10. Kirill
Dom turnsup at my door looking like he’s about to tell me the world is ending.
He’s pale, too, and it makes the now-healing injuries his father gave him look even worse. What the fuck is going on? I’ve heard some shit has gone down, but I’ve had my own shit to deal with.
My father is on his way, and he’s furious.
“Where is Valentino?” I ask. “Where is Mackenzie?”
Dom rakes his hand through his hair. “You’re not going to like this.”
“Too fucking right, I’m not. Tell me. Now.”
I do not appreciate being made to feel like a…what do they call it? A third wheel…or in this case, a fourth wheel. We are supposed to be in this together, but now they treat me as though I have no right to be included. That fucks me off. That seriously fucks me off.
Dom sinks to a chair and puts his head in his hands. I don’t like this stance from him. He seems defeated.
“You know our little Duchess? Our prim and proper girl? Well, seems a lot of it was just as act.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“She killed a man. Or at least she tried to.”
“Schto?” I’m so shocked the what comes out in Russian.
Dom continues, “I thought the only reason she and her mother came here was to get in with my father, but I was wrong—or at least partly wrong. They came here to protect Mackenzie.”
Despite myself, I give a cold laugh. “That went well.”
Poor girl falling in with us. I don’t really include myself in that. I don’t think I hurt her the way Dom and Tino have. Tino with his fucking cameras, and Dom with his fucking issues.
This is the worst possible time for this to be happening. I’m already sick to my stomach at the news that my father needs to see me, face-to-face. He hasn’t told me the exact reason, but I can take a good guess. He wouldn’t be traveling all this way if it wasn’t for something deeply serious.
I glance at my watch.
“Oh, I’m sorry, do you have somewhere you’d rather be?” Dom sneers. “Am I keeping you?”
“Fuck you. My father is on his way.”
Dom’s face changes instantly, and instead of sneering judgement, there’s compassion. We might sometimes argue and piss one another off, but deep down, the three of us are the family we don’t have anywhere else. Dom knows there is only one thing in this world that scares me other than the dark. My father.
I hate that I am so weak, but there it is. It is the truth, and I must accept this facet of myself.
“Shit,” Dom says. Then his face brightens. “Still, he might be the person we need right now.”
“If my father is, how do you say, the answer to your troubles? Is that right?”
Dom nods.
I carry on. “If he is the answer to your troubles, then you are in so much shit. He’s never been the answer to anything.”
“He might be who we need to help our Duchess.”
I pause for a moment, letting his words sink in, and then say, “Tell me everything.”
So, he does. I stare at him and can’t help but grin at the bit where he talks about her stabbing a man in the neck.
“It’s not funny, Kill,” Dom chides, using my nickname.
“I’m smiling because I am so proud. Our Duchess is strong. Good for her. I always felt she was one of us, despite her trying to be so distant all the time. I was right.”
“She’s a killer.” I start to laugh. “I bet my father would like her as a future daughter-in-law. The girl who stabbed a man in the neck with a pen. She would be famous in our world for this.”
“You’re not fucking marrying her,” Dom roars.
“Chill out, no need to be jealous. It was just an amusing thought.”
“So will you talk to your father?”
My heart sinks and my stomach churns. “I’ll try, but he’s not coming here to see me out of love and affection.”
“Why is he coming? Do you have any idea?”
I shake my head, but my gaze automatically slides to the top drawer of my bureau. My dirty little secret is in there. The one even Dom and Tino don’t know about.
They are aware of my fear of my father, and my hated fear of the dark, so why I haven’t told them about this? I don’t know.
“What the fuck is it?” Dom asks.
Crap, he knows me too well.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, Kill.”
I sigh and check my watch. In an hour or so, my father will be here, and it will all come out.
Walking over to the bureau, I slide open the top drawer and carefully lift out the heavy mahogany lockbox sitting in there. I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet. Taking the small key out of it, I unlock the box. My fingers rest on the smooth, dark wood, and I suck in a deep breath.
This box holds the things that make me feel better. I know it’s ridiculous, and it’s why I don’t share it with anyone, but this box is like a mother and father to me. It gives me a sense of safety and history. As if I have a family somehow residing in its wooden walls.
I open it and let the lid rest back on the desk. Dom lets out a low whistle. The box has twelve velvet lined compartments, and eleven are currently full. In each slot sits a different watch. They are all vintage, rare, and incredibly expensive.
“Holy shit,” Dom exclaims. “Is that a Patek Phillipe Nautilus?”
I swallow and nod.
“But … aren’t they like eighty or ninety thousand dollars? How did you afford it?”
“I didn’t. That’s why my father is coming.”
“You stole his watches?” Dom’s features crinkle as he furrows his brow.
“No,” I say slowly. This is so embarrassing. “I stole his money to buy the watches.”
“Why?”
What can I say? To make me feel safe? It sounds so pathetic.
I can’t explain my motivations, but I love these watches. They are like an anchor for me. I don’t even wear them. I wear my vintage Tag Heuer, daily. Ironically, it was a gift from my father, and it made me feel special and as if he actually did love me. He gave it to me when I was sixteen, and I think that’s where this all began. With each purchase, I relive the moment of receiving something from him that made me feel cared about.
I used to glance down at my wrist and get a sense of connection with my father and my family through the watch sitting there. Then one day, I saw a vintage Omega in a store, and I went inside to look. I tried it on and loved how it looked. Then the jeweler began to tell me all about the watch’s history. It was an old piece from the 1960s. Apparently, the first guy who owned it had been a race car driver. He then said something to me that stuck with me ever since. He said he felt as if some of that man’s ambition and courage and drive resided in the very steel of the watch itself.
That watch is sitting there in my box with all the others, but it wasn’t anywhere near as expensive as the rest. I managed to buy that one with my own savings. I never wore it, but I took it out most days and looked at it and stroked my thumb over the cool metal links. Whenever I did, I felt as if I was somehow filled with the strength of the man who originally wore it.
In Russia, many of us have lived with poverty for a long time. There is an uncertainty to life in the country, no matter who you are. It’s not like here in the West, where for decades now people have been given a false sense of security. No one in Russia feels safe. Not truly. Certainly, no one within my family feels safe.
Our family has been run throughout history by a series of tyrants. At any moment, you could find yourself thrown out of the clan. Left alone, with no one to help.
My obsession only grew stronger when I had my Omega cleaned and serviced. They told me how much it had gone up in value, and I saw an asset as well as something that gave me personal comfort.
This realization, along with the way it made me feel connected to a secure past, meant that I soon began to get the itch to buy another. The problem was I had no more money. Many years ago, however, my mother had given me the details to a bank account. It had a lot of money in it and was held in Switzerland. She said it was an account of my father’s that he kept in case they had to flee the country. She was giving me the details in case I ever had to run. She told me in no uncertain terms to never take money out of it unless it was life or death. She had said to me, Kirill, my child, you must not take money from there ever, unless you are fleeing for your life. Because after you take the money, you will wish you were dead if your father finds out.
My mother clearly thought me a better person than I am. She gave me the account number and online banking details, with all the codes and passwords I would need to take out money.
It was too big a temptation for me.
Many months after buying the Omega, I saw a Rolex that I fell in love with. I went to look at it every day, pressing my face up against the jeweler’s window. I didn’t have the money to buy it, but the urge was riding me hard. I suppose in a way it was like Dom gets when he needs to cut himself. I was stressed and worried, and my father was being abusive. I felt as if owning that watch would put an end to the turmoil.
The knowledge of that account burned a hole in my gut, and I kept thinking back to it. I told myself I would just borrow the money. I told myself my father wouldn’t notice, because he had bank accounts all over the world, and that was just his escape plan account. A nothing. A tiny thing in Switzerland he’d probably forgotten about. He wasn’t going to check it regularly. He was too busy making deals, killing rivals, and building his wealth and empire. I would pay the money back when I could, and that would be that.
The only problem was, I never paid that money back. Once I’d done it, it seemed so much easier the next time. Every single time I took more money, I promised myself it would be the last time. No more, I’d say to myself. This has to end. Then one day I’d be walking down the street, and something would catch my eye. I’d obsess over it, and fixate on it, until I had to have it. That feeling would build in me, that tension and that need for release. The only thing that would make me feel better would be buying the watch. Then, of course, afterward, I would crash as the fear hit. I would tell myself that this was the time I’d gone too far. This was the time I’d be found out.
The watches only grew more expensive, the build-up more dreadful, the rush upon buying the timepiece more intense, and the comedown even worse.
I’m surprised it’s taken my father this long to find out.
“Kirill,” Dom says, putting his hand on my arm, “your father is going to kill you.”
“I know.” I shrug. Then I laugh, but it sounds strained and false. “He really might this time.”
“We’ll go get my dad. He might be the world’s biggest asshole, but he’s not going to let your father murder you on his college grounds.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Mackenzie has to be the priority. You need to go after her. I am sickened by my actions because it means I cannot be there for her when she could be in danger.”
“Tino is with her. At least, I assume he is.”
This news surprises me. “Oh? So, she’s okay?”
“No fucking idea. The bastard has turned his phone off.”
A fresh twist of worry goes through me.
“Call him again.”
He does, and it rings this time. Dom puts it on speaker phone.
“Yeah?” Tino answers as if he’s all chilled out.
“Where the fuck are you?” Dom demands.
“In the car.”
“With Mackenzie?”
“Yeah. We’ve had to dump her mom’s car, ’cause she really shouldn’t be driving, but it was a wreck anyway, so I don’t think anyone is going to complain.”
Dom doesn’t seem the slightest bit placated. “You were there the entire fucking night. Did you screw with the app so we couldn’t find you?”
“Me?” Tino says all mock innocence. “I’d never do such a thing. Why would I?”
“Because you’re an asshole.” Dom is pacing now. “Is she okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you on your way back?”
“Yes, but we’ll still be an hour or so. We set off early.”
“Why not last night?” I ask. Dom is right; Tino is fucking us around.
“Mack was tired, weren’t you, darling?”
In the background, Mackenzie giggles. I grit my teeth. What the hell were they up to all night alone in that room? As if I even have to ask.
“It’s not cool to keep your toys all to yourself, Tino,” I remind him.
“There’s shit you need to know,” Dom says. “Important shit. Both of you. Get back here. Oh, and Duchess?”
Her voice is all happiness and sunshine. “Yes?”
“You’re in so much fucking trouble.” Dom hangs up the call and throws his phone at the wall with a curse.
“He spent the night fucking her. I can tell.” Dom turns to me, his eyes blazing. “She could be in danger, and he fucked her.”
“He has a gun, no?”
“So?”
“He knows how to use it. They are on their way back, and they are safe.”
I have bigger things to worry about now I know she is safe. I don’t care if Tino fucked her. In fact, I’d like to take a look at her well-used holes when she gets back here and maybe go down on her and taste her. I hope she hasn’t showered.
“It’s wrong. It’s supposed to be the three of us with her,” Dom says angrily.
He’s just pissed because he thinks he’s the leader. He’s only the leader because we let him be. For a moment, I watch Dom contemplatively and wonder if I should take out some of my pent-up stress on him. Maybe a few rounds in the training ring?
“We should head to the gym for an hour while we wait for them to get back,” I suggest.
Dom’s mouth pinches, but then he nods. “I could do with punching the shit out of something.”
“I’ll meet you down there.”
Dom returns to his room, and I grab my gym gear and change then meet him in the gym. We spend the next hour sparring. I go easy on him, aware he’s on the edge. He knows I’m a better fighter than he is, though he’d never admit it out loud. All the feel-good endorphins from the exercise will help, but it still doesn’t solve any of our problems, especially not mine. Dom is jealous that Tino spent the night with Mackenzie—but then maybe so am I. The problem with my father overshadows all of that.
When we’re done, we shower and change, and head back to my room. I realize I left the box of watches still sitting on the bed. I struggle to imagine anyone would steal from me, but it was still a stupid thing to do.
The sound of heavy boots on the stairs has me rushing past Dom to the door, which is slightly ajar. I open it and stick my head out.
“Fuck,” I say. “My father is here.”
I fumble with the door, my hands shaking. The box of watches still sits open on the bed. I don’t have time to hide them back in the drawer.
Dom stares at me, and I feel weak. So fucking pathetic. I am dead. My father will surely kill me for this. I stole from him.
If he doesn’t kill me, he’ll take me back to Russia and put me there. Back in that basement, in the dark, with the rats and the spiders and only the dog bowl of water and food for sustenance.
My longest time in there was three whole days. I feel as if I am going to cry, and I can’t do that in front of Dom, and certainly not in front of my father. It will only make him angrier.
“Wait a minute.” Dom puts his hand on my shaking one, stilling me. “Tell him they are for him.”
“What?”
“Tell him the watches are a gift for him. He’s still going to go apeshit, right? But say it was a present for him and you were waiting until you had the twelfth watch to give it to him.”
“It makes no sense,” I say urgently. “I still took his money.”
The footsteps are walking along the hallway now.
“Yes, but to buy him something you felt he could keep forever. Do it, Kill. I don’t think he will be quite as angry.”
The door bangs against the wall, and my father’s massive enforcer, Igor, fills the frame.
My father pushes him aside and stalks into the room. He’s huge, too. Six feet five. Muscular. Broad. His hair is darker than mine, an ash brown, but with some gray at the edges now. His skin is olive, and his eyes blue. Women fall at his feet and say he’s handsome as the devil himself.
He’s also as evil.
“Father,” I say.
I have to force myself not to look at the watch box.
Dom had closed the lid just before they arrived.
“Do you know what upsets me?” my father says in Russian. No hello or anything.
“No, Father,” I say.
“It’s not the stealing. There is honor amongst thieves. It’s the lying. The cowardly inability to own up to your own shit. Did you think I’d never find out? Huh?”
I don’t speak, and he punches me in the face. Pain explodes, and I double over. Fuck me, I think he broke my nose.
“Sir, you can’t do that in here.” Dom steps forward.
My father eyes him. “Looks like someone already tried to teach you a lesson, young man. I guess that lesson didn’t sink in. Perhaps you are in need of a reminder, da?”
My father backhands him so hard Dom goes stumbling against the wall. Nataniele is not going to like that.
Igor turns on Dom, and fear flares through me. I hate seeing my friend hurt, and he’s already suffered one beating recently. What will another do to him? He could end up with lasting brain damage, or breaking an already fractured rib might puncture a lung. I’d never forgive myself if he was seriously injured or worse because of something I did.
“Dom, get the fuck out of here,” I groan through the pain.
He hesitates, glancing between me and the two older men, clearly torn. He doesn’t want to abandon me, but perhaps he realizes he can help me more by leaving than staying. He slips out of the room, and I don’t blame him. No point him getting killed, too.
My father snorts laughter. “You are such a disgusting piece of shit, Kirill, even your friends run out on you. Such a disappointment. You have nothing of me in you, and all of your cunt mother. I can’t believe you were the only son God gave me. Your one-hundred-and-ten-pound sister is more of a man than you are. You make me sick. You are so pathetic.”
Igor joins in. “Was that your boyfriend? Is that why he tried to defend your honor?”
My father grabs my balls and twists so hard I bite down a scream. “Do you like boys, son?”
I can’t speak because of the pain burning through me, but I also know screaming will make this worse.
“Maybe that’s where your money went,” Igor says with delight. “On his boyfriend.”
“No,” I manage to grind out the one word.
Father lets go of my balls, and I stagger backward, stars in my vision. Jesus fucking Christ, that hurt.
“Do you think he needs to come home for a week in the basement?” My father asks this question of Igor.
Igor turns his piggy, little, ice blue eyes to stare at me. “Da. Maybe one month.”
“I didn’t steal it,” I shout. “Fuck you, Igor, you jumped-up piece of shit.”
“Can I hit him, sir?” Igor asks my father.
“Yes. Not the face. That is reserved for me.”
Igor strolls over to me and punches me in the stomach.
I don’t hit him back. I don’t fight back at all. Every instinct in me is screaming to, but I know my father might actually kill me in this room, and I am trying to keep a lid on his rage.
“I didn’t steal it, Father. Not in the way you think. I did a stupid thing.”
“What did you do?” My father sneers at me, his face a twisted mask of rage.
To my horror, a tear escapes and drips down my face. I wipe it away angrily.
“Such a little pussy,” Igor says with a laugh.
I hold out my arm, displaying the vintage Tag Heuer. “You bought me this watch,” I say. “When you did, it was the best day of my life.”
It’s not a lie, and I can see by the way the twisted hate falters on my father’s face that he can see it is the truth too.
“I wanted to get that feeling again. But this time do it for you.” Now comes the lie. Please let him believe it, I pray. “I wanted to buy something as amazing for you, but I had no money to do it. One day, I saved enough to buy you an Omega watch. Vintage. It had belonged to a racing driver.”
I am telling the truth to cover up the lie, and I think it is maybe working. “Before I gave it to you, I took it to a jeweler to be cleaned and serviced, and they told me it had massively increased in value. They said I had an eye. A gift.”
“I am not following,” my father says.
“So, I, erm I-I-I have a gift, they said. I can see what is good, valuable, when it comes to watches. Mother told me about the account, and she said it did nothing. It was for emergencies only. The watch did something. It made money. I- I wanted to buy more. To get you a collection. I bought a box.” I gesture behind me to the box. “It has twelve slots for watches. I told myself when I had twelve, I would give it to you, and it would be the greatest gift. One befitting such a great man and father.”
The last lie is laid on thick. My father stares at me then walks to the box. He opens it and looks inside.
Igor follows him and peers in too. He whistles. In Russian, he says, “You’ve got good taste, kid.”
My father turns back to me slowly, and I cannot tell what he’s thinking, which terrifies me. “Are you telling me you stole from me to buy me a gift?”
I nod and swallow.
“You think that is okay?”
I shake my head.
“Yet, you think you made money?”
I nod.
“What would you bet on it?”
I falter. “What?”
“What would you bet on having made me money?” My father watches me, cruel and hard.
“I don’t understand.”
He sighs. “It’s not a hard fucking question, Kirill.” He lifts my hand. “A finger? A toe?”
“A ball?” Igor laughs at his suggestion.
“I d-d-don’t know.”
“I think two fingers is fair.” My father holds up the little finger and ring finger on my non-dominant hand.
“He can’t shoot as easily if you take two,” Igor points out. “One, but with a jagged knife?”
Father nods. “Da, good thinking.”
I can’t focus on what they’re saying. The relief that floods me is so overwhelming I can’t breathe. He just wants a finger? I thought I’d have to do a week in that hellish dark place. I can’t. I’ll smash my head open on the wall if he puts me in there.
I want to laugh but know if I show him the thought of losing a finger doesn’t scare me, then Father will think up something worse.
“I suppose we ought to find a watch appraiser,” Father says. “If you made me money, we will let this go with just the beating. If you have lost me money, then I will take a finger.”
I send up a prayer that the watches have increased in value.
The thought of Mackenzie seeing me without a finger and knowing my father cut it off as a punishment, and I meekly let him, makes me feel sick.
Will she still want me?