His Heir Maker (Men of Ruin #1)

Chapter 1 Vadim

Vadim

The thaw was the signal. Every year, when the ice fractured on the Chernograd river and the first grey water broke through to run dark and cold toward the White Sea, the city exhaled.

The port woke. The harbour master filed his reports exactly as instructed, the same as he had done for fifteen years, and the merchandise began to move.

Nothing moved in this city without my men knowing about it. Nothing reached the sea without my permission. Not the police—who weren’t paid enough to notice—and not those filthy Chechens who imagined the northern routes belonged to anyone but the Dragunovs.

They didn’t.

When my father first brought us north, we inherited a city half-tamed.

We finished the work. Now the gold domes of the cathedral caught the afternoon light outside my window, and the streets beneath them ran on a current only we controlled.

Order. Structure. The performance of civilisation over the machinery of empire.

From my river to the sea, I owned the route.

I turned to face the men.

Ruslan would make an excellent sovietnik. Ilya would need to go. The new guard was moving in and there was very little the old man could do about it. My father was pakhan no more.

“I appreciate everything you have done for the brotherhood, Ilya, and you will have a share in the obshchak,” I said, watching his lips tighten.

Had he expected me to keep him on? He had a close relationship with my father. What good would that do for me when his loyalty still lived elsewhere?

“Or you can walk away with nothing,” I continued.

Bogdan shifted behind me and I raised my hand. I didn’t need to turn to know he’d drawn his weapon.

Ilya dipped his head.

“My apologies…Pakhan. I understand,” he said, the address costing him something.

“You all had your time. My father is no doubt looking forward to his retirement. I suggest you do the same,” I said, knowing full well that my father would do nothing but spy on me for the next few years.

“Bogdan, see him out. Valentin will be in touch about your compensation,” I said, as Ilya moved his fat arse out of my chair.

My lip curled.

He had wanted to remain as my advisor.

Never.

The gun was tucked away as Bogdan walked him out.

“Well, that went as well as it could have,” Ruslan mused.

“It’s cleaner to line them all up and shoot them. Put them out of their misery,” I muttered.

“Your father didn’t hand you the keys to the kingdom without a price,” Ruslan said with a shrug.

I grunted.

“She could be a looker.”

“Blyad,” I hissed. “I don’t give a damn. The restructure takes precedence.”

“Keeping one avtorityet was a good idea.”

“Grigori is a good man. He lives by the vor,” I said, rubbing my jaw.

The vor code was the only thing standing between us and chaos. Without rules, we were all animals. The brotherhood before all else. A pity the old guard had forgotten that.

“Let our assets know—if anyone steps out of line, Konstantin and Tau are to eliminate them. All of them,” I said, my jaw tightening at the thought of what those spies would uncover in this fragile period of transition. “I want names. Every one of them.”

“Yes, Pakhan,” Ruslan said, standing and pulling out his phone.

He was already issuing commands as he walked out of the office.

Tikhon stood guard in the hallway, still as stone.

Ruslan closed the door behind him. The dark mahogany made a dull thud as I turned his words over in my mind. The only way to force my father’s hand had been the deal—that I would provide our family with an heir. The next Dragunov.

Konstantin was lucky. He had never wanted to move past krysha and torpedo. Never needed to.

I smiled, remembering those days.

The constant training. The drive to be the largest, the fastest. Enforcer and killer in one. I had been the first to hold the dual position, until my younger brother followed in my footsteps.

He didn’t have to deal with politics. With hard decisions. With old men who extracted their price before they stepped aside.

My time was up.

I had to go and see the old man.

??

??

??

The photos dropped onto the table, scattering an array of young women for me to choose from.

“Times have changed,” he murmured, lifting his glass to his lips before he spoke again. “Your mother came from a village. Good stock, but too weak for this world.”

My eyes flicked up.

He never spoke of our mother.

“These are as good as you will get. Not the whores you associate yourself with,” he drawled. “I want a strong grandson.”

I recognised one of the women. The boyevik’s daughter. A simple soldier who had never risen higher. Her high-pitched laugh reminded me of a horse.

“Why don’t you just pick one for me?” I said.

“I was once hot-blooded like you,” he murmured, swirling the vodka in his glass. “Mistakes were made. I want better for you.”

His faded blue eyes had once been hard and cruel. Now they were weak and pitiful.

“The girls are daughters of Bratva. They’ll adjust to your world easily enough,” he continued.

“I don’t have time to pander to a woman,” I bit out.

“You teach her to be obedient,” he shrugged. “She is there to accommodate you. Not the other way round.”

“How did that work out for you?” I asked, leaning back in my seat.

His lips pressed tight, but he didn’t reply.

“Just pick one from someone who understands the vor,” I said, draining my glass.

“You know Leonid Kozlov?”

I thought about the avtoriyet I had removed. There had been no pushback from the old captain.

“Isn’t his daughter married?” I asked, recalling being made to accompany my father to the event.

“The older one,” he said, spreading the photos out before lifting one. “This is the younger girl.”

It was a photo from the wedding. I hadn’t noticed her.

She wore a pale blue gown that hugged her figure, hair loose with a simple side parting. No jewellery. She didn’t need it — not with the way her blue eyes shone with life.

“Twenty-five years old, educated, from a good home.”

That amused me.

My father knowing what a good home looked like.

“And if she doesn’t work out?”

“Draw up your terms,” he said, pushing the photo towards me. “Do you doubt you can handle her?”

I snorted.

Women had a habit of becoming too clingy. It was rare that I stuck to one for long.

“She’ll do,” I said, placing my glass over her photo.

All I needed was a functioning womb to fulfil my deal with the devil.

The car was running. Bogdan moved ahead of me, scanning the old man’s driveway for danger before he opened the door. I climbed in and he closed it behind me, dropping into the front beside Tikhon, who pulled away smoothly through the iron gates and out onto the street.

Chernograd in late afternoon. The sky had gone the colour of a bruise above the rooftops, and the river caught what little light remained, dark and flat and indifferent. The city looked exactly as it was — a place that had learned to keep its head down. Our streets. Our order. My inheritance.

My phone buzzed.

Konstantin had impeccable timing.

“What do you want, mudak?” I answered, already smiling.

“To congratulate my new Pakhan on his nuptials,” he drawled.

“I should command you to get married as commiseration.”

“Papachka yearns for your bloodline. I’m the spare, remember?”

We never forgot.

Our father never let us.

For many years he had pitted us against one another, and for a while I had indulged in my own self-importance, leaving my brother out in the cold.

When he began to shadow me in my work, our bond took hold within the vor.

Brothers by blood and by brotherhood. Our resentment had finally found a common target.

Our father.

“I remember,” I said, watching the city slide past the window.

“Who is she?”

“Leonid Kozlov’s brat.”

“Galina?”

“How do you know her name?” I asked, frowning.

“I slum it with my brothers,” he said, chuckling. “Isn’t she unhappily married?”

“He has two daughters. I don’t know the unmarried one's name. Look into the family for me, will you? I’d rather not have any nasty surprises,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “Did Ruslan reach out to you?”

“Yes. Tau is in Moscow. I’ll look into the Kozlovs before I get busy,” he said, the excitement in his voice unmistakable—the certain brightness he got at the prospect of murder and mayhem.

“Try not to get stabbed,” I drawled, and hung up before he could reply.

My knife skills were far superior to his. He had the scars to prove it.

My mind lingered on the girl for a moment.

Pale blue gown. Eyes that had no business being that alive in a photograph.

Then I opened a new note on my phone and began to structure the terms of a prenuptial agreement.

It would need to be drafted, signed and notarised.

It needed to be airtight against every outcome I could imagine.

I considered the possibilities methodically. How sentiment crept in. How women made themselves necessary before you noticed. How a man went soft inside his own house without realising it was happening.

Women had one use. I preferred them silent before, during and after.

A wife.

The thought made me want to hit something.

“Take me to the pit,” I told Tikhon.

The city moved past the windows, grey and quiet and entirely mine.

I had no intention of going the way of my father.