Page 72 of Bound to a Monster

“You little shit. I’ve had more important things to deal with, which you know damn well. What were you thinking, unloading all that on Frank? He calls me up pissed as hell, begging me to do something to help because he already passed half the stock along. Now he’s got to go around and plead ignorance and make amends, and he’s going to lose both money and reputation on this fucking nightmare. He’s pissed, Lev, and he blames me.”

I try not to smile, but I can’t help myself. “Ten years ago, you never would’ve let something like this happen.”

“Ten years ago, I didn’t think I could trust you with a job like this,” he says, raging now.

“You lost a step. You’ve slowed down.”

“Watch yourself, boy.”

“Or else what? Don’t pretend like you can do anything to me. I made the call with Frank. If you were better, you would’ve been on top of it.”

“Fuck you, Lev, you goddamn disappointment,” he says, seething as I turn away and head to the door. “I wish it were you in the ground instead of Stepan. You were never as good as him. You were never even fuckingclose, you disappointment. You should be dead, not your brother.”

I close the door behind me. The young guard’s standing nearby, pretending like he wasn’t listening, but the kid’s face gives it away. He’s ashen over what he just heard.

If Dad thinks he’s hurting me with that stuff about Stepan, he’s wrong. He can’t use something like that against me—not when I’ve been using it against myself since the day Step took that bullet and died.

All it does is show his true colors to his people.

By the time I get back home, word will have spread all throughout the family.

Oleg’s going soft. Oleg’s slowing down.

Chapter 29

Lev

Ifind my wife in the basement practicing her footwork.

It’s amazing how she’s thrown herself into fencing. She doesn’t even know I’m there, and I try not to distract her as I sit on the steps and watch. Her body’s lean and long, and her feet are extremely quick. Fighting with her is like trying to stab lightning: one second she’s in front of me and the next she’s flowing around my blade and scoring a hit.

She didn’t even want to do this when she first came to live with me. I practically had to drag her down here. And now it’s like she never leaves.

I try to identify the feeling in my chest as she wipes sweat from her brow. It takes a little while, but I realize it’s pride.

I’mproudof my wife.

For obvious reasons: she’s beautiful, funny, intelligent, and talented.

And she’s driven when she wants to be.

“When did you get here?” She looks over her shoulder and fumbles with her drill.

I grin at her, mask fully on, except I wonder now if it’s actually a mask at all. If maybe the fencing mask is the real mask, and this smile I have whenever I’m around her is just how I feel.

I don’t have to fake it.

“A few minutes. You’re getting good, you know that?”

“I’ve always been good.” She gets a drink of water as I walk over and start shrugging on my gear. I have it piled in the corner of the room. Her eyebrows raise. “You’re interested in a fight?”

“Just some light sparring. Nothing serious.”

“You’re not going to tackle me to the floor?”

“Not unless you beg for it first.”

She laughs, cheeks flushed and beautiful, and she takes her position at the far end of the rudimentary piste I painted on the mats for her. “En garde then, big guy.”

---