Page 16 of Kings of Cruelty

I really do know.

This is my one and only chance.

I’m never going to make a mistake like that ever again.

FIVE

Nikolai

I want to fuck Sierra.

Unfortunately, she’s still recovering from the gunshot wound—thanks, Yuri—so Sierra is currently off limits.

I should go find somebody else to fuck. There are plenty of women who hang about our businesses, and if I’m not picky, there are always bars and clubs.

“I’m heading out,” I tell Konstantin, who barely even grunts in response. He’s too busy trying to detangle the files Sierra got from Don Marino, as if he can figure it out without Sierra’s help.

I hop in my car and start driving, fully intending to go to a strip club or a bar or maybe the club we use to distribute drugs.

I end up at my father’s house instead.

I could back out of the driveway and go somewhere else instead, but the old man will have already been alerted to my presence. He might be retired—or as retired as anyone in this life can be—but he has no plans of getting blindsided by anything.

I get out of the car, locking it and shoving my keys into my pocket as I stride toward the front door. I wave at the camera by the doorbell before knocking.

It takes a few moments before my old man opens the front door. He’s wearing sweats and a t-shirt, and is holding a lit cigarette.

“Why are you here?” he asks suspiciously. “Did your mother die?”

I scoff at him. “Is that the only reason I could have for wanting to drop by?” I ask, but we both know I’m stalling because I never just drop by. I sigh, my shoulders slumping. “No, she’s still alive.” As far as I know, anyway.

He takes a drag of the cigarette and exhales the smoke almost directly in my face. I wrinkle my nose but don’t say anything.

“Fine,” he says, stepping aside. “Maybe you can answer some of my questions too.”

I stop, taken aback. “Questions about what?”

“Inside, boy,” he orders me.

I grumble, but he’s not wrong to be careful. I step past him into a house that smells like cigarette smoke has been absorbed into the walls and is exuding the smell. He leads me down the hall into the living room, and I glance at the TV. He’d been watching some show I don’t recognize, but at least he’d been willing to put it aside for a few minutes.

“What questions do you have?” I ask suspiciously.

He sits down in the well-worn recliner. The table next to it has several empty bottles of beer on it, as well as an ashtray full of ashes and cigarette butts.

“I heard some strange things from my buddies,” he says vaguely. “Something about a big shake-around in Benton.”

“Shake up,” I correct automatically, which gets me a glare from my father. I glare back. If he doesn’t want me to correct his English, he could say all this in Russian instead. “Yes. There was an assassination attempt on some of the major players in Benton.”

I sit down on the threadbare couch. I should care more about the attempt that Konstantin was dragged into, but all I can think of is Sierra’s body lying there with blood spilling from the wound in her chest.

I drag in a breath, then cough when it brings so much cigarette smoke into my lungs. It’s a wonder my father isn’t fucking dead yet.

“So the Americans?—”

“Italians,” I interrupt.

“Stop interrupting, boy!” my father snaps. “And they are as Italian as you are Russian.”

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