Page 11 of Root

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Fine, Nikolai, man.” I’m pushing it, but he’s not mad. I smooth my fingers over the edge of the sofa arm. “I want…I want to be involved more.”

He nods. “How?”

“Your right-hand man? Share it with Tony? More frontline action?”

He sits on the armchair and crosses his legs. “That’s a job you have to earn, Rush, and I’m not sure Tony’s inclined to share. He’ll teach you. I need a few trustworthy men. Inner secrets men. But the frontline? C’mon.”

I huff, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m not sixteen anymore.”

“Rush.” He levels his gaze on me. “It’s not that. This is yours, always and forever, but some people have a conscience, and inside, under all the blood lust, you have that. You’re reckless, but I can use that edge.”

“So—”

“We’re not at war. This frontline isn’t for heroes, and it isn’t for you. There’s more behind that level of full-on violence and death.”

Now he’s pissing me off, and I go still. “I’ve killed, more than once.”

“And each one steals something. Difference between you and me is, you’re not a monster. I think one monster per family is enough.”

I breathe out, looking down and studying my Docs. “So, I’m weak like my father?”

I’m pinned to the floor so fast, the wind is knocked out of me, Nikolai’s hand is around my throat. He squeezes–hard. “Your father wasn’t fucking weak.”

Then, he releases me and stands. I lay there, trying to breathe after the sudden move. We don’t fight, not physically—apart from the occasional light slap over the back of the head. I want to, but I’d lose. Nikolai fights dirty, and he kills with unnerving focus.

“My dad got himself and my mom killed—”

Again, he interrupts me. “Because he wasn’t cut out for dealing with a creature like Finnegan. That’s not weakness. Naivety, perhaps, decency, but not weakness.”

A hand appears, and I stare at it. Finally, I take it, and he hauls me up.

He moves off to pull on his waistcoat and do up the tie. “Your father was good, maybe too good for this shit. Finnegan’s dirty and weak and never upholds a deal when he thinks he can get away with it.”

“So, he murdered them?”

There’s hesitation in his voice. “Yes.”

“Nikolai?”

“I don’t lie. He murdered them.”

I ask it. The question. The big one. “How?”

“Dead is dead,” he says. “How isn’t important.”

I’m not going to fight that battle, because there’s something in his voice that says I don’t want to know, and he wouldn’t tell me even if I pushed. Whatever happened, it was bad. “And you’re gonna end him? When?”

“The wife and the daughter. I’ll murder them and then Derek. I’ll take everything, and I’ll probably piss on his fucking mutilated body.”

“Nikolai...”

He stares at me. “When a man tells you they’re a fucking monster, you listen. Always listen.”

“What if they tell you they’re good?”

“Watch and listen to the cadence of their words. People give everything away.” He looks at me. “Get ready, if you’re coming.”

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