Page 88 of Kings of Violence

“I thought about it a lot.” I keep my voice cruel, although it’s the truth. “How I wanted to share you with Kotya. How you’d marry him, and the three of us would make you ours. I thought you wereadventurous.”

“So do you want me to be a whore or not?” she snarls at me, barely keeping her voice low now. “Do you want me to be pristine and proper, only adventurous for you, or do you want me to be enough of a slut to where I’d just easily spread my legs for three men at a time?”

“There are only three men who should matter,” I hiss back.

Unfortunately, our spat has attracted attention. Several people are staring at us, and while I don’t care about what they think, I also don’t want to get kicked out. Or worse, for somebody to try to intervene to “save” Sierra.

I lean back and say, “Whatever.”

“Whatever?” she snaps. “Wow. Real mature, Yuri.” She glances around us too, though, and her jaw sets hard as she realizes people are paying attention to us. “Anyway, just keep your nose out of it. I can handle myself.”

Of course, that leaves me bored and jittery again. After about five minutes of silence, I ask, “Were you already studying here back then, too? Two years ago?”

She stops typing to look back at me, looking cautious when I speak again. “Yes,” she says. “This is my last year before I get my bachelor’s in comp sci. I was just…” She takes a sip of her coffee, obviously stalling, but I let her. “I spent a lot of time at home the first year. But I didn’t go there much after…”

“After your father died?” I venture.

Her smile is tight, brittle, as she shakes her head. “No, actually. He’s only been dead for… for a few months. I spend — spent — a lot of time with my mom after he died.” She pauses. “But I stopped going there for a while because Pa caught me trying to text you,” she says in a rush. “He scared the shit out of me.”

I frown at her, unsure if I heard her correctly. “What? You never contacted me. I didn’t give you my number.”

Sierra offers me a slight smirk. “You weren’t as hard to track down as you thought you might be.” Her expression turns bleak, though, as she shakes her head. “I know you think I like… had something to do with Pa or Sean fucking you over, but I didn’t. I meant what I said the first day you got back from jail. They weren’t supposed to do anything to you as long as I didn’t try to contact you again.”

I dig my fingers into the table.

“I didn’t think you had anything to do with it,” I growl. “You just liked flirting with danger and letting everybody else deal with the consequences.”

She scowls. “That wasn’t how it was supposed to be, all right? I liked you. You were intriguing, and sexy, and I wanted to find out more about you. Maybe I was flirting with disaster, but I thought I could get away with at least texting you.”

I try to cling to my anger, but it deflates in the face of what she says. I give her the smallest smile and ask, “Yeah? What would your text have said?”

To my surprise, Sierra smiles. “Oh, god, I don’t even know. I spent like fifteen minutes trying to figure out what to say. I mean, I knew you’d be paranoid that I had your number, and I didn’t want you to freak out. But I was curious about you. You intrigued me.” Her expression turns dark, though, and she snaps in a voice so low I almost don’t catch the words, “But that was before you and yourfriendsshowed your true colors.”

I ignore that part, focusing just on the idea of her texting me. “Iwould have texted back. I was going to invite you on a bike ride.” I laugh, remembering our ride. “Guess I did that part already.”

“You didn’t reallyinviteme,” she says dryly. “But I liked the motorcycle.” Her expression changes when she looks at me, but I can’t read it. “We could’ve had something, Yuri.”

“We can still have something,” I point out. I look at her seriously. “But the three of us are a package deal. I wouldn’t… I can’t… not without Kotya.”

“Are you…” She nibbles on her lip for a moment. “You know. Together?”

I shrug, but I glance around us. I’m not ashamed of anything I do, but I don’t particularly need random college students to know all about my business either. The place has emptied a little though, and the other people still in the cafe are busy with their own conversations.

“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “If Kotya says he doesn’t want to fuck around anymore, I’d respect that. But I’ve never imagined a life without him.”

“What about Nikolai?” she asks. “I’m not stupid. He’s been weird since you got back.”

“I don’t know.” I rip my napkin into little shreds while I think about what to say. “Kotya likes Nikolai. But it used to be just the two of us, before we came to America.”

“So what was your big plan, Yuri? Take me home, spring your boyfriends on me, and by the way, you want a baby, too?” Her voice isn’t angry, but more… resigned.

“No.” I laugh. “I was going to see if Kotya wanted to negotiate with your dad for you in exchange for an alliance. Kotya would have shared with me.”

“I’m not sure if that’s better or worse,” Sierra mutters. She shakes her head. “I always wanted to be a part of the business. I know it’s… unethical and all, but I didn’t want to be left out. I’d have been pissed to be used as a bargaining tool like that.” She pauses, considering. “Maybe. Maybe if we’d met in a different way, maybe if things hadn’t gone the way they have, I would’ve agreed. Now?” She shrugs. “Guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”

I point to her laptop. “Kotya is letting you help now, isn’t he? And you’re here, doing your school things. Kotya is good at seeing people’s skills. He doesn’t look down on them just because of where they grew up or how they look or…”

Or that I was just some orphan kid aged out of the system with nowhere to go.

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