Page 65 of Kingmakers, Graduation

Chief pushes me a basket of crusty bread, hard enough that it makes a sharp cracking sound when I tear off half a baguette. I dish stew from the tureen in the center of the table, ladling it into an earthenware bowl so heavy that I can hardly hold it in one hand. The stew is beef and vegetables, the broth thick as gravy.

“We take turns cooking,” Adrik tells me.

“I don’t cook.”

“Neither do Vlad or Hakim, but we eat the shit they make and we don’t complain.”

“Not even when Hakim makes goulash for the twenty-seventh time,” Andrei says, grinning across the table at Hakim.

“Fuck off,” Hakim grouses. “Took me long enough to learn to make that. I’m not fuckin’ Gordon Ramsay, am I?”

“You’re barely Sweeney Todd,” Andrei laughs.

“I will be if you keep it up,” Hakim says darkly. “You’re getting fat enough to make a good pie out of you.”

Andrei looks genuinely offended at this. “I’m not nearly as fat as Vlad. Am I, Vlad?”

He elbows his seat-mate in his generous flank.

Vlad shoots Andrei a look of such malevolence that Andrei’s grin morphs into a puckered mew, his blue eyes as round and startled as a schoolboy’s. Andrei scoots several inches to the left, knocking my elbow and dislodging the delectable chunk of beef I’d gotten within an inch of my mouth. In retaliation, I steal the rest of Andrei’s baguette.

While I loathe the idea of cooking for this pack of hyenas, I have to respect Adrik’s insistence on family dinners. Eating is a bonding activity, and if we weren’t forced to cook proper food, the house would soon become a wasteland of empty fast-food bags, with Andrei and Vlad as plump as Hakim claimed.

In truth, everyone at the table is admirably fit, ranging from Jasper’s lean and rangy muscle to Vlad’s bulk. There must be a gym close by, maybe at the house. I wonder if Adrik makes everyone work out together?

It can’t be worse than the workouts Ilsa used to put me through.

I catch Adrik’s eye as he takes a second helping of stew. He grins, his teeth a flash of white in his tanned face. There is no head or foot to this table—also intentional, I’m sure. Adrik calls his men “brother.” He avoids the appearance of authority. Yet they all wear his brand on their arm. They listen when he talks, and I assume they obey. Will he demand the same from me?

Conversation bounces back and forth across the table. Everyone here is younger than thirty, full of energy and crudity. Even Jasper smiles once or twice, though his chill is more complete than Vlad’s, directed at everyone, not just at me.

Adrik passes out frosty bottles of Baltika from the fridge, popping their caps on the scarred edge of the table.

“Does the lady need a Cosmo?” Andrei smirks at me.

“Is that what you use to get Hakim in bed?” I say, sweetly sipping my beer.

“He might be getting desperate enough,” Hakim snorts. “You’re on a dry spell, aren’t you Andrei?”

“I’d get laid every night if I was willing to take home the dogs you fuck,” Andrei retorts.

“Can we talk business?” Chief pleads of Adrik. “Before I have to hear another recital of Hakim’s conquests and the lies he has to tell to get them in bed.”

“What lies?” Hakim protests.

“Did you or did you not tell some poor college student that you were Zayn Malik’s cousin?”

Hakim shrugs. “I could be. I’ve got a lot of cousins.”

“We can talk,” Adrik says, silencing them all. “Who wants to tell me what you did while I was gone?”

“I will,” Jasper says, composed and ready. “We sold off that load of ARs to the Slavs. They offered us ten keys coming in fresh from Bolivia. But they’re asking fifty per, and I think we can get a better deal from Baldoski. We’ll have to get a sample first and test it—there’s rumors that he’s cutting below forty percent.”

Adrik nods, mentally tallying each point. I have no doubt he could repeat it all back verbatim if he wanted to. I know I could.

“And the books?”

“Up to date,” Chief replies. “We took in twenty-eight K on the ARs, but I had to pay out twelve to theMusor.”

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