Chapter 9 Ransome
RANSOME
AN HOUR EARLIER
The last thing I want to see right now is Tristan Chadovich’s ugly mug.
The man is the bane of my fucking existence. The moment I walk into the little cocktail bar where we agreed to meet, I can feel his reptilian smirk from across the room. Something about this entire setup is rubbing me the wrong way.
I make my way through the lounge. It’s a dimly lit, swanky little place that serves upscale cocktails and small plates, all not enough to whet an appetite, all egregiously overpriced.
The fact alone that we are here and not at a steakhouse tells me one thing: My mother picked it.
Not because this is her type of joint, either, but because she is catering to the Chadovich women.
This is a Katya and Jenica Chadovich kind of place.
And all of that tells me another thing: There’s an ulterior motive behind this meeting.
“Well, well, well, look who decided to show up.” The words slice at me as soon as I approach the booth in the far corner of the lounge. But I’ve been dodging jabs and bullets from that voice for a long time now. They don’t even scratch the surface of my skin anymore, let alone break it.
I incline my head in his direction. “Tristan.”
“Son, how are you?” My father squints. “And why aren’t you wearing a tie?”
I situate myself next to my mother, across from Jenica and at the opposite corner of Tristan. Maybe the distance will keep him from speaking to me so much. If I’m lucky.
“I thought we were just having drinks amongst friends.”
That’s a lie and everyone knows it. The Rozanovs and Chadovichs are anything but friends and these meetings are exclusively for business purposes. The only reason we don’t hold them at an office or a private setting is because someone would most likely get shot.
Cocktail lounges are better suited for collateral damage.
“Cheers to that.” Jenica smiles at me and raises her glass in my direction.
My eyes skim over her only in passing. Her blonde ponytail is so tight that it tugs at the corners of her eyes and her face is painted with enough makeup to supply half a Sephora.
She’s wearing a silver-sequined dress and she smells like coconut and fresh spray tan.
It’s all fake, in other words.
And I fucking hate fake. Fake tans. Fake tits. Fake smiles. Fake friends.
I take a sip of the whiskey that is already waiting for me, sucking my teeth before looking at my father who is holding a tight smile on his thin lips.
“When I tell you the nature of this meeting, Ransome,” he sighs, “I feel you will wish you’d worn a tie.”
“I’m on the edge of my seat,” I drawl.
“The Chadovich family, moya sem’ya, would like to see a truce between us and the Rozanovs,” Dmitry Chadovich starts in. His Russian accent is thick.
I roll my eyes. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Under the table, my mother, Arina, places a hand on my leg. It’s both a warning to behave and a soft gesture of support. She doesn’t want to be here, either.
“I think it would be wise to listen to what Dmitry has to say, son,” my father suggests. “A lot of blood has been spilled due to… misunderstandings… between our families.”
I nearly choke on my whiskey. “‘Misunderstandings’? You mean unprovoked attacks?”
“Some would argue it goes both ways,” Tristan interjects. We haven’t ordered any food and my guess is we probably won’t, but Tristan has his black cloth napkin splayed open and is turning the knife over on the table. It’s not a threat—he’s just being an ass.
“A truce, a true agreement made in a civilized manner, is just what our families need to prevent any more of these ‘misunderstandings.’” Jenica uses my father’s word, her voice amicable and level. My eyes go over to her only because I can feel her icy gaze on me.
I have known this woman, this girl, my entire life. And I know when those eyes are telling me something. This something is not what I want to hear.
In my peripherals, l catch another snake-like smirk from Tristan who is now rotating the knife between his fingers, his eyes fixated on me, waiting for my expression to break.
It won’t.
I know where this is going. I know what a truce looks like between Bratva families.
It’s nothing short of a seventeenth century agreement between feuding royal houses.
When two families can’t get along—or in our case, can’t stop trying to kill each other in the streets—an alliance is struck, at the expense of one unlucky couple. In other words…
… An arranged marriage.
“It’s been a while since the Rozanovs have resorted to going this route,” I growl, leaning back with my whiskey in my hand. “I find it to be medieval.”
“It’s tradition,” Dmitry states flatly.
“And it works,” my father agrees.
Wrong. It’s a Band-Aid. A facade.
It’s also going to end as soon as I become pakhan, because it’s fucking bullshit.
For now, though, with these two sitting at the table, there isn’t much I can do.
“So who are we marching to the guillotine this time?” I ask wearily.
I get nothing in response.
Dmitry’s face has not changed. He is a large man with greasy hair and a suit that barely contains his flab.
Katya is smiling as she always does. Fake, lip-stained, lifeless.
My mother’s hand moves only so she can take a sip of her rum.
Tristan’s hand spins the blade between his fingers faster.
And Jenica’s eyes, blue like ice, haven’t left me.
A chill runs up my spine before melting and running hot as it all becomes clear.
They want me to be the sacrificial lamb.
“You have to be fucking kidding me.”
“I’m not a kidding man, Ransome,” Dmitry says somberly.
“Is my cousin not good enough for you?” Tristan stops playing with the knife and glares at me.
I show no expression. He’s trying to rile me up. He’ll have to try much fucking harder if he wants to succeed. “Arranged marriage is not for me. I’m going to be the pakhan and—”
“That’s right.” He runs his slimy tongue across his teeth. “Because your brother is dead.”
My jaw clenches. I can feel my mother flinch. That alone is enough to make me want to flip the table, take this mudak by the throat, and make use of that dull knife.
But I don’t.
My father clears his throat. “Son, you know as well as I do that this is how things work. Jenica is a lovely, smart, well-educated young woman and she will make a fine pakhan’s wife. A truce between the families is a perfect solution.” His words drill into my eardrums like nails in a coffin.
My coffin, specifically.
I glance at my mother, who is still sipping her rum, still wounded from Tristan’s comment. A comment I’d love to make him pay for, but that would only further prove the point that we need this marriage before there’s no blood left to spill.
“I, for one, bless the marriage.” Katya plasters on a phony smile and reaches for her drink. “I say we toast to it.”
“Absolutely,” my father agrees, picking up his glass as well.
The others follow suit. I am the only one who doesn’t lift my drink.
“What’s the matter, Ranny boy?” Tristan tips his chin up at me.
I don’t want to fuck your cousin, for starters.
But it’s not just that. I let the word “marriage” roll around in my mouth like a broken tooth.
I can’t stop prodding it, can’t stop tasting the blood.
My father calls it tradition; Dmitry calls it peace.
What it is is a leash. A very public one.
And I’m the fucking sap who gets stuck paying the price.
Tristan gets to smirk, Jenica gets to preen, and I’m supposed to kneel so the cameras catch the angle.
To which I can say only this: Not a fucking chance.
I was bred for war, not pageants. I take what I want and I don’t bare my throat willingly to anyone. Six months and the pakhan’s crown is mine—after that, I set the rules. I just have to make it ‘til then.
Obviously, I don’t say any of that. I pick up my glass and hold it with the rest of them.
“To new beginnings,” Katya says and everyone echoes.
We all take a drink and I keep my eyes on Tristan, who is grinning like a fool.
There’s no way he’s actually okay with this.
Tristan and Jenica are close. Well, somewhat.
I don’t actually believe that Tristan Chadovich is capable of loving anyone but himself, but the two of them have some eerie sort of understanding.
It’s why I don’t trust her.
It’s one of many reasons why I’m not going to marry her.
I leave the lounge as soon as my glass is dry without even bothering to come up with a plausible excuse.
I’ve got a million thoughts running through my head, but the one that recurs most often is that I can only imagine what Amara will think when I tell her to add tuxedo fittings and cake tastings to my daily grind.
You would think that arranged Bratva weddings would just be a courthouse situation.
Sign the damn papers at gunpoint and call it done.
But no—they’re elaborate, public affairs.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars. A bride dripping in diamonds.
A Dom Perignon fountain spilling gallons of Benjamins on the marble floor.
It’s almost as if to say, This is forever. Because if it’s not, it will be blood on the floor, not champagne.
I will be thirty in six months. That’s six months until I become Rozanov pakhan. Once I am pakhan, it won’t matter if I am married or not. I can handle the rivalries and everything else, no truce needed, arranged marriage or otherwise.
In other words, I just have to forestall this marriage for six months. I’ll find a way. I’m sure as fuck not marrying a Chadovich.
As I head to my car, though, I pause. I need a drink. Another drink, a real drink, a drink in the company of no one I know. I rip open the top buttons of my shirt, roll up my sleeves, and make sure my car is locked before wandering down the street.
There’s a speakeasy around the corner that most people don’t know about. It’s dark, the drinks are stiff, and I have never run into anyone who knows my name. Perfect.
I pass a cantina, a sushi place, a barbeque joint where everyone is eating with their hands and sucking down pitchers of cheap beer. Then I smell curry and my stomach actually lurches in my gut.
I am hungry. The scent is coming from a Thai place with an open patio and—
I stop.
Sitting outside at a table under the awning, right in the middle, is Amara.
But she’s not alone. She’s with a woman who is grotesquely overdone and two preening men.
One is nodding at everything the overdone woman is saying while his eyes stay locked on her cleavage, and the other mudak, the one sitting next to Amara, has his hand clasped on her thigh.
And it’s moving up.
My feet move quicker than my better judgement. Because… no.
Fuck no.