Page 55 of Kings of Violence

“Just get me Father. He’ll want to hear it directly from me, anyway.” I pause meaningfully before adding, “Unless you’d prefer to hand him the bad news.”

As suspected, that shuts him up quick. He grumbles, but after a few beats, I hear rustling and my brother telling my father thatKotya is on the line.

My eyes go to the office door, and I frown when I realize the light streaming in from under the door is interrupted. It could be one of the guards, but…

I get up from my desk and quietly walk to the door. I pull it open too fast for anybody to get out of sight.

Sierra is standing on the other side. She freezes, then her cheeks flush. “I didn’t understand anything!” she says hurriedly. “I was just coming to talk to you.”

I raise my eyebrows at her. She’s wearing the same black leather getup she had the previous day, when she and Yura had come back from their little excursion. I admit, while I enjoy the way she looks in my shirts, the tight leather highlighting every curve of her body isn’t bad either.

“Come in,” I say, pointing to the office couch.

She hesitates only briefly before obeying, and I suspect she doesn’t actually want to talk to me about anything. Still, what would she have expected to find out? Surely she’d know I’d speak to anyone important in Russian.

My father finally starts talking. “Roman says you have news for me?”

Sierra sits at the edge of the couch, glancing at the phone, but she doesn’t say anything else.

“We found some new information on Winters’ dealings. At least some of our shipments have landed with another of these American crime families.” I say all of it in Russian, but I notice Sierra perk up when I mention her family’s name.

My father grunts. “Then what’s the issue? Go take care of them.”

“They’re in another city, and we need to lay low,” I answer. I suppose, in a sense, this actually is bad news. My father does not have a lot of patience. “If we make a big show of it, we risk drawing even more attention from the American pigs.”

“So bribe them,” my father says. “Or can you not afford to do that?”

“I can bribe the police. I cannot bribe the feds,” I counter. It’s irritating how different those two organizations are, but in all my years here, I hadn’t been able to find any corruptible contacts in the FBI. I am sure they exist, but they weren’t willing to risk dealing withme.

“So why did you call? I’m not hearing anything important right now.”

I remind myself that, while my father isn’t patient, I need to be. “Because I know where to look now, and I have a plan. But I’m going to need more resources. I’ve been severely hampered by all the arrests, and?—”

“No,” my father interrupts. “You just said there’s too much scrutiny. I’m not interrupting my regular business to risk everything getting shut down simply because you can’t handle things.”

The frustration grows inside me.

It’s always like this. I should have known, but I’d thought, with a concrete plan… I suppress my emotions though and answer, as calmly as I can, “Understood.”

I don’t bother telling him what my plan is, or everything else I’ve discovered. He isn’t going to care, not until everything is already finished and he can simply focus on everything we’ve won.

There’s a long pause, and I steel myself for whatever my father is about to say.

“Did Roman tell you, his wife is pregnant again?” my father says.

“His mistress,” I correct, even though I know my father doesn’t care either way.

My father makes a dismissive sound. “Whatever. It’ll be another son.”

“I know,” I answer. Of course Roman had told me. He’d been bragging about it, even. How he was sofruitfulor whatever the fuck he is, like he’s special for fucking a woman without a condom.

“You aren’t having children,” my father states. It’s hard to tell whether it’s a rebuke or a warning.

“Not as far as I know.” I get up to pace around the room, and my eyes land on Sierra.

We haven’t been using condoms with her. She’d said she wasn’t on birth control.

Something about the way I’m looking at her must be making her uncomfortable. She coughs, averting her eyes from me, but I don’t look away from her.

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