2. Yaromir
YAROMIR
I see the ring before I see her face. The diamond catches the sunlight across the terrace, bright enough to drag my attention away from the man talking beside me. For a second, all I see is platinum and white fire.
Then recognition hits, and my steps slow.
That ring belonged to my mother.
The air around me turns cold despite the heat coming off the water.
I know every detail of it. The oval stone.
The thin platinum band. The tiny flaw near the setting that no jeweler could ever fully smooth out.
My father had it made for her before I was born, back when he still pretended loyalty and love meant the same thing.
After she died, the ring disappeared into a safe somewhere in the Volkov estate.
And now it sits on the hand of a stranger.
No. Not a stranger.
A girl. Young. Blonde. Beautiful enough that every man on the terrace has looked at her at least once since I walked in.
I stop near the entrance of the restaurant, my attention fixed on her hand. On my mother’s ring.
Beside me, Viktor notices the shift in my expression immediately. He has worked for me long enough to understand silence better than most people understand words.
“What is it?” he asks quietly.
I keep my eyes on the girl. “Who is she?”
Viktor follows my gaze toward the table of women. His answer comes after only a second. “Anya Sokolova.”
The name means nothing to me at first.
Then he adds, “Sergei Sokolov’s daughter.”
I remember Sergei. A useful man. Nervous eyes. Too eager to please my father. The kind of man who survives by kneeling before stronger men.
“And the ring?” I ask.
Viktor hesitates. “She’s engaged to Dmitri.”
The words land heavily.
Something ugly moves through my chest.
Dmitri. Of course.
Who else would dare take that ring from the Volkov house without permission? My half brother has always mistaken access for ownership. Cars, money, women, power. He burns through everything like a spoiled child convinced there will always be more.
But that ring was my mother’s.
Not his to give away.
My jaw tightens hard enough to hurt. “Interesting,” I say.
Viktor wisely says nothing after that.
I look back toward the table. Anya Sokolova is smiling at something one of the women says, but the smile feels practiced. Pretty. Controlled. She sits straight, aware of being watched without ever appearing uncomfortable under attention.
Beautiful women usually bore me.
Men become idiots around them. Women become competitive around them.
But there’s something about this one that catches under my skin immediately.
Maybe it’s the ring.
Maybe it’s the fact that she’s wearing something that belonged to my mother while carrying Dmitri’s name on her finger.
Or maybe it’s simply her.
She turns her head slightly, sunlight sliding across pale hair and blue eyes. Too young for me. Too soft-looking. And still, I can’t stop staring.
One of the women says something that makes the others laugh. Not Anya. Her attention drifts instead, toward the water first?—
Then toward me.
Our eyes meet.
And there it is, that feeling. Immediate. Primitive. Violent. Heat punches low into my stomach so fast it almost pisses me off.
She freezes for half a second when she looks at me. I watch the exact moment she notices the scar on my face. Most people react one of two ways: discomfort or curiosity.
She does neither.
She looks at me like she can’t decide whether I disgust her or fascinate her.
My body reacts instantly. A hard pulse of desire settles low in my body, coiling and immediate. My cock tightens against the inside of my trousers with enough force to irritate me.
Ridiculous. I have women whenever I want them. Easier women than this one. Smarter too, probably. But watching Dmitri’s pretty fiancée stare at me with wide blue eyes while wearing my mother’s ring sends blood straight to my cock.
I shift slightly beneath my coat. Annoyed. Interested. Hungry in a way I don’t like.
Then I notice something else.
She doesn’t look away first.
Most people do. Not her.
The rest of the woman are also glancing at me.
I don’t need to hear them to know they’re talking about me.
It’s in the way their laughter thins out for a second.
The way one of them leans closer, voice dropping.
The way heads tilt just slightly in my direction before snapping back, as if looking too long might draw attention.
People always think they’re subtle. They’re not.
Anya doesn’t join in immediately. She watches them first, listening. Then she says something—quiet, controlled—and the others react. One laughs. One looks uncomfortable. The dark-haired one, the one who keeps checking her phone, barely reacts at all.
“They’ve noticed you,” Viktor murmurs beside me.
“They always do,” I say.
That’s not arrogance. It’s fact.
“Inside,” I add.
The manager is already hovering near the door, trying not to look like he’s been waiting. His hands are clasped too tightly, knuckles pale. He nods the moment I step toward him and leads us in without a word.
The shift is immediate. Outside, it’s sunlight, water, noise. Inside, everything is contained. Dimmer. Cooler. The air smells faintly of leather and smoke, expensive and controlled.
The private room is at the back.
Three men stand when I enter. I don’t acknowledge it right away. I take my time walking in, letting the silence stretch just enough to remind them whose room this is now.
“Sit,” I say.
They sit.
Viktor closes the door behind us, and the noise from the restaurant cuts down to a dull murmur. The private room has no windows facing the pier. That’s why I use it. No curious eyes. No accidental listeners. No one pretending they came in for the wrong door.
Across from me are three men who all want something.
Anton Morozov wants protection for his warehouses near the port.
Grigori Levin wants access to my transport routes.
Pavel Orlov wants financing for a chain of clubs that will launder more money than it earns honestly.
All of them have worked, in one way or another, under my father. Now they are sitting at my table.
Anton speaks first. “The port authority is still loyal to your father.”
I take the folder Viktor places in front of me and open it. “No. The port authority is loyal to whoever pays them on time and keeps their sons out of prison.”
Grigori gives a careful smile. “That sounds like loyalty to me.”
“It’s not,” I say. “It’s business.”
No one argues.
Good.
My father built his power on fear, debt, and blood ties. Old rules. Old men. Old grudges. He believes men remain loyal because they once kneeled.
He’s wrong.
Men remain loyal while the hand above them stays strong. The moment it shakes, they start looking for another one.
And my father’s hand has been shaking for years.
He just thinks no one has noticed.
Pavel leans forward. “If we move the warehouse contracts to you, he’ll know.”
“He already knows,” I say.
The room goes still. Pavel sits back. Anton stops tapping his thumb against the table.
Viktor remains unmoved beside the door.
“My father is not blind,” I continue. “He knows I’m taking territory. He knows his men are answering my calls. He knows the families in the north are tired of paying him for protection he no longer provides.”
Grigori watches me closely. “Then why hasn’t he stopped you?”
I look at him. “Because he can’t decide whether I’m still his son or already his enemy.”
No one laughs. They’re smart enough not to.
But the truth is uglier than that.
My mother was not his wife. Not in the church. Not on paper. Not where it mattered to men like him. But she was loyal to him in a way his wife never was. She loved him when he had nothing but ambition and a loaded gun.
And he repaid her by hiding her.
Then forgetting her.
Then letting her die with doctors who came too late because no one in the main house wanted the embarrassment.
I close the folder. “So,” I say, “we stop pretending this is a negotiation. You are here because you already know where power is moving. You want to be early enough to be rewarded, but not so early that you bleed for it.”
Anton’s jaw works once. He doesn’t deny it. At least he has sense.
“What are you offering?” Grigori asks.
“Stability,” I say.
“And what do you want?” Pavel asks.
“Your contracts. Your men. Your silence.”
Pavel exhales through his nose. “That is expensive.”
“So is choosing wrong.” I let the silence sit for a moment, then push the folder toward Anton.
“You move the warehouse contracts tonight. Not next week. Tonight. Grigori gets two trucks through the eastern route by Friday, untouched. Pavel opens three club accounts through the Cypriot structure Viktor sent you.”
Pavel looks at Viktor, then back at me. “Your father will see that.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And he will understand I’m not asking for scraps anymore.”
For a moment, I see my mother’s hand again. The ring. The same ring sitting outside on Anya Sokolova’s finger.
My father kept it after she died. Locked it away like a trophy. Then somehow Dmitri got it. Of course he did. Dmitri was always allowed to take what he wanted from the house.
Even from the dead.
Heat rises under my ribs, ugly and old. I keep my face still.
Anton studies me with more courage than I expected. “This is not just business for you.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
Viktor’s eyes flick to me, but he says nothing.
No one speaks for a few seconds.
Then Grigori reaches for the pen first. “I’ll move the trucks,” he says.
Anton follows. “The warehouses will be yours by morning.”
Pavel hesitates the longest, but not long enough to insult me. “I’ll open the accounts.”
I nod once.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. An empire takes time, and when I’m done, I’ll make sure I burn my father down with it.