14. Kirill
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KIRILL
T he Volkov family was at war.
You’d never know it just by looking at them—because not even Nina, whom everyone knew was prone to dramatics, would dare do something as stupid as embarrass her father in front of his guests—but there was no denying the obvious: they were all poised to make the killing blow.
Petr, specifically.
Seated like a king at the head of the table, he made a point to chat amiably with Enzo Accardi, but every time the Italian don paused the conversation to funnel another bite of golubsty into his mouth, Volkov’s gaze shot down the length of the table to glare daggers at his son. And Yarik . . . Fuck, I wanted nothing more than to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into his thick, stubborn skull, because it was obvious to everyone, except maybe Enzo Accardi, that Yarik didn’t give two shits about why the Accardi family had been invited from Italy to celebrate his eighteenth birthday.
Seated across from Yarik was the why .
Her name was Giulia. She was nineteen, fluent in both Italian and English, and was currently studying art history at Oxford. A temporary pastime, Accardi had boasted with a careless smile when we’d first sat down to eat, before marriage and babies, of course .
Of course.
If Giulia harbored any resentment toward her father about her uni days coming to a swift end, she didn’t show it. She smiled and laughed and tried to make eye contact with Yarik, who looked absolutely miserable sandwiched between Nina and Vera, and whose gaze constantly sought out mine instead.
I’d been placed at the end of the table.
With Artem.
“More yorsh, Volkov.” He didn’t bother to look me in the eye—just waved a hand at his empty glass. He might as well have snapped his fingers at me. My jaw went tight, vision bloomed red, right there at the edges where my morals tended to lie in ruin, and it took every scrap of self-control I possessed not to reach out and break that hand in half.
I was tired.
Tired of obeying.
Tired of always keeping my mouth shut.
“Volkov.” Artem’s tone roughened with warning. “More yorsh.”
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you ?—
Inwardly, I choked on a rage so hot, I was surprised that I didn’t burn alive. Outwardly, I calmly pushed my chair back, picked up the empty glass, and forced an expression of apathy onto my face as I approached the sideboard to do the honors of making Volkov’s newly promoted councilor a bloody fucking drink. Vodka. Beer. I grabbed the appropriate bottles, sorely tempted to search the house from top to bottom for some arsenic, and then poured equal measures of both into the glass. Sans arsenic.
Unfortunately.
Just as I turned to retake my seat, Enzo Accardi said, “Tell me, Kirill. All these years and you were never able to reconnect with your family?”
The question stopped me in my tracks.
This wasn’t my first time meeting Accardi. He visited England frequently, and just last year, I’d escorted Volkov to the Accardi family villa in Sorrento. While the bosses had talked business into the late-night hours, Artem had made me play chauffeur, driving him to an old, decaying mansion buried in the Amalfi cliffside. Wasn’t sure what I’d expected, honestly, but it hadn’t been the woman who’d greeted him at the door, then beckoned him inside with her fingers tucked into his belt loops and a come-hither smile on her lips. We hadn’t made it back to Sorrento until after four in the morning.
Point was, Accardi knew me. Maybe not well, because at events like these, I did my best to fade into the wallpaper, as any good soldier would do, but well enough. So, why ask about my family now?
My gaze slid to Volkov, who watched me with a predatory stillness that set off alarm bells in my head. Loud ones. Was this a trick? Some sort of trap to test my allegiance, yet again? My pulse tripped over itself even as I answered, “No, signore .”
“Not for a lack of trying, though.”
Fucking Vera.
Yarik’s cousin met my gaze with a vicious twist of her lips. “Remember that time you went through Dyadya Petr’s study?” She flicked a glance to her uncle, and then flicked her long, brown hair over one shoulder. “You tried so hard to find any information on?—”
“ Shut up ,” hissed Yarik.
I was frozen, feet cemented to the floor while my heart rabbited in my chest. Loyalty was everything in the Bratva. And Vera had just outed me over something I’d done years ago when I was still new to this world and didn’t know how fast a bullet traveled or how easy it was to pull a trigger. Or, you know, the fact that security cameras existed, and Petr Volkov was a paranoid madman who left nothing to chance.
Christ. I didn’t want to die, and she’d just sealed my fate.
“What?” Vera prompted, baiting me like the hellhound she was. “Nothing to say to that?”
“Igor.”
Halfway down the table, the younger Volkov startled at the sound of his older brother’s voice. Not just his brother—his pakhan . All around, wide-eyed stares volleyed from one Volkov to the other, until finally Igor lowered his silverware to the table, a piece of red meat still caught in the fork tines. Dread seemed to weight his every movement as he rubbed a hand over his bearded jaw. “ Da .”
Petr didn’t even blink. In Russian, he said, “Until your daughter understands how she should conduct herself at a formal gathering, she’s not welcome at this table.”
“ Konoshno ,” Igor said flatly. He pushed his chair back. “Vera, let’s go.”
And that was that.
Vera was older than me, and maybe growing up meant maturity for other people, but she was hostile. Always had been, even when we’d been kids. She reminded me of Volkov’s dogs, jerking at their chains, biting anyone who stepped too close. Loyal to no one, not even the hand that fed them. So, while her outburst wasn’t exactly surprising, it still threw me that she’d kept this information to herself for over eight years, just to . . . what, drop it on me now? For what reason?
With a roll of her eyes, Vera tossed her napkin across her unfinished dinner, then sauntered out of the dining room ahead of her father. In the awkward lull that followed, I braced myself for the impending storm.
Volkov would have my head for this. And if not my head, then definitely my?—
“My apologies,” he said, wine bottle in hand so that he could refill Enzo’s glass with a red blend from Accardi’s own vineyards. “One would think that as our children age, we are able to loosen their collars. Give them more breathing room.” The smile that stretched across his face didn’t meet the wintry steel of his cold blue eyes. “But that would be a mistake, of course. Our children are spoiled, too soft to endure what we did in our youth, no?”
Accardi took the proffered wine. Briefly, his stare touched upon his daughter, who’d fallen silent like the rest of us, before he brought the glass to his lips. After a healthy swallow, he returned it to the table. Danced his fingers along the crystal stem. “All the more reason to give them a guiding hand.”
Petr raised his glass almost mockingly. “As I’ve said.”
“You have. Repeatedly.”
“And you’ve made your feelings known, too. Unless . . . have they changed?”
Accardi’s dark brown eyes swept back over his daughter, then Yarik, where they lingered long enough to raise the hair on the back of my neck. I found myself taking a step in Yaroslav’s direction just as the don murmured, “Yes.”
Victory flashed in Petr’s narrowed gaze. “Say it, then.”
“Yes, I—” Another quick, resolute glance aimed at his daughter. “I agree to the terms of the marriage contract for my Giulia and your son.”
There was absolute stillness.
And then?—
“Marriage contract?” Yarik’s voice wavered with horror as he looked from Accardi to Giulia to his father. “And what do you mean, terms ?” Before Volkov could answer, Yarik launched out of his seat, knocking his wine glass over in the process. It spilled across the table, staining the white linen a deep, ambushed red. “I didn’t sign anything. Father, you can’t just?—”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“I said, sit down .”
Yarik didn’t sit, and I didn’t know whether to grab him by the shoulder and force him down into the chair or move in front of him, an impregnable fortress that would absorb each and every blow even if it meant putting myself in the line of fire instead. Then I realized that I was still holding Artem’s yorsh, the request for it forgotten as everyone’s attention shifted to my best friend.
“I’m not going to marry her ,” he was protesting loudly. “I don’t care if you’ve signed a hundred contracts—a-a thousand, even. You promised that I’d have a choice. That you wouldn’t make me?—”
“I lied.”
The temperature in the room dropped to below freezing. No one moved. No one breathed. Least of all me. Least of all Yarik .
“You, what.” It wasn’t a question. A flush stained my best mate’s cheeks. Down by his sides, his arms twitched, as if he wanted to wrap them around himself. Or like he wanted to deck his father right in the face, consequences be damned.
“I lied.” Volkov coolly sipped his wine. “I will forgive this outburst, syn , as I’m sure you’re in shock. But let me make myself very clear—you have no choice in the matter.”
“No.” A whisper. A breath.
The rhythm of my heart matched the panic flooding Yarik’s face while waves of nausea pooled in my gut, the likes of which I hadn’t felt in years. Not since Pavel Sergerov. Not since I’d killed Pavel Sergerov.
Petr continued, unbothered. “This is the way of things. You marry. You give the family heirs. One day when I’m dead, you’ll assume my place and rule my kingdom. Then your children will marry. And they will give the family heirs. So on, so forth, for eternity.” He tipped back the rest of his wine. “Enzo, tell me, pozhaluysta . Does your daughter give you such grief?”
Accardi laughed, but the sound lagged, hitting a beat too late to come off as anything but strained. “Giulia? No, my Giulia knows her place.”
Giulia said nothing.
“Perhaps I shall remind my son of his place.” Volkov snagged the wine bottle and poured, and poured, and poured until red liquid kissed the rim. He wasn’t drunk. That wasn’t his way. He liked to draw out the inevitable, crafting silk webs around his prey until they either suffocated or he cut them loose in a rare show of mercy. “Or perhaps,” he added in a deadly soft murmur, “I will have his best friend remind him as penance for invading my privacy. ”
Slowly, like a doll in a horror film, Nina’s head turned my way.
So did Artem’s.
Condensation from the yorsh coated my palm, but it was nothing compared to the nervous perspiration beading to life on my brow. Anxiety gathered in my throat until it hurt to even swallow.
I wasn’t stupid. No way would Volkov let a bomb like the one Vera dropped go unpunished. Maybe that made me na?ve, though, because I hadn’t expected this to be his power move. Based on the way his gaze glittered with satisfaction, he knew that he had me backed into a corner.
No one spoke out against Petr Volkov.
He was the pakhan .
Our king.
Over the years, I’d watched him break those around me. He seemed to relish that final moment, when his victims dropped to their knees and begged for their lives. Worse was when they begged not for themselves, but their loved ones— please hurt me instead, please don’t touch my wife, my children, my family . There weren’t any lines Volkov wouldn’t cross, especially if he felt personally slighted.
And now he wanted . . . Now, he wanted me to . . .
“Enzo, Giulia.” Volkov rose to his full height, dabbed his mouth with the napkin, and discarded it on the table beside his plate. “You’ll have to excuse us.”
Accardi didn’t move a muscle. “ Sì, naturalmente . Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” Volkov returned.
He walked out.
And we followed, Yarik and me. Forever bound. Even in Hell.