33. Octavia
“You’re a cunt!”
The accusation flies through the lively kitchen with a notch of energy that no one should have access to this early in the morning.
My eyes widen at the crazed scene before me.
I haven’t had the chance to see my cousins again since that first day on the tarmac.
Honestly, I didn’t even realize they all lived here in the compound until Vasiliy coaxed me out of bed to hit a giant bag a week ago.
“You should’ve been keeping better track of the shipment.” One of the guys ruffles another’s head. “Take it as a learning lesson, little brother.”
“Ben, what have you done now?” another voice says from the far side of the room, thick with exasperation.
When I disentangled my sore limbs from the blanket this morning and decided to venture to the kitchen, I expected the house to still be asleep for the most part. After all, what kind of rich people purposely rise before eight in the morning?
“He commandeered my latest weapons shipment!”
“Ben,” the mediator hedges.
“Not my fault he’s a fucking—”
I clear my throat, dragging the argument to a screeching halt as four pairs of eyes leap my way. “Sorry to interrupt, but do you guys have any coffee?”
“Great, now the first name my little cousin has to associate with me is cunt. Thanks a lot, Kirill,” the one to my left snaps at the other before turning his back.
“Isn’t it best she gets to know the real you?” Kirill responds in a sing-song voice that summons another growl.
So, that did not answer my question—
Suddenly, a delicious, steaming cup of liquid gold appears in front of my face.
“How do you like your coffee? Sugar? Cream?” the man in front of me asks with an easy smile.
He’s the one who looks most like his father, down to the scruffy beard and sandy brown hair.
A ring of barbed wire is inked across his throat, connecting to some other artwork hidden beneath the collar of his shirt.
“Uh, both if you have it,” I say, shocked by the switch-up from the raging shouts I walked into a moment ago.
“You need breakfast, too. You look lighter than a backpack, little cuz. What would you like to eat?”
I stare up, dumbfounded. In the span of my entire life, I don’t think a single person has offered to cook me a meal, let alone a man.
Well, I suppose there was a cook at the orphanage, but she never asked what we wanted, just made a large amount of the quickest, cheapest staples she could think of. Lots of potatoes. Too much stew.
I still hate stew.
“Hey! You already got points for making her coffee. I should get to make her breakfast,” Kirill argues from my side.
“If you make her breakfast, she’d spend her first day up with a dentist fixing up a chipped tooth,” the other responds coolly.
Are they seriously arguing over who gets to make me breakfast?
What is happening?
“I’m not picky,” I say, responding to the question I was asked before it becomes buried by the growing spat.
The man nods and turns, flicking on one of the stove burners.
“You’re Ben, right?” I ask him, trying to pin names to faces.
“Or more affectionately known as Cunt,” Kirill says from the other side of the kitchen island. I stifle my laugh.
“You’d better shut the fuck up, or I’ll clear my schedule to commandeer all of your shipments, little brother.” He cracks an egg into the pan and turns back to me. “That’s right! I’m Ben, your eldest and favorite cousin.”
This time, my giggle claws its way free immediately. The sound feels strange. When was the last time I laughed?
“Sure, if you can withstand the massive stick lodged up his ass. I’m Kirill,” the other says with a crooked smile. He has the lightest hair of the group; streaked brown strands bordering on dirty blond. I try to memorize the name and face, filing the information away.
“I’m Nik,” the mediator says, stepping forward. His dark hair and thick mustache set him apart from the other men, more similar to my father’s coloring than his own.
The egg sizzles in the pan, filling the kitchen with the delicious scent and making my stomach rumble.
Finally, the last man in the room speaks, stepping out from the corner he’d been quietly leaning against as he witnessed the dispute.
“Maksim,” he offers softly, completely at odds with his massive frame.
“Hi,” I wave awkwardly. “I’m Octavia.”
Kirill laughs by my side. “Oh, we know. You made quite an entrance the other day, little cuz. First, walking in with that Morozov psycho leashed like a dog, and then threatening to shoot us, all in the span of ten minutes.”
Oh. Right. I kinda forgot about that part.
“Sorry about that,” I murmur, hiding my face beneath the rim of my coffee cup and taking a generous sip.
“Oh, please. That was the most excitement we’ve had in months. I can’t wait to see what you do to our Thanksgiving dinner. We’re glad to finally see you up and out of bed.”
“Dad said you almost set Uncle Sasha’s safehouse on fire, too,” Nik says with an easy grin. “God, what I would’ve given to see that in action.”
“I heard you’re some famous ballerina,” Ben adds, flipping the egg with ease.
My eyes leap back and forth, trying to keep up with so much more social interaction than I’m used to maintaining. I’ve spent the past two weeks stuck in some frozen intermediary state. I knew the time was passing, but it felt like it was moving differently.
“Stop. You’re overwhelming her,” Maksim cuts in from his corner, quiet gaze focused on me.
“No, it’s okay, I’m just not used to the whole family-thing yet, I guess.
” I don’t want them to feel as though they need to tread carefully around me.
It’s bad enough they all witnessed so many of my worst moments.
“Besides, you all seem to know so much about me, and I’m still struggling to remember your names.
It’s probably going to take a bit to adapt. ”
“Don’t worry,” Nik says, placing his hand on my arm.
“You’ll have plenty of time to get to know everyone in this crazy family of ours.
First thing you gotta know about the Siderovs is that we’re a close bunch.
Sure, we fight like cats and dogs, but the moment shit hits the fan, absolutely nothing can tear us apart. ”
I look up into his clear, hazel gaze as his words settle onto my skin, desperately trying to pretend the sense of belonging he’s casually offering isn’t the only thing I’ve wished for my entire life.
“How about I teach you some knife skills, cousin?” Kirill grins. “Getting to know a new person is much more fun with sharp blades.”
“Christ, you’re such a psycho,” Ben mutters from the stove.
“Actually, I’d like that,” I respond, flashing my first smile in a long time. Getting to know my cousin and learning self-defense? Sounds like a win to me. Maybe I’ll finally learn how to take down Vas and earn a day off from training.
“And I’ll take you to our gun range, since you seem to enjoy shooting things,” Nik says.
I’m never going to live down my entrance.
“You couldn’t hit a soda bottle three feet from your nose. How are you going to help her?” Kirill spits.
In a split second, something flies through the air, culminating in a wet smack. It takes a moment to realize that Ben’s pan is now empty, and the egg that was crackling in it seconds earlier is sliding down Kirill’s face, leaving behind a messy yellow trail of yolk.
“I was using that,” Ben deadpans.
“Sorry. Appeared that a demonstration of my impeccable aim was in order. I’ll make you another, cuz,” Nik says as he cracks open the fridge and reopens the carton.
“Oh, you little—” are the last words spoken by a furious Kirill before he tackles his attacker to the floor.
I grin, taking another sip of coffee.
My arms burn.
The bright sun beats down on my brow, drawing another hot bead of sweat into my eye.
After nearly a week of practicing the six base punches Vas taught me with the bag, he woke me this morning with a steaming coffee and the brutal announcement that I’ve officially graduated to hand-to-hand combat.
That’s when the day started going downhill.
Suddenly, an arm flies toward me, wrapping around my exposed neck and pressing my spine into an impossibly hard wall. I squirm in the hold to no avail, failing to loosen his grip.
“You have to pay attention,” a deep voice rumbles against my ear.
“I was paying attention.” I jerk forward, wrestling against the unbreakable plane of Vasiliy’s hardened body.
“Stop squirming,” he grits out between clenched teeth. “Break the hold like we practiced. Remember: your legs and hips are your strength. Use them to your advantage.”
I blow out a cold breath of air, grounding my legs in the base position we talked about earlier. “This is some bullshit MMA crap,” I complain between attempts, doubled over in exhaustion. “I thought you were teaching me to box.”
“Call me an interdisciplinary trainer, then,” he quips. “We’re going to cover every layer of self-defense I know. Don’t you wanna be a badass?”
Fuck being a badass. After nearly two hours of being twisted into a pretzel and eating about four different flavors of shit, I’m close to giving up on the whole girl boss dream.
For one, I’ve spent my entire life malnourished (both incidentally and on purpose), causing me to have the upper body strength of a T.
rex. After years of weekly weigh-ins to make sure we were maintaining company standards, what muscle I do have is lean and cut, and extremely unhelpful when trying to overthrow a massive Russian brute.
For another, this whole deflating experience has brought on a fresh wave of cynicism.
How could I ever learn to protect myself against someone so much bigger than me?
It felt like a foolish daydream that floated further away each time I was shoved into the dirt.
It doesn’t help that I feel like a flailing imbecile every time we do our freestyle warm-up against the bag.