Page 7 of Wicked Serve

“I learned more about it after. I didn’t know about it in the moment.” It’s taking all my effort not to snap. “I just want to figure out a way to finish my degree and play hockey.”

“Good. Because that’s what I want as well.” He stands, stepping around his spotless wooden desk, and gives me a calculating look. His eyes are like pieces of flint, his silver hair combed carefully over his temples. He might be old, but he’s powerful. You don’t get to the point where you own half the buildings in New York City, plus hundreds around the world, by playing it safe.

The Fifth Avenue penthouse that he calls home is as light and modern as an avant-garde art piece, but his office stands apart, a relic from a time long past. A gas fireplace trimmed with marble stands guard behind his desk. Dark wood paneling gives the entire room a heavy, dramatic air. The last time I snuck in here—to steal a sip of the good brandy with my cousin, Cricket, during an insufferable party—I couldn’t understand how easily she flopped onto the leather couch.

Then again, she’s fit into this world her entire life. When Mom divorced Dad and we moved from Moscow to New York, I was already thirteen.

Grandfather turns his gaze away as he considers one of the only photographs in the room: my mother, Katherine, embracing her older sister, back when they were eight and ten. Despite the frilly dresses they’re wearing, they look solemn. I’ve always wondered if the photographer threatened to drown their puppy or something.

“I wanted you and your cousin to pose for something similar, but Andrei wouldn’t allow it,” he says, spitting out my father’s name as he adjusts the cuffs of his crisp white shirt. “You should have been here all along. My only grandson, and I barely knew you until you were a teenager.”

“It’s unfortunate.”

“It’s unacceptable,” he snaps.

Despite his intensity, he rarely raises his voice, so I’m taken aback as much as Donna. She looks away politely.

I swallow the panic that threatens to rise at his tone. The past is past, and right now, I have to figure out what the hell I’m going to do about my senior year of college. “Wherever I transfer, it has to have a hockey program equal to UMass’s. Part of the timing of my rookie contract is because of the strength of the—”

“We don’t have to worry about that.” He gestures to the couch. The crystal decanters on the bar cart next to it wink in the lamplight as he takes out two glasses. “Take a seat.”

“Grandfather.”

He pours a few fingers of brandy into each glass. “Sit, Nikolai.”

At the sound of my real name, I listen. I should have known that his help would come with a price. Grandfather doesn’t see much distinction between business decisions and family matters.

“If I do this for you, I need you to make me a promise.”

I stare at my glass. No matter how hard I worked in practice, or how well I played in games, I never earned my father’s love, but I can still earn Grandfather’s. Whatever his bargain is, it can’t be that bad.

“Anything.”

“Work for me after graduation.”

I nearly choke on the brandy. “What?”

“I will help you transfer to another school—one with a good hockey team—and in return, when you graduate, you’ll come work for the family business.”

“But... I’m going to play hockey.”

“A couple years spent in an unforgiving league that will tear your body apart? Or worse, joining your father in the KHL? No. I won’t allow it.”

“You seriously think I’d agree to a contract with my father’s team? In Russia?”

“He was your first coach.”

“He’s dead to me.” I spit out the words, even though they make my heart ache. I point to the scar on my face. “He gave me this.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Then you don’t know me at all.”

“I do know you, Nikolai. I want the best possible future for you, and preparing you to take over Abney Industries is the way to make that happen. Did you think I wasn’t serious about that? The company can’t go to just anyone when I’m gone. It’s you or no one.”

When I applied to college, Grandfather wanted me to go to Harvard, his alma mater. Harvard’s hockey team is excellent, but UMass Amherst had a better coaching staff, so I said yes to their recruiters. He wasn’t thrilled about the National Hockey League draft, either, but he still congratulated me when the Sharks took me in the first round. SKA St. Petersburg, the team my father coaches in the Kontinental Hockey League, the Russian equivalent of the NHL, drafted me as well, but I never considered it a serious option. I’ve made other concessions—studying political science, making it clear that I want my college degree before playing professionally—but never once did Grandfather say that he wanted me to join the family business instead of playing hockey.

I stand as the magnitude of what he’s asking hits me. “You can’t do this.”

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