Page 4 of Crowned

I force myself to laugh when I really want to smash my fist through his skull. This was why no one liked drinking with Vasily. One vodka and he would act like a clown. “It is better now. I have learned.”

Vasily is already talking over me. “Ivan Kalashnik never appreciated Elyah. This guy is fresh from the gulags of Siberia or whatever, knew nothing about America, but he could make people do whatever Ivan wanted just by standing over them and glaring.” He shakes his head and takes another drink. “But Ivan never appreciated any of us. Useless fuck.”

Kirill’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. A man who drags hisPakhan’sname through the mud, even a former, deadPakhan, is a piece of shit.

“Anyway, what brings you all to the land of the free?” Vasily asks.

I glance at Konstantin and tap my glass with a forefinger. Pretending to hesitate, I say, “We are involved in something big. Very big.”

Vasily immediately brightens. “Oh? I know these streets like the back of my hand. There’s no one better than me if you need an insider. For a cut,” he adds quickly.

I want to laugh. What happened to the “this and that” he’s got going on? I pretend to consult my friends, exchanging silent looks with them, before turning back to Vasily and leaning closer. “I can trust you?”

Vasily leans forward as well. “Of course you can trust me.”

“Then you have come along at the right time. We have hit wall, and you could unstick us.”

“Of course I could,” Vasily says. He seems so delighted that I wonder if he’s been spinning his wheels since Ivan’s death, no money and no crew.

I drain my glass and get to my feet. “Not here. Come back to Konstantin’s suite and we will talk.”

The four of us head out of the bar together, Kirill, Vasily, and I talking and laughing while Konstantin leads the way. Vasily always became overexcited when he was around the crew. So grateful to feel included, like a stray puppy. The man would not last five seconds in a Russian prison.

Konstantin’s suite is the penthouse at a hotel several blocks away. Vasily gives a low whistle as he strolls through the door, taking in the acres of thick carpet, the white sofas, the vista of the city beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Quality place. I’ve seen better, though.”

Konstantin and I exchange looks behind Vasily’s back. His expression tells me that if I’m able to confirm my suspicions tonight, he’ll happily murder this idiot alongside me.

Kirill is on the room phone, ordering up drinks. A few minutes later, there’s a knock at the door and a server comes into the sitting room with a bottle of Stolichnaya Elit over ice and four glasses. Premium Russian vodka. Kirill gives him a tip and tells him to go, and cracks open the bottle himself.

“Finally, a proper fucking drink,” he says, passing the glasses out as we make ourselves comfortable on the sofas.

Vasily throws an arm along the cushions as he accepts his drink. “You know something else about that asshole?” he asks, turning to me. “Ivan was always leaving me out of shit. I was never invited to the house. It was always Dima and Bogdan and never us.”

Vasily is enjoying his whining too much to notice that Konstantin is gazing at him like he wants to hurl him out of the floor-to-ceiling windows and watch him fall ten floors to the ground.

“I was invited to the house,” I tell him, and I’m immersed in the memory of Lilia in tight dresses and gold jewelry, pouring glasses of vodka with a blank expression on her face. She must have been so lonely. So trapped between Ivan and her father. If only I’d taken her and run.

Vasily screws up his face in annoyance. “You? For fuck’s sake, I’m glad that fucker’s dead. He never fucking appreciated me.”

“You are appreciated now, my friend,” I say, toasting him with my glass and smiling.

“I always did like you best, Elyah. Did you ever hear from Ivan’s wife again?”

The smile dies on my lips, but I force it back. “That bitch? If I had she would be dead.”

Vasily casts me a sly look. “But you didn’t always want her dead, did you?”

Kirill sits up and pours more vodka into Vasily’s glass. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Elyah was a lovesick puppy every time Lilia Kalashnik was in the room. Fuck me, what a stunner she was. Ass like a peach. Tits to make you weep. Turns out, she had it bad for Elyah, too. Can you believe it? Married to aPakhanand getting her pussy wet over his driver.”

My thin smile feels like it’s going to shatter my face. I grip my glass while fantasizing about smashing it into Vasily’s stupid grin.

Get my woman’s name out of your fucking mouth.

“I can believe it,” Kirill says, patting my cheek. “This asshole is too good-looking for his own good.”

“Tell me about it,” Vasily moans. “We used to go to this strip club and the strippers would practically be payinghimto dance in his lap.”

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