Chapter Twenty-Three
Graham
"Get the fuck off me, motherfucker!” I shove at Andrei hard enough to make him stumble, which surprises us both but has him coming back at me with a vengeance. And a knife. I feel the blood dripping over my Adam’s apple before I feel the prick of the blade.
“Where the fuck is my stash, Domovoy?!” His face is so close his saliva strikes my eyeball.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I spit back.
I know exactly what he’s talking about, the problem is it’s already gone.
Grandfather has always forbidden me from sampling the merchandise, but he doesn’t stop Andrei or any of his other top sellers.
It doesn’t even come out of their salary.
He should have known it was inevitable I would get a taste and as the Domovoy I get the chance to sample whatever I want so long as I’m quiet about it.
Unfortunately, Andrei is a distinctly organized addict.
“Listen to me, you little cunt,” he growls, digging the knife deeper. “If you think you can steal from me and get away with it, you are either the stupidest motherfucker I’ve ever met or a dead man. Unfortunately, for you, today you’re going to be both—”
“Andrei!”
Oh, thank fucking God.
Kira presses the barrel of the one handgun all staff carry against his temple. “Let him go—”
“He’s a fucking thief—”
“He’s a child, and you’re careless.” She presses a bag of white powder against his chest. “You left this in the lounge last night.”
Andrei’s eyes narrow, only removing the hand he has pressed against my chest to take the baggie.
He checks it over thoroughly before looking down at her burning blue eyes.
She doesn’t waver, her finger ready on the trigger making it clear it’s my life or his brains across a floor she just fucking cleaned.
With a grunt the guard releases me, shoving me back into the wall with a finger to my face.
“Stay the fuck out of my room, Domovoy.” He turns to Kira, who lowers the gun to her side but does not flip on the safety.
“You should stop protecting him. He is a boy only for a few weeks more and men,” he glared at me.
“Must face the consequences of their actions.”
Pretty sure I already face enough consequences, but I don’t say anything.
Kira and I watch him go, and only when he’s turned the corner do I use the sleeve of my sweatshirt to wipe the blood from my neck.
Then I take a little bag from my pocket, tap a small pile onto my finger, and bring it to my nose with a deep inhale.
When I look back at Kira she’s glaring at me.
She never glares at me- unless I’ve done something particularly heinous- and the look makes me avert my eyes to my sneakers, shame a nest of snakes in my belly.
“Gracias…” I mutter and then snap out an, “OW!” When her hand slaps across my cheek. “Do I not get hit enough around here—"
“Clearly not, for you seem to get more stupid by the fortnight,” Kira hisses.
Rubbing at me cheek, I watch her hide her gun in the waist band of her pants, letting her blouse fall over it, and then her apron which is covered in flour from today’s baking.
“What on Earth would prompt you to steal from Andrei of all people—”
“It’s not like it was the first time—”
“And his fucking cocaine?! Are you out of your fucking mind—”
“How else will I get any?!” I sneer under my breath. “It’s not like it’s offered to me willingly except to sell it to somebody else!”
“You’re not supposed to have any!” Kira shoves at my chest. “You’re supposed to be better than them—”
“Maybe I don’t want to be better than them anymore!
” I shout a bit too loudly. Kira looks up and down the hall on my behalf as I run my fingers through my hair which is once again growing too long.
It seems she has to cut it for me every month.
My heart is racing, my mind going a million miles a minute and it’s only the threat of being heard by someone more willing to leave bruises on my body than Kira that makes me lower my voice to murmur, “I’m sick of playing their games…
. Maybe it would just be easier if I stop resisting and—”
“No.”
I blink down at her, the way her lips pull down in a scowl, tears pooling in her ice blue eyes. “Kira—”
“You are not allowed to give in, Grisha,” she tells me firmly.
An ebony finger pokes my chest, her voice catching in her throat.
“You are not allowed to become like them. Do you understand me? You are better! You are made of something stronger! You are the product of love and will not disparage what your parents had to go through to bring you into this world- Oof!”
I pull her into my arms so quickly I’m scared I might have knocked the wind out of her, but I need to hold onto her too desperately to let go.
Her arms band around me, one hand on my back, the other in my hair soothingly stroking the strands.
Tears start falling down my own cheeks as I bury my face in her hair.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I sob. “I don’t want to keep fighting—”
“You have to, Grishenka,” she whispers. Pulling back just far enough to make me look into her eyes, she cups my face.
“You have to keep fighting. You have to live, Grishenka. One day you will leave this place, I know it. You just have to stay alive, if not for yourself then for me. And if not for me then for the mother who died so you would have the chance.”
She presses a firm hand to my chest. “I know your heart, Grishenka. It is pure and good. Do not let them tempt you into darkness.”
Kira wipes my cheeks of my tears and pats my chest again. “Go get cleaned up. Your face is red as a beet. Then your Grandfather wants to see you in his office.”
My eyes widen. “What?!”
She shakes her head. “Do not fret. He’s in a meeting and doesn’t expect you immediately. He said at the top of the hour.” She checks her watch. “You have twenty minutes or so. Go on, I’ll bring you something to eat while you wait to see him.”
Sucking at my teeth, I nod solemnly and wipe furiously at my cheeks, sniffing away the burning sensation in my sinuses. Kira gives me one last chastising look before disappearing down the hall.
Slipping into the bathroom closest to my room which has been designated mostly as mine- unless there are guests, in which case I need to vacate all my shit- I do as she says.
I wash my face with warm water, put drops in my eyes, do another line off the counter, and fix my hair the way my grandfather prefers it.
I still look like a teenage scumbag- guilty as charged- thanks to my sweatshirt and ripped jeans, but it’s all I have thanks to him and will have to do.
Grandfather rarely asks for me, and I already know what this is going to be about. He has a job he wants me to do. A meeting like this usually means it’s not going to be the safest but since I’m the most expendable member of his crew I get to prove myself. Again. And again. And again.
I make sure to finish the half a sandwich Kira brings me before knocking on Grandfather’s office door. “Заходи.” I take a deep breath through my teeth, open the door, and step inside my grandfather’s office to the overwhelming scent of cigar smoke and brandy.
Grandfather doesn’t look up when I enter, his head bowed over a stack of paperwork. He only lifts his pen to point at the chair across from his desk. “Сядь.”
I take the seat and wait with my hands clasped firmly between my knees for him to be ready for me, trying not to let my feet fidget or my fingers tap.
He hates when I make miniscule movements and I make so many when I don’t keep very careful control.
The wait for him to set down his pen feels like an eternity, but eventually he does.
Grandfather neatly sets the papers aside and leans back in his leather chair.
He tosses his glasses upon the desk surface, eying me quietly for much too long.
Eventually he reaches out for his cigar, relights it and after a long puff says, “I hear you had another disagreement with Andrei.”
Sucking at my teeth, I avert my gaze to his bookshelves. “Maybe they should start informing you of the times we do agree.”
“Don’t be smart with me, boy.”
Bowing my head I murmur, “Sorry, Sir.”
He grunts, taking another puff of his cigar and I feel his eyes boring into the top of my head like a brand. “You should do better to take after Andrei. You work hard enough, one day you might have his position.”
Because that’s my fucking dream.
“That is of course, under very unfortunate circumstances,” Grandfather adds.
I nod. “Yes, Sir.”
“I have a job I want you to do,” he tells me, flicking ash off the end of his cigar. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” I sit up straighter, meeting his eyes. “I have a job for you. One that I think will be beneficial to you and my entire establishment in the future.”
Reaching into his desk, I watch with wide eyes as he places a gun on the surface and then an envelope, neatly sealed.
No…
“I- by which I mean you- have been tasked with taking care of someone who has decided they are no longer willing to cooperate with our employer. Because their last location was within our jurisdiction, it is our job to make sure there’s no need to locate them again.”
My hands are shaking between my knees as Grandfather slides the gun and the ammo my way. “You know how to use one. Load it.”
Trying to steady my trembling, I reach out and mechanically load the weapon the way I was taught at twelve years old. Even Kira makes it a point that I use the basement range at least once a month.
I hate it.
I hate the noise when they go off. I hate the refraction in my bones. I hate how my finger can finally reach the safety and the trigger at the same time now that my hands are big enough to manage the gun’s size.
Grandfather tosses the envelope toward me. “Name and address are in there. You’ll leave tonight and you will not leave unless you’re certain this person is no longer a threat—”
“No.”