so many times that he should hate me. I should hate myself, and if we lived in a different world, I might feel guilty. But this world wasn’t made for soft men, and I’ll die before I leave them undefended.
“I’m not a fucking idiot, and as much as I hate to say it, neither is Daniil.”
“You both have a lot of work to do if you would like me to believe that.”
“We’re not ruining shit, Dad.” He switches to English as he gets angrier. He’s fluent in both, but he’s officially spent more of his life here than he did in Russia, and his preference for time shows in how he speaks.
“We’ve never sold skin. We left that shit to the syndicate. I worry you’re getting much too brave.”
He laughs, quick and derisive.
“You’re one to talk about bravery. We’ve run guns, explosives, a fucking nuke, and you’re worried about skin?” He raises an eyebrow at me, highlighting sharp blue eyes. He looks so much like his mother when he does it that my heart aches.
“Worried isn’t what I am.”
“Then what are you?”
“Tired.” Too old and tired to get into the skin trade, too unsure of our standings with Nikolai Bouchard and his fucking brother. Not interested in fucking up a perfectly good line to the port. Very uninterested in watching my sons die.
“If you’re so tired, go home and rest as I suggested.”
My home isn’t much of a home. The apartment is a penthouse, incredible and lavish, but what the hell is that for comfort? The home I lived in with their mother felt like that, but it burned down a long time ago, and while I’ve lived in plenty of places, I’ve never felt like I had a home again. The idea is depressing even without his attitude.
“It’s not the kind of tired you can sleep off, son.” That’s true enough. I never taught this boy any good lessons in honesty, and I won’t start now. My reasons are my own.
“Fine, sit there and glare all night, but please stay inconspicuous. Your presence isn’t giving the message you believe in your son as the new leader.” I didn’t give him this role because I believed in him. I stepped down because I hoped the pressure would force him to prove me wrong.
“You’re Catholic. You honor your father. There is no question beyond that.” He knows better.
“I will honor my father,” he agrees as he turns to do exactly what I’ve advised him against, but I don’t complain further because I’m the one who decided it’s his time to no longer obey.
He makes an announcement, and the doors open. A line of men file in, ready to buy the girls my sons have managed to round up.