Page 58 of Skin Deep

I glanced between them. “Know what?”

Simeon waved dismissively at Gregori, jerking the oxygen out of his hand to inhale it.

The doctor sighed and gave me an apologetic look. “Sergei. He’s your half-brother, Warrick.”

I recoiled at the news, taking a step back from the bed, my stomach turning over at first. When I thought about it though, it shouldn’t have been surprising. Why else would we have been forced to play together? It also explained why he’d always hated me, even though I’d never done anything to him.

I pressed my fingers to my side, digging my thumb into the place where Pax had cut me until I felt the familiar sting.

Simeon held the oxygen mask on his face, glaring at me with weak, watery eyes, waiting for me to react. It would take almost nothing to kill him. A pillow. Hell, I could pinch his nose closed and hold my hand over his mouth and he would die in minutes. His bones were so weak, I could break his neck with hardly any effort. It was pathetic to live after the body had given up. No one was supposed to be more machine than man.

Killing Simeon would be easy, and he knew how vulnerable he was, which was why he kept dozens of armed guards between him and the outside world. If he knew how much of a threat I truly was, he never would have let me within ten feet of his hospital bed.

Slowly, Simeon lowered the oxygen mask. “Word has reached me that you are investigating the ripper case.”

“Why do you care?” I snapped.

He slowly lowered the oxygen mask with shaky fingers. “Do you know where you are? How many eyes are on you, boy? How many guns?”

I glanced around the room, unmoved by this threat. “I’m standing in a house of mourning, at the side of a future corpse.”

To my surprise, his thin lips twitched and he hissed and coughed. It took me a minute to realize he was trying to laugh. Simeon took a hit of oxygen before saying, “We are all future corpses, born to die. We spend half our lives waiting to live, and the other half waiting to die. Such is life. As to your other question…” He took another hit of oxygen before answering. “You will drop your investigation into the ripper.”

“What? Why?” I glanced around the room. The doctor and Aleksi refused to meet my eyes. Why would the vory even care about the ripper? Unless… I gripped the side of Simeon’s bed. “You know who he is, don’t you? Are you protecting him? Is it one of your men?”

“It is not your place to question me,” Simeon wheezed before inhaling more oxygen desperately. “It is your place toobey.”

“I’m not one of your soldiers, Simeon. I don’t have to do whatever you order because you demand it.”

He narrowed his eyes at me and slapped the mask in the doctor’s hand fighting to sit up straighter. “You will do as you are told, boy, or I can’t promise the Cooper family won’t pay for your insolence.”

I fought not to flinch at the threat. It didn’t make any sense. Bowen’s death was supposed to be buying Pax and his daughters protection. Either Simeon was trying to leverage two things at once—which didn’t seem likely—or he didn’t know about the hit on Bowen.

Dammit, I’d suspected something was wrong with that job ever since Nikita handed it to me. It probably hadn’t come from Simeon at all. This wasn’t the vory handing Pax a contract to see if he could be trusted. Nikita was using Pax to kick off a coup!

I glanced back at Aleksi. He had to be in on it. He and Nikita were close allies, but he betrayed nothing with his expression. I sure as hell couldn’t ask Simeon about it, not without putting people I cared about in mortal danger.

I turned back to Simeon and shook my head. “You won’t lay a finger on the people I love ever again. Not you. Not your men. Not anyone. If you try to take them away from me, I won’t just end you. I’ll snuff your name from history. It’ll be like you never fucking existed. Do you understand me?”

Gregori’s eyes widened and swung to Simeon, probably expecting him to order my execution. No one got to threaten Simeon Volkov and live.

But it was Aleksi who stepped forward and grabbed me by my jacket. He slammed me against the wall. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Show some fucking respect!”

“Enough,” Simeon barked. “I don’t want bloodshed in my house! War, you will drop your investigation, and you will stay away from the Foxhole. You and your brothers are no longer welcome in any establishments owned by the organization or its members. I have protected you because you were my blood for too long. No longer. I cast you out, Warrick! Go and be a Laskin if that is what you want to be. You are no grandson of mine.”

He pointed to the door so I went, storming down the hall.

“Warrick,” Aleksi called from behind me.

I paused to let my cousin catch up with me as I exited Sergei’s wing of the house.

“Our grandfather has become angry and bitter in recent years. His mind, it comes and goes. You cannot take what he says personally,” Aleksi said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“His mind is going, and you still take orders from him?” I shook my head.

Aleksi shrugged. “He is still Simeon the Immortal until he isn’t. What choice do I have? I gave my oath to serve.”

“I didn’t,” I pointed out.

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