Chapter 57 Ransome
RANSOME
Deny call.
Amara is blowing my phone up, no doubt worrying about where I am. In my defense, she was gone when I woke up this morning, and I got up pretty damn early. If anyone should be concerned about the location of the other, it’s me.
But my gut tells me she is with her siblings. And right now, I have bigger problems on my hands. One problem, really.
Tristan.
Things have always been tense with us. We’ve had Romeo and Tybalt energy since we were young. And now that we’re both fighting to be on top, a battle is cresting.
But it’s not like the other fights we’ve had, where we knock each other around to brag about who truly rules the streets. This is a war. The cold blood running through my veins, prickling up my spine, tells me that much.
I’ve been sleeping with both eyes open lately. I’m distracted at work. And I’m constantly worried about Amara and her siblings, something I am not used to feeling for anyone but my immediate own.
She is now a part of that. And the beast in me is bending the bars of the cage.
My tires come to a screeching halt on the smooth asphalt in front of my dad’s mansion.
It’s a sprawling estate at over twenty thousand feet, and he holes up in about a hundred square feet of it.
An office where he works, eats, sleeps, all of it.
Save for the times he goes to the back porch to smoke a cigar because my mother won’t let him do that in the house, he lives in that office. Doing what, I have no idea.
“Ransome! We weren’t expecting you!”
My mom is in the kitchen when I walk inside. She is already dressed to the nines as usual. I swear she sleeps in a full face of makeup, not so much as rolling to the side just in case at any point in time she has to leap from the bed and be Anton Rozanov’s lovely wife.
I don’t have time for small talk, but I know better than to skip giving my mom a hug.
“I need to talk to dad,” I tell her.
“He’s in his office as usual. Do you want coffee? I could have Regina make you a cup.”
She’s referring to the maid slash cook. I glance at the young girl cleaning the kitchen that doesn’t need to be cleaned, because it’s just the two of them living here and it exists in a constant state of perfect. She’s doe-eyed. Quiet. Robotic.
And most likely completely incapable of making me a cup of coffee that I could actually tolerate.
“It’s fine, Mama. I’ve had coffee already,” I lie.
Then I head to my dad’s office, not even bothering to knock.
He’s sitting at his desk, looking half-awake. He’s also dressed down, and the room smells like tobacco.
“Ransome. I swear I taught you how to knock before entering a room that doesn’t belong to you.”
“Yet,” I jab. Because the countdown is on and he needs to remember that.
His eyes, red and slanted, lock on me as best they can. He’s hungover. Sloppy. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk. Now.”
The urgency in my voice has no influence on him. Instead, he lets out a persecuted huff of a sigh and reaches for a bottle of vodka. “Drink?”
“No.”
He shrugs and pours himself a little, then pulls out a cigar box. “Smoke?”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to smoke in here.”
“It’s my house,” he says, lighting one up.
“It’s your funeral,” I mutter. And I mean it in more ways than one.
The sickly sweet scent of cigar smoke curls in the air. Dad lets it linger for a beat before puffing it out in circles, something that used to delight me as a kid.
But I’m not a kid anymore.
“Alright, son.” He takes another drag. “What is it you so urgently need?”
“Tristan.”
His face twists to one of exhausted annoyance as he exhales another plume of dark, chocolate-scented smoke. “You two need to figure out how to stay in your own lanes. It’s not like we don’t have a lot on our hands right now, with the El Paso deal and—”
“He knows about the deal.”
My dad studies me. “And how do you know that?”
I sit down in the chair in front of him and lean in. “Because he’s a Chadovich. And they stop at nothing to take over. Especially Tristan.”
“You give that boy more credit than he’s worth,” he mutters casually.
“And you don’t give him enough. Between the precariousness of this entire deal and the holes punched in, it’s not exactly a difficult operation for the Chadovichs to breach.”
“What holes are you referring to, son? This deal is sealed tight.”
“The cross-country shipments. The pitstops and reloads. Not to mention the amount we are processing with every load.”
“It’s all being handled with care,” he insists. “If Tristan and his boys are sniffing around, it’s only because your guys are causing trouble.”
I am seeing red. “What do Mav and Baron have to do with anything?”
“Please, Ransome. Your cousin is a solid kid, but Maverick has been a loose cannon ever since I took him in against my better judgement. He stirs things up, starts fights, and doesn’t listen to instruction. Cut him out, and Tristan will be none the wiser.”
I slam my fist down on his desk hard enough to rattle the vodka bottles.
“Maverick is not the problem! The problem is that the Chadovichs are waging war on us! They want one Bratva family, one pakhan, and they’ll stop at nothing to make that happen.
It started with them murdering Nikky and it’s going to end with them overtaking the El Paso deal.
But you’re too decrepit and senile to see that! ”
My dad stops and tugs the cigar from his lips.
He locks his hazy eyes on mine. “I can see just fine, son. I have been in charge for a very long time. You weren’t even supposed to be pakhan, or have you forgotten that?
Nik was a much better fit for the job. He knew when to react and when to sit still. He knew—”
“He was fifteen fucking years old when he was killed.”
“When he died,” he tries to correct me, but fuck that noise. “He wasn’t killed.”
“He was murdered.” I my voice is lethally low.
“You just don’t want to admit that. Because that would mean you have to do something.
Something more than just calling a truce between families by way of arranged marriage.
But I don’t work that way. I don’t care about traditions and sweeping shit under the rug.
Fucking Dmitry Chadovich’s daughter on a regular basis doesn’t just glaze over the fact that Nik’s death was a calculated murder at the hands of the Chadovichs. ”
“You don’t have proof!” he snaps, emotion brimming his words for the first time.
“This is the Bratva. We don’t need proof. Only truth. And we both have always known what that is. And if you’re not going to take action to stop Tristan, then I will.”
I stand up and turn my back to my father. I can feel his angry, hot breath on my collar.
“You can’t just do whatever you want,” he booms. “You’re not pakhan!”
I walk to the doorway and slowly look back. “The way you’re running things? Neither are you.”
I leave his office and make my way for the front door. My mom is standing in the foyer, concern hiding in the tips of her downward lips.
“You need to be careful,” she tells me.
“I know how to handle dad,” I reply. “He’s annoyed, but he’s not going to do anything about it. And I will be pakhan soon whether he likes it or not. And then, he won’t have a say.”
“I don’t mean with your father,” she says, her voice low and careful. “You’re right about Tristan. He’s a bad egg. And a dangerous one too.”
Tears brim her eyes, though she doesn’t let them spill. She hasn’t cried since Nik’s funeral. She got all her grief out over the death of her baby boy and hasn’t let it or anything else get to her since.
“There’s no place in the Bratva for weakness, even in mourning mothers.”
Her words sounded harsh when she first said them all those years ago. But now I know she was just trying to survive. And it still stands.
“I know.” I cup her cheek in my hand. “And I’m going to stop him.”