9. Mikhail #2
The room’s too bright, and everything’s spinning now. The adrenaline’s crashing hard, and my hands won’t stop shaking. There’s blood everywhere. I’m covered in it. Some of it’s mine, most of it’s not.
Suddenly the door bangs open, and Carlos storms in, his face that shade of purple-red where you can see every vein in his forehead. “You broke the only rule that matters. No attacking the crowd. That’s it. That’s the one thing you don’t do.” He takes a step closer. “Tiago’s dead.”
Pulling off my gloves, I find blood soaked through the tape underneath, and my knuckles are wrecked. “They were asking for it,” I grumble.
Carlos’s voice cracks. “Mikhail.”
He steps close and grabs my face, trying to force me to look at him. I shove him back so hard that he stumbles and has to catch himself against the wall, his brown eyes locked on mine with pure fury. For a second I think he might swing on me.
He throws up his hands and walks out, done with me. My ass hits the bench, and I sit down heavily, wiping the sweat out of my eyes with shaking hands. The adrenaline is starting to drain now, leaving behind the familiar hollow feeling that always comes after a fight.
Getting that aggression out helped, even if it’s temporary.
Standing up, I strip off my shorts and wraps and snag my towel before heading for the showers.
The hot water stings against the cuts and bruises already forming, and the pain feels good. I wash quickly, slathering myself with body wash and scrubbing away the blood coating my knuckles and smeared across my skin from where his face exploded against my fists.
When I reach the bench again, I wince when I see a text from my father lighting up my phone screen.
Papa:
Meeting at Ozero. One hour. I’ll send someone to pick you up.
Fuck.
The elevator ride up to Ozero feels endless.
I lean against the cold metal wall and watch the numbers climb, already bracing myself.
I know he’s going to rip me a new one. Someone definitely sent him videos of what happened in that fight, and he’s going to lose his shit on me. Exactly what I don’t need right now.
Me and my father’s relationship is complicated. I hate him, we all do. But we’re also loyal to him in our own messed up, damaged way because that’s how this family works.
He and our mother had an arranged marriage planned when they were young.
She was born into a big crime family in Yekaterinburg, and he was from Moscow. When they finally married at eighteen, the families combined. Marrying someone of my father’s status, an Avrorin, meant something big for her family. Security. Power. All the things that matter in this world.
I miss Yekaterinburg so much. I have so many good childhood memories of that place. Our cousins running wild through the streets, the water in the middle of the city reflecting the old buildings, our grandmothers always spoiling us and giving us pancakes with sour cream and jam.
I miss the language. Miss everything about it.
Daniil and I visited once on a road trip.
We drove through Russia for weeks and ended up at Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world.
It was freezing there. The entire lake was just ice stretching out forever, but it was so beautiful it hurt to look at.
We stood there for hours just staring at it, breathing clouds into the air.
I wish I could hug him right now. All I remember before he started ignoring me was us in bed together, his warmth against my side, and then falling asleep with him tucked under my arm.
I close my eyes and memories of his lips against mine flash through my head.
I blink hard, stepping back from the elevator wall in confusion. Wait. What?
The elevator door pings open, and I step out on unsteady legs, immediately leaning against the hallway wall to catch my breath.
That didn’t happen. We didn’t kiss. I would remember something like that. Wouldn’t I?
But the memory feels so real. His lips soft under mine, the way he made this quiet sound when I deepened it, the taste of him. Rolling on top of him and grinding against him.
I probably dreamt it or something. Did I have some fucked up wet dream about Danya? The kiss on the roof is still clear as the day it happened, and that was years ago. No way I’d blank out on something like this… Right?
Making my way through the T-shaped hallway, I reach the meeting room and pause at the door.
Through the glass I can see my father sitting at the head of the table, positioned so he can see everyone who enters.
His tinted glasses catch the light, dark hair slicked back perfectly despite the gray that’s taken over more of it lately.
His beard is neatly trimmed, every hair in place.
He looks up, narrows his eyes at me, then jerks his chin toward one of the seats.
This is going to be bad.
Stepping into the room, I let the door close behind me with a soft click, then sink into one of the chairs across from him, keeping my expression neutral. Don’t show weakness. Don’t give him anything to use.
“The others are coming soon, but I wanted you here first.” His voice is calm, somehow worse than yelling. “I assume you know why?”
“Da, Papa.”
He leans back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin, studying me. “We do not make spectacles of ourselves.” His hand slams down on the table. “That is the one rule we do not break in this family. That video has gone viral, Mikhail. It’s in the news. Do you understand that?”
My jaw tightens, but I nod. Of course I understand. I just don’t care.
“What were you thinking?” he asks and doesn’t wait for an answer. “You constantly act reckless and expect the rest of us to clean up after you.”
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste metal. Don’t say anything. It only makes it worse.
“Do you know what happens when our name appears in the news?” He stands and starts pacing, hands clasped behind his back. “It brings scrutiny. Public scrutiny. The kind that dismantles operations we have spent decades building.”
He stops behind my chair, and I force myself not to turn around.
“And speaking of operations, Ozero’s numbers last quarter were pathetic.”
Here we go.
“Two percent below projections, Mikhail. Do you understand what that means? It means you failed.”
It’s nothing. Two percent is barely a blip. The club is doing fine, better than fine, but he doesn’t care about that. He cares about having ammunition.
“I gave you one responsibility. One. Run the clubs and generate revenue. And you cannot even accomplish that simple task.”
My leg bounces under the table. The clubs are thriving because I’ve expanded everything, brought in higher-paying clientele, renegotiated every contract. But none of that matters because the number isn’t perfect.
“Lev manages port operations worth millions and exceeds expectations every single quarter. Yulian has expanded into three new territories,” he says and comes back around to stand in front of me, leaning his hands on the table.
“And you? You’re incapable of running three clubs without making a complete mess. ”
My jaw clenches.
“Perhaps I was wrong about you. Perhaps you are incapable of being anything more than a disappointment.”
The word hits exactly where he aimed it. Disappointment. That’s all I’ve ever been to him.
“I can do better,” I say.
“You will do better. Or I will remove you from that position and give it to someone competent. You will bring those numbers up by next quarter. You will stop humiliating this family in public. And you will conduct yourself like an Avrorin,” he says, sitting back down.
I don’t say anything because arguing is pointless.
“The fighting ends. Today. No more cage matches, no more brawls, no more excuses. You represent this family, and I will not tolerate you dragging our name through filth any longer.”
My throat closes. He pushed me into fighting. Forced me into that cage as a kid because he thought it would fix me. But I can’t say that.
“Am I understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He picks up his phone and checks something, dismissing me without looking up. “The others will be here soon.”
Sinking back in the chair, my jaw clenches so tight my teeth ache. The cocaine is wearing off now, leaving behind the familiar crash that makes everything feel heavier.
The door opens, and Daniil walks in without looking at me. Doesn’t even glance in my direction. Lev and Yulian enter behind him. Daniil moves to the seat furthest from me and sits down, still not looking my way.
My stomach drops.
He always sits next to me. Every single meeting, every family dinner, every time we’re in the same room. It’s automatic. But now he’s deliberately putting as much distance between us as possible.
My hands curl into fists under the table, and I force them to relax, then clench again. Repeat. Trying to breathe through the anger because losing it right now will only make Father worse.
“Why did you bring us here? It’s late, and I had to miss my flight to Vegas,” Yulian says and settles into his chair, running his fingers through his dark brown hair, looking irritated.
His navy suit is perfectly tailored, not a wrinkle anywhere. He looks at me for half a second with those blue eyes before focusing back on Father.
Father sighs and leans back in his chair. “We had issues with the Nozares family again.”
My left eye twitches hearing that name.
The Nozares family has been our biggest rival since we moved to America.
Father took the city from Santiago Nozares before we even got here, tore apart everything he’d built on the East Coast. Anyone who wouldn’t bend got eliminated, no exceptions. The Nozares family relocated to the other coast after that and started their operations over there.
That family is cartel royalty and has been for generations.