Page 6 of Bears Not Included

She knows nothing about my mom’s mental state to start with. She knows the version of her death that my father created and pulled off. My mom fell off a broken balcony. Still, I don’t want Faith to think of my mom the way my father had.

“My mom…” I say, swallowing the sadness in my tears and replacing them with excitement and finally some peace for both my mom and I.

Chapter Four

Callen

There’s a saying about bears. If you see a brown bear, pretend you’re dead. If it’s a black bear, stand up and fight. If it’s a polar bear, you’re already dead.

That’s exactly how I would describe us—me and the two men I’ve known all my life. The only men I trust with my life.

Deacon Walsh is definitely the polar bear. Mason Blackstone, he is the brown bear, and me—I'm the black bear.

If you’re meant to die and Deacon, the oldest of the three of us, is standing in your path, you’ve taken your last breath. There’s no pretending to be dead, running away, or staying and fighting. You’re already dead.

Mason, the youngest, is like a brown bear. You can pretend to be as dead as you want, but he’ll know, and then he’ll give you a chance to run because he loves the pursuit, and the fear you leave in your wake as you try to escape fuels him. He never loses sight of his prey.

I’m the black bear. Stand up and fight. Give me all you have. I believe everyone deserves a fair chance to fight for their lives. And if you’re smarter than me, faster, or stronger, then I deserve to die. That I’m still alive means I haven’t met my match yet.

I take a sip of my drink. It’s the kind of whiskey that’s expensive enough if you want to make a statement. And Kirill Yenin has a burning desire to show us how much money he has now. He also wants to show us that he has more power in his pocket than anyone else in the room. It’s not completely undebatable. We did arrive unarmed, after all.

We thought we were going to pay our respects to the Yenin family, but instead, we walked into a drunken party already underway. And we were the guests of honor, apparently.

His father, Boris Yenin, a man we actually liked and respected, died suddenly of a heart attack in his sleep a few weeks ago. And now his son, Kirill Yenin, is the new Bratva boss and now our business associate.

Kirill Yenin is a dangerous man. And this is how he wants to show us his prowess.

Not only did he take forced ownership of a replica of an English castle that belonged to one of the oldest and most respected and law-abiding families on American land, but he’s also made some interesting, or rather lewd, adjustments to the place, too.

He walks around waving his gun like it’s part of his hand, and he throws around cocaine like it’s fairy dust. He has also fired his gun three times already in our presence for being served the wrong drink. He’s quite interesting to watch.

He calls himself the new terror in town, the new god, but unless he announces the epithet that he is the new terror and the new god, no one will take a second glance at him. Poor thing.

But the rumors about him wanting to scare us out of the 5% extra we own of the Umbrella consortium appear to be true as of right now. Somehow or other, he heard we’re soft targets who come from old money, never mind that we sit at the table of the Global Underground Six.

He thinks we’re timid little pussies—his words—and we’ll quake in our bespoke suits, and our Patek Phillipe Nautilus watches if he points his gun at us since we came with no protection. He actually made a joke earlier about our blue blood. Gentlemen like us, with our perfectly groomed hair, and scent like fucking flowers don’t rule the world. We didn’t laugh.

Yes, apart from no guns on our person, we also arrived with no bodyguards. He has this impression that we hide behind a line of armed men 24/7 and can’t take a piss without a soldier pulling down our zippers and another aiming our cocks. Or how else are we in power?

I’m surprised Deacon didn’t just break his hand and shove his own fingers down his throat, gun and all.

Kirill Yenin must definitely be new in town or just plain stupid if he doesn’t know who we really are. But then again the elite Global Underground Six doesn’t involve itself with petty criminals like Yenin. We’re here because of his father, a good, sane man who was also friends with our fathers.

And the Umbrella Consortium which is what Kirill wants to own is such an infinitesimal aspect of our portfolio that it doesn’t even make it into our portfolio, but we like to have our strings everywhere all at once so we keep it in hand.

The ostentatiousness of my surroundings makes me snicker on the inside. Mason would call this a dick-measuring contest, with Yenin being the only contestant who signed up. Deacon would call him dead.

Me, I’m all right either way. I want to see what he can do and what he has planned to do to wrestle that 5% from us.

I bring my attention back to my surroundings, which were once the statuesque grand hall of the Walter-Smith family, known for their old money, and prestige.

Cigar smoke swirls in the air around me, and the scent of sex and money lingers on the near-priceless vintage furniture that Yenin decided to keep after all.

But around the entire hall, hanging from the ceilings, are metal cages. In them are women, swaying to the thumping music that comes from the walls. The women are naked except for two diamond studs sticking out from their nipples. Strings of neon lights are haphazardly draped over the crystal chandeliers and cast flickering shadows all over the place.

Sweat stinks the place up as bodies all around us dance, drunk and high out of their minds.

I can hide my boredom better than Deacon and Mason, that’s for sure, but it’s something that Yenin picks up on, and he isn’t happy.

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