Page 17 of Kings of Cruelty

The words are like a slap to the face, and I grit my teeth to keep from snapping at him that he’s nothing more than a pathetic old man whose opinion doesn’t fucking matter. “Go on,” I say in a carefully measured voice.

“The Americans, they hosted a big party, and somehow the host perishes?” He takes another drag of the cigarette. “Sloppy. Very sloppy. That would not have happened on my watch.”

I look pointedly at him in his pajamas to the television. “I can tell nothing would get by you,” I snipe.

“Sarcasm is lazy,” he answers. “In my youth, I was one of Voronkov’s most feared enforcers. They whispered my name with awe and dread.”

I’ve heard this story many times before. I used to be impressed by him and his stories, but these days, I can see through a lot of the bluster.

If he was such a great and trusted enforcer, why did Konstantin’s father send him to New Bristol? Igor Voronkov would have kept anyone truly useful directly by his side.

Which is why Konstantin keeps me close.

Maybe I hadn’t been his second-in-command at first, but with Yuri gone, he’d come to rely on me—and now I’m indispensable.

“And now they don’t even know what your name is, old man,” I mutter. “Did you have questions or not?”

“Wondering what Baby Voronkov is doing now.” My father snuffs out his cigarette. “He’s going to destroy everything Petrov and I worked for, with how things are going.”

I let out an exasperated, impatient sound. “Konstantin isn’t destroying anything,” I argue. “It’s not his fault he’s having to clean up Petrov’s messes along with everything else.”

Though I have to admit, at least to myself, that Konstantin has been noticeably distracted. We’ve been figuring out who we can trust, and it’s hard enough to keep our businesses running as they were before Petrov got arrested—never mind expanding them.

My father snorts in disbelief, but he doesn’t comment anymore. He goes back to watching his Russian talk show, and for a while we sit in silence.

It’s similar to how we spent afternoons when I was a teenager and still living here.

During a commercial break, my father gets up to get another beer from the kitchen. When he returns, he stares at me. “So? Why are you here? Not to sit on my couch.”

He’s not wrong about that. I wouldn’t willingly come and sit on his couch and breathe in this poison. I could do that at any club with a beautiful woman at my side without dealing with a cranky old man.

“Why were you with my mother?” I ask.

My father’s expression changes. “Why are you asking that now? She left us.”

I grit my teeth. I don’t need the reminder that she left us, but at the same time, maybe I do need to remember that that’s what women do. “There is a woman,” I say, surprising myself. “There shouldn’t be.”

My father barks out a laugh. “There is a woman? There are many women! Thereshouldbe many women. They are good for one thing: fucking.” After a pause, he adds, “And maybe cleaning.”

I try to imagine telling Sierra that she needs to start cleaning up around the mansion and snort. “No, she’s not the cleaning type.” But she’s definitely good for fucking, even if it seems like Konstantin and Yuri are interested in more than that. They don’t seem like they want other women, either, which isn’t something I understand.

Or do I?

Do I actually want someone else to fuck, or am I fooling myself?

“So fuck her, but don’t marry her.” My father scowls. “Never marry. They will attempt to take all your money.”

Konstantin will end up marrying her.

I’m sure of that, but I won’t tell my father. There are some things that don’t need to get back to Konstantin’s father. He probably knows more than he should about Sierra. That can’t be helped, but like hell am I going to make this worse for us.

“I’m never getting married,” I say, and the words are both a relief and a weight all at once.

My father nods approvingly and gets back into his recliner. “Good, good. They are all cheating whores anyway. You will end up raising some other man’s child.” He laughs. “Better to impregnate another man’s girlfriend, so he has to pay child support.”

I nearly choke on my laugh. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say I’ll end up knocking up someone else’s girlfriend—or is that the way it works if the woman in question technically has three boyfriends?

Something occurs to me, though, and I frown at him. “You heard about everything that happened in Benton?”

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