Chapter 1 #3
“Three months is enough time,” I say. “More than enough time for you to be over Brian, and for me to realize I’ve found the girl of my rich-person dreams, and become devastatingly infatuated with you.
When this is all over, you can say you needed someone better than me, broke my heart, and I am pining for you from afar, hoping you’ll one day change your mind. You’ll play it cool.”
“That seems a little mean,” Kira mumbles to herself, but Lexie ignores it.
“Oh, I love the way you think,” Lexie says to me. She scoots a little closer, her hazel eyes big and beseeching. “Are you sure you’re gay?”
“I’m positive,” I say with a laugh. “But, I mean, if we have a good time, we can always be friends. I love going dancing, if you two are ever up for a walk on the wild side of town. I’d keep you safe.”
Kira and Lexie look scandalized, as if what I just suggested was even crazier than this scheme we’ve cooked up. It makes me laugh, and Lexie gets stars in her eyes.
“He’s perfect,” she whispers fiercely, and if I were a regular guy, I’d probably be really intimidated by how intensely she’s staring at me.
But I’m not a regular guy. Do they know that?
Should I tell them? I guess they must realize it, since I’m agreeing to do this absolutely insane thing with them despite being a complete stranger.
Wait… Does that mean they aren’t normal, either? Maybe rich people are just so used to things going their way that to them, it’s inevitable that I would agree.
“Stay with us this weekend,” Lexie demands, putting her small hand on my forearm. “We’ll all get to know each other so we can sell it, and Brian will drop dead from jealousy.”
Her vindictive side appeals to me. “Alright, sure.”
It’s not like I need to check in with family or anything, since I don’t have any, and I don’t have close friends.
Sure, some of my regular dance partners will wonder where I’m at, but sometimes I take a break from the club, so no one will really miss me.
Most of my roommates will just be glad I’m not around to take up space and make them feel uncomfortable.
Other than Joshy, they don’t really like me that much.
Not only because it’s a cramped, dingy apartment for the number of people in it, but also because most people just…
don’t. Like me, I mean. Once they spend enough time with me, everyone I meet just tends to back off.
I’m twitchy, a bit weird, unsettling… I scare people.
I’ll be on my best behavior. I don’t want to scare these innocent girls. They don’t deserve that.
Lexie whoops victoriously and puts her arms in the air like she’s calling a soccer goal.
Kira lets out a big, world-weary sigh and puts a hand over her eyes delicately, like she might faint. “I can’t believe you’re my best friend.”
“Believe it, baby,” Lexie says with a saucy snap. “And your bestie just got you a hot, gay fake boyfriend and we’re gonna make Brian eat his freaking heart out!”
Oh my god, she said freaking instead of fucking.
I stare at her, astounded. For some reason, that is the detail that proves to me just how different these girls are from me.
We might only be four years apart in age, but I might as well be their grandpa with the life experience I have. I wrinkle my nose. Ew. Gross image.
“I’ve gotta get back to work,” I say after a minute of watching Lexie dance around Kira. “I need to finish all the planting today.”
“We’ll grab you before you leave for the day,” Lexie says decisively. “I need to start ordering! We’ll call the tailor!”
I give her a salute and jog back toward the outer edge of the lovely maze. As I work, I turn over the events in my mind and wonder if I made a good choice. I have a pretty strong inkling that I should’ve said no, just to be more normal.
Are these rich girls so out of touch with normality that they really aren’t wondering why I’m completely free to drop everything and just go along with this? Is that what their life is like? Do they realize I’m…not normal?
Maybe they don’t.
Oh well. Not my problem, I’m just here to have a good time and make more money in a week than I could in nearly a whole year.
Despite myself, I’m looking forward to it. It sounds like fun. And besides, Kira seems lovely. She just needs a confidence boost and I have no doubt she’ll bloom into a powerful young woman who handles herself just fine. Lexie is clearly her biggest supporter, and my lips turn up in a grin.
Yeah, it should be fun. After all, what could go wrong?
********
Young-gi Sokolov
I hold my phone to my ear, listening and occasionally making approving sounds.
“We’ll have the numbers for you by tomorrow,” my chief of development promises. “We’re getting the grant together, and we have several interested investors.”
All things are in order, then. Just as I prefer them. That fiasco with the Acardi family a few weeks ago had unsettled me, made me reassess all of my employees and business partners, and made me scrutinize everything even more carefully. And good thing, too, because I’ve caught another fucking rat.
Slipping my phone into my suit pants pocket, I take a moment to straighten my cuffs. Business never stops. I’ve always got something else to do, even now in the dead of night.
I turn and face my office. It’s expansive, elegant and not too flashy, but the understated wealth is clear to anyone with a discerning eye.
My desk dominates the room, and a rug worth more money than most people’s apartments is rolled off to the side, revealing a drain cut into the seamless, glossy floor.
Above the drain, Yosef–my trusted right hand–holds a man on his knees, a knife in his mouth, making sure he stays quiet while I’m on the phone.
I lean against my desk and wave Yosef back. He removes the knife, nicking the crease of the captive man’s lips. The man on his knees is trussed up, unable to hurt me even if he wanted to, so Yosef backs up to give me some space to work if I choose to get my hands dirty.
“So,” I said quietly. “Uriah. Tell me everything.”
“Y–” he gulps. “Young-gi, sir–”
My jaw ticks when he attempts to call me by my Korean given name. That name is for family only. Specifically, one family member: my niece, Kira.
“Mr. Sokolov is fine,” I say. That name, my Russian name, is from my father, and it’s the name that inspires fear.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Sokolov, sir.” He’s pale and shaking. “I– I don’t know what this is about, I’ve been a loyal employee–”
I laugh–if the sound I make can be called a laugh. It’s a small, scoffing thing, barely a huff. But it’s enough to convey my lack of belief. Uriah pales further, his trembling growing more pronounced.
“I think you can be honest with me now, Uriah,” I invite calmly. “I already know how much, and when. What I want to know now is why. What did you do with the money you stole from me?”
Uriah blubbers a bit, but manages to speak. “I’m, I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t take much. I didn’t take much from you, a-a-and I’ll never do it again! I swear!”
I raise my eyebrow at him. He takes a long, nervous minute to understand my silence, clearly not a clever man, but eventually he answers my earlier question.
“I g-gambled it,” he whispers. “I lost it, but I’ll get it back!
I’ll win it all back, I swear it, I always do!
I just need a little more to start with and buy-in to the table, and I’ll win it all back! ”
I knew he gambled it, but I needed to hear it from him. Because there was always the chance he’d surprise me somehow, and reveal something I didn’t know. But no, he’s just stupid.
“You stole from me, and you’re asking me for a loan?
” I ask. “You couldn’t just stay the fuck away from the poker tables?
Or the hookers? Or the drugs? Do you want to know how I know you gambled it?
Because your wife came to my men and asked us to kill you for beating her and your kids, since they get the short end of your temper when you get home. What do you think of that?”
He shudders, then his eyes go to the drain beneath him.
He knows why it’s there. He bends over and presses his head into the floor, prostrating himself as best he can while tied up.
“D-don’t kill me, please, Mr. Sokolov. Or cut me up, or anything–I’ll never do this again, I’ll never steal from you, my loyalty is yours!
I–I never would have done it if I didn’t think I could return it twice over!
My plan was always to give you money, not to steal it! ”
Sure. It’s a flagrant lie, but I don’t bother to point that out. Instead, I tilt my head and reach into my jacket.
“If you’d taken that money to a competitor,” I begin, getting his attention.
“We’d have a problem. If you’d used the money to pay someone to harm me or my people, or to make moves against my organization or my businesses, we’d have a problem.
But you’re just stupid. I don’t have problems with stupid people. ”
He relaxes so fully that he ends up back on the floor, face down, thanking me. Before he sits back up, I pull my small-caliber pistol from my holster and put a bullet in the back of his head. He jerks, spasms, and falls still.
I don’t have problems with stupid people, I finish my thought as I replace my gun. But I won’t allow them to fuck me over, either.
It was a quick, clean death. I didn’t draw it out; no need to torture someone for being an idiot. His wife would probably say it was an easier death than he deserved. Personally, I figured that was as much time as I wanted to devote to such a useless waste of space.
There’s a speck of blood on my shoes and I sigh.
I go to my desk and sit, pulling some disinfectant wipes from a drawer.
Yosef opens one of the side doors and beckons, and a team of quiet, discreet employees shuffle in with a roll of plastic.
They pack away the body, and Yosef follows the team so he can oversee the transportation to one of our dumping sites, while one of the cleaners bends and begins washing the blood and brain matter down the convenient drain.
By the time Yosef is back, the rug is unrolled again, covering the drain, and I’m back on the phone. After getting confirmation that my next shipment will be on time and won’t be getting skimmed by stupid gambling addicts, I hang up and lean back in my chair.
“I have the jet prepared for Monday morning, sir,” Yosef says quietly.
I look over at him curiously, taking in the large Russian-born man with a raised eyebrow.
He is everything my father wanted in a son, so it’s devastating that Yosef is of no relation to me at all.
Instead, dear old dad got me. His only son, born to his Korean mistress: an illegitimate child with a foreign first name and an Asian tilt to my features.
Handing his business over to me when he retired was so painful for him that I’m half convinced that was what spurred the heart attack that finally killed the old bastard.
“Why?” I ask.
“Your niece, sir. Kira. She’s hosting the Young Leaders Summit at your estate in California.”
Shit. “I forgot about that.” I steeple my fingers in front of my face and think. “I’ll need to shuffle things around. Unless you’d like to handle a few things for me?”
A brief pause. “I’d prefer to be by your side, sir.”
“You think some teenagers are going to assassinate me, Yosef?” It’s a funny thought, and my lips curl up slightly.
I’m thirty-eight years old, but he still acts like I’m a fumbling beginner to the criminal underbelly of the world.
I’ve been living and breathing it since I was eight and my reluctant father realized he wasn’t getting any younger, and he needed to work with the son he had rather than the son he wanted.
“They aren’t teenagers anymore, sir.” His tone is respectful, but his words make me huff another almost-laugh.
He’s right though, Kira just had her twenty-second birthday. “Time is going so fast.”
It feels like just yesterday when my older sister died giving birth to little Kira.
I was barely sixteen, and I held the newborn baby in my arms and swore to take care of her until the day I died.
My niece is the only family member who is part of my inner circle.
The rest of my father’s family–his legitimate daughters, his widow, all my cousins–they live separate from me, and are content to gripe about my methods from afar.
I give them hush money to stay out of my way, and they do.
Because if they didn’t, I’d kill them and feel absolutely nothing.
But not Kira. My sister’s child is special to me, because my sister was special to me. She never treated me poorly. She was a legitimate child of my father’s, so she was only a half-sister, but she treated me like full-blood kin.
“I’d better oversee it,” I decide reluctantly. “Kira’s much too soft-hearted. I have a feeling she lets her peers bully her.”
Yosef makes an agreeable noise, and steps out to presumably arrange it all.
I sigh and begin the lengthy, headache-inducing process of moving my schedule around.
It’s just a week, after all. I’ll get to see Kira, make sure no one bothers her too much, and take a much-needed break at one of my many properties.
What could go wrong?