Chapter 4
ROMAN
Absolute control. Sheer will. Power in strength.
My teeth grind as I clench my jaw, glaring into the glass of vodka in front of me.
It didn’t happen. Even if it did, it wasn’t my fault.
Fuck. When the ways you try to lie to yourself begin to sound, verbatim, like the narcissist's prayer, it’s probably time to admit that shit has gone south. Badly.
So I do what I’ve been doing for roughly the last twenty hours: try a different tactic to absolve myself of the sins that happened in the Adirondacks.
It was simply my body’s natural reaction to an external stimulus. That’s all.
Pain shoots through my jaw as I grind my teeth harder.
“External stimulus.” Somehow, that’s the terminology I’ve landed on, as if making it sound clinical and scientific removes any suggestion of sexual arousal.
If I can make it sound like something out of a textbook, then I can make myself believe that the blood flowing directly to my dick when that motherfucker pinned me to the floor…
and rubbed himself against me…was simply a biological reflex.
It was dark, I’ve tried telling myself. You'd had a couple of drinks.
Fucking shoot me. This is pathetic. Worse, it’s not fucking working.
“Rome.”
My brows furrow deeper as I glare into the depths of my drink.
“Rome.”
“Chill, dude. If he’s anything like me, he’s still not capable of forming sentences after last night.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Roman!”
This time, the voice calling my name is accompanied by a sharp elbow to my ribs. It knocks me out of my haziness enough to focus on more than just the vodka in front of me and the black thoughts still drifting like venom through my system.
I turn to glare at Bane before he can jab me again.
“What?” I grunt, scowling at him.
He cocks a brow. “Nothing. Just thought you were having a fucking stroke or something.”
I lift a dismissive shoulder and raise my glass to my mouth. “I was just thinking. Relax.”
Across the round table from me, slumped against the dark blue velvet of the curved booth, Laz wrinkles his nose and rolls his neck wearily.
“How the fuck are you able to think again yet? I can barely get a coherent thought through the dumpster fire that used to be my brain before you fuckers got to me last night.”
Next to me, Bane smirks. “Keep whining like that and I’ll have to confiscate your Russian card.”
“Fuck, you can have it,” Laz groans. “Or I’ll burn it as a fuck you to the system that allowed me ever to think that it was remotely okay for a human being to consume that much vodka. It’ll be my version of the bra-burning protests.”
A slight smirk twists my lips. “I think Bane’s right. Keep bitching about it and you’re out of the cool club.”
“Good,” Laz sighs, taking a sip of the beer in front of him.
“Seriously, what are you drinking?” Bane frowns, running a tattooed hand through his hair.
“A beer?”
“At the Russian Tea Room?” Bane shakes his head ruefully. “This is a fucking disgrace.”
Laz flips him off. “It’s called hair of the dog.”
“It’s called sack up and get a real drink like an adult, you fucking goober,” Bane sighs. He turns to shoot me a look. “Can you believe this guy?”
I force a smile to my face. “In fairness, last night did get…” I shrug.
Ludicrous. That’s what last night got. After I drove back to the city, probably breaking every highway speed record known to man along the way, I called up these two and convinced them to come out with me.
We went hard, and believe me, when it's the three of us, that’s saying something.
I’m not even sure what I told them was the reason for my downright aggressive drinking last night. But I know why.
To chase the memory away.
To make myself forget.
To remind myself that I’m in charge, and not beholden to the corruption that swirls inside me.
The irony that I drink to what most people would call “excess” to stay in control isn’t lost on me. But last night, that’s exactly what it was: a necessary measure to wrest power back from whatever darkness inside me was allowed to take over back at the house.
With him.
Val.
I flinch as I knock back the rest of my glass and reach for the bottle in the middle of the table.
I've barely stopped drinking since last night. I can’t.
Because when I start to slow down, I start to remember the way that fucker pinned me down. Worse, the way I didn’t fight it.
I’ve tried to convince myself that I couldn’t. I mean, yes, he was a lot fucking stronger than I ever imagined he’d be. But still, it was only half Val's arm strength.
The other half was that a part of me…a part that I have gone to insane lengths never to acknowledge, even to myself…made itself far too known last night.
I’ve been trying to drown it with alcohol ever since.
“Hey, speaking of bras.” I quickly change the subject, if only to stop my thoughts from spiraling and my memories from lingering too long on strong, veined, tattooed forearms. On dark hair, heavy brows, a chiseled jawline, and piercing blue eyes…
I toss back another huge gulp of vodka and then level a look at Laz.
“How’d things go with that girl you were all wrapped up in last night?”
A wicked smirk crosses his lips. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“Please. You trying to convince anyone that you’re in any way, shape or form a gentleman is pure fucking comedy,” Bane grunts.
Laz flips him off.
“What about you, Antonov?” I grin at Bane. “I saw that chick hanging all over you at that last place.” My brow furrows.
At least, I think I did.
Laz snorts. “Him? Nope. Didn’t you hear?”
“Shut the fuck up, Laz,” Bane growls, shooting our friend a dark look.
“Hear what?” I perk up.
“Nothing,” Bane hisses.
Laz rolls his eyes, then sighs and turns his attention to me, “Our boy here—”
“I’m warning you, shut the fuck up, Kislev,” Bane says tightly.
“—has a little crush,” Laz finishes, blowing a dramatic air kiss toward a scowling Bane.
I grin as I turn to him. “On?”
“Really,” he mutters. “It’s nothing.”
“And by ‘nothing’,” Laz chimes in, “he means ‘blurring the lines between a crush and stalking’ as far as he can—yo, chill, motherfucker!” He squawks the last part, ducking to the side to avoid Bane’s fist as he leans across the table and throws a wild punch.
“Okay, okay, peace,” I growl. “Seriously. Shake hands.”
“Should we kiss and make up, Antonov?” Laz grins.
Bane rolls his eyes. “Switching teams?”
“Fuck no,” Laz chuckles. “Can you imagine doing a dude?”
A tightness forms in my throat, but I swallow it back along with a mouthful of vodka.
Laz shakes his head. “I obviously don’t mean that in a phobic way. But pussy is just too fucking sweet.” He turns his attention back to me as I force my expression to stay neutral. “Speaking of…what happened with that girl you walked out of the place with?”
I got halfway home with her, realized I had zero goddamn interest in fucking her, had the cab drop me off in front of a bodega that would sell me a six-pack at five in the morning, and sent her home.
“She had a boyfriend,” I shrug, leaning back against the cushion behind me with a shrug. “A serious one.”
Laz frowns. “Yeah, one she seriously forgot about while she was sitting in your lap slobbering all over your neck all night. Pretty rude of her,” he sighs. “Wasting your time like that.”
Bane rolls his eyes. “A woman isn’t obliged to fuck you just because you bought her a few drinks and offered her a ride.”
Laz flips him off. “You know that’s not what I mean. I’m just saying, our boy here has a limited window of opportunity to introduce his dick to new vaginas before he’s shackled to just one for the rest of his life.”
Bane frowns as he glances my way. “I genuinely keep forgetting about the whole you-getting-married thing.”
“Yeah, can we talk about literally anything else,” I mutter under my breath.
“Oh, come on,” Laz winks. “I don’t know why you’re so bent out of shape—”
“Are you marrying a woman you don’t know for the sake of your family empire, Kislev?”
“Fuck no.” He makes a face. “I mean, can you imagine?”
Bane gives him a look. “Yeah, dipshit, I would imagine the guy getting married for the sake of his family empire HAS, in fact, imagined it.”
“Well,” Laz shrugs, “she seemed nice enough at that dinner party your father threw for her family and yours last month.”
Bane frowns. “Did you even talk to her?”
Laz shrugs his shoulders. “No. But even from a distance, I could tell she had a great personality.”
Laz cups his hands out in front of himself, as if he’s holding two basketballs to his chest.
“Great, huge personality…”
Bane snickers and I roll my eyes. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
“Mouthwatering personality,” Laz continues.
“Meh, Roman’s not a boob guy,“ Bane sighs.
Laz makes a face. “Lucky for him, his arranged bride-to-be has the infrastructure to turn the dead into boob guys.”
The two of them start to go at it again. But just then, my phone lights up on the table in front of me.
Stepan
Your father wants to speak with you. I’m waiting outside.
I frown at the screen for a minute.
Stepan
Yeah, still outside.
I debate turning the phone face down and continuing my mission to drink myself into oblivion, but then it lights up again.
Stepan
Don’t ignore me, Roman. I’ll come in to get you and embarrass you in front of your friends.
I allow a grin to creep into the corners of my mouth as I throw back the last of my drink and stand.
“Gotta run, boys.”
Bane’s brow furrows as he looks up at me. “Papa Nikitin?”
“Yup. When he says jump…”
“You better fucking ask ‘how high’!” Bane and Laz crow at the same time, demonstrating that they have spent far too much time around my father.
I give them both a fist bump and head outside to where Stepan is waiting behind the wheel of his all-black ‘69 Mustang Mach 1—AKA “his baby”. At forty-two and single, I’m guessing this car really is going to be his one and only baby.