Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LUKYAN VOLKOV
I’d been to my grandfather’s compound before. Several times. But no matter how many times I saw it, it still blew my fucking mind.
Huge stone walls with barbed wires on the top. Dozens of men, women, and dogs on foot patrol. Tall, impenetrable towers were home to what I knew were teams of two with high-powered sniper rifles.
It reminded me of a military base.
Or a prison.
Yeah. Based on what awaited me inside, prison sounded better.
“Remember what we discussed,” Father said from the front seat as the driver pulled up to the gate.
“Be my usual, dazzling self with added flair. Don’t worry, Pops, I gotchu.”
He turned, giving me an odd, perplexed look.
I flashed my teeth. “I’ve always wanted to call you that. Now seems like the perfect time, what with you wanting me to bring a little extra Lukyan to the table and all.”
“I like it,” Autumn chimed in beside me.
“You know what, I knew you would,” I said back excitedly.
“It suits you, Butcher,” Autumn added.
I punched her playfully on the shoulder. “We’re like one mind! I think so too.”
Father grunted and faced the front again. “Stop here and wind the window down, please,” he told the driver.
Visibly pale and shaking, Pedro did as instructed, stopping right next to the guard dressed in military clothing and armed with a huge-ass machine gun.
Nice.
“Eto chastnaya sobstvennost’.” This is private property.
“Otkroy vorota, Victor.” Open the gate, Viktor, Father barked out, his voice like ice. Cold. Hard. Very Boss Bitch.
Viktor bent at the waist and looked into the car.
“Dimitri, ne upolnimichena prokhodit’ cherry vorota—” Dimitri, this car is not authorized to pass the gate—”
Father whipped out his gun, his arm stretched out in front of Pedro so the barrel was pointing right at Viktor’s head.
Viktor touched the radio on his vest, not taking his eyes off the gun. “Otkroy vorota.” Open the gate.
“Oooo, he’s so dead,” I sang.
Autumn looked at me. “What do you mean?”
“He should have called to ask for permission first. Grandfather will kill him for letting in an unauthorized vehicle.” I was only partly kidding. I was sure my grandfather would punish him, but I doubted it would be anything that extreme.
As the gate slowly began to open, I unbuckled my seatbelt and wedged myself between the two front seats. “Hey, Vik, think I can get one of those machine guns?”
“Drive,” Father ordered.
The car drove forward. I tsked, went back to my seat, and quickly wound down the window, sticking my head out. “I’ll hit you up later, yeah?!” I yelled out as we moved past the gatehouse. “Is it new?! What’s the model number—” Someone yanked me back into the car.
I expected to see a pair of annoyed, exasperated blue eyes staring into my goddamn soul, but all that greeted me was my father’s face, shrouded in humor.
“Keep it up.” He winked.
An evil, giddy feeling filled my body. Like he’d said on the plane, we all had our parts to play. Me, the annoying yet extremely loveable son of the grumpy, oh-so-serious Bratva Butcher.
My father, the fed up, exasperated parent, sick and tired of his child’s crazy antics.
And Autumn? Well, I hadn’t quite figured out her role yet. But she did a pretty good job at calming my father down when he was pissed off…so there was that.
“Holy fucking shit balls,” Autumn whispered under her breath. “You guys are like, rich rich. I guess that twenty-million-dollar bounty he put on you was just chump change for him, huh?” Her eyes were glued to the obscenely large, oversized McMansion sitting on the hill a short distance away.
Over 30,000 square feet, luxurious, with more bedrooms and bathrooms than one person needed…It was the epitome of wealth.
Seriously.
I counted them once. There were sixteen bathrooms.
Sixteen.
Who the fuck needed sixteen goddamn bathrooms? What, did he wake up every morning and go, Hmm, what bathroom am I going to shit in this morning? Oh, I know, bathroom number nine. I haven’t been in there in a while.
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
Grand floor-to-ceiling mahogany double doors opened as we made our way around the large water fountain.
Yes. You read that right. Water fountain. And it was three times the size of our car. It was so big it was used as a roundabout for vehicles to enter and exit easily.
Grandfather stood on the front porch, two linebacker bodyguards at his back. I hated the dude with the passion of a thousand fiery suns…but if I could look half as good as him when I was in my late seventies, I’d be cheering.
Tall, broad-shouldered, and stoic, he was remarkably fit for someone creeping up to eighty. With his full head of silver hair and scars that littered his skin, Sergei looked like he’d lived a long, tough-as-fuck life. That nothing could take him down.
Which was exactly what he wanted people to see.
“Who’s that?” Autumn asked.
A man stepped out onto the porch. Average height. Average build. Average face.
Mr. Average.
He stopped and stood next to Grandfather. His clothes screamed money, right down to the fancy Ferragamo Oxfords on his feet.
Father frowned, looking at him. “I don’t know.” He handed Pedro a wad of bills, thanking him. “We’ll collect our luggage.”
With shaky hands, he took the money, nodding.
Deciding to take the reins, I stepped out of the car first in a big, over-the-top flourish.
“The king has arrived!” I announced, arms out wide.
I jogged up the porch steps and encircled my grandfather in a great, big bear hug, despite the absolutely revolting feeling doing so left in my stomach.
“Grandpappy! How the hell are ya?” I pulled back and gave him a friendly but very fake smile as I squeezed his shoulder.
“You’re looking gooooood. You been workin’ out? ”
“Lukyan,” Father called out.
I glanced over my shoulder to see the car was gone, Father and Autumn standing at the base of the stairs with our luggage next to them. If it weren’t for our talk on the plane, I would have actually believed he had the shits.
He and Autumn moved up at the same time I stepped back again, and we ended up side by side in front of Grandfather and Mr. Average.
I finally got a proper look at Sergei, and oh, boy, he was not happy about that display. The rage simmering in his blue eyes was enough to set the whole house ablaze.
Heh. Heh.
“I trust you all had a pleasant flight,” Grandfather said in perfect English.
Father hid his surprise well. Sergei barely spoke English. That was the first time I’d ever heard him do it in his own house before.
Like, ever.
I had no such reservations to hide my surprise. I pretended to clean out my ear, making a squeak, squeak sound. “Did you just speak English? In your own home?”
His eyes narrowed in irritation.
“Dostatochno priyatnym,” Pleasant enough, Father replied, voice clipped.
“English, Dimitri,” Sergei snapped. “It is rude to talk in front of another person in a language they cannot understand.”
Ahhh, so he is doing it for Mr. Average over there. Whoever he was, he was important enough for Grandfather to change something absolutely fundamental about himself.
That was slightly terrifying.
Autumn scoffed. She and Father looked at each other. Something unseen flashed between them. Something only they knew the meaning of.
Sergei’s gaze flicked to her. I held my breath, curious how he was going to play it.
“Nice to see you again, Sergei Lekovich Volkov,” Autumn said boldly.
Fuck. Okay. So she was just going right for the jugular. Had to love the woman’s style.
Grandfather looked her up and down, judgment clear as day on his face. “I don’t believe we have met, Miss?”
So that’s how he’s playing it, then. Plausible deniability.
A smirk played on Autumn’s lips. “My mistake. You look an awful lot like a man who attempted to do business with me. Autumn DeValos,” she said, placing a hand on her chest.
“I am sure I would remember doing business with a woman as lovely as yourself.” An evil look took over his face.
“I must admit, I was surprised to hear my son would be bringing a plus-one to the wedding. He was so besotted with his dead wife, you see. I feared he would never move on. What was her name again? Oh, that’s right. Yekaterina.”
Autumn and I stiffened. That fucking bastard. The gall he had to bring up my mother like that. Like she was just a shot to take at my father. My hands squeezed into tight fists, and I had to hold myself back from launching at him.
Father didn’t rise to the bait, and I was thankful. He’d fought through all his demons when it came to my mother. Her name no longer brought forth those feelings of guilt and anguish within him.
The tiny bit of fear I could see in Autumn’s eyes, however, told me she wasn’t as sure about that as I was. I could understand, given what had happened the last time, but Father reassured her by grabbing her hand and giving it a tight, supportive squeeze.
“We all move on eventually. Yekaterina is my past. Autumn is my future. Now, if there’s nothing else, we’ve had a long flight, and would like to get settled.”
Grandfather took control and flat-out ignored what he said. “This is Vernon Miseris. He’s a colleague, and will be attending the wedding tomorrow.” He signaled to Mr. Average at his side.
“Hi, Vernon. It’s an absolute pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I lied out of my ass.
“I’m Lukyan. That’s Dimitri, my father, and his girlfriend, Autumn.
Now that we’ve been introduced, your boy is going inside because I am starving.
You guys coming?” Without waiting for approval, I walked past Grandfather and into the house.
“Love what you’ve done with the place, Grandpappy!
” I yelled over my shoulder. “It’s giving nice old man vibes. Love it.”