Page 49 of Kings of Cruelty

“You don’t have to pretend you’re okay with this, man,” Nikolai says, his words a little slow, almost drunk-sounding. “Not with me.” He laughs. “And now you have to figure out what you’re gonna tell Sierra about why we’re both all bruised and bloody.”

“Why do we have to tell her anything?” I ask despondently. “We’re fucking gangsters. This is what we do. Get into fights.”

He laughs again. “Yeah. Okay. I knew you were dumb, but I didn’t think you were delusional.”

I turn around, slack-jawed. “You knew I wasdumb? I don’t need to hear that from some two-bit Russian wannabe.”

His laughter cuts off abruptly, and he stares hatefully at me as he snaps, “You know, I was trying to make a joke. But you had to go there, didn’t you? Fuck off, Yuri. Go, ride off. You werenever needed anyway.” He mutters something under his breath that I can’t catch.

I angrily pull my helmet on and swing onto the bike. “You’re the fucking dumbass.” I swear at him in Russian, and I catch his confused look—he didn’t understand half my insults, like I’d expected.

Let him stew on that.

I take off, the roar of the engine drowning out anything Nikolai might be saying. I’m going way too fast, winding recklessly through traffic.

Even that doesn’t calm my thoughts, though. I’m still a bundle of aggression when I get home. I storm through the house to my bedroom and slam the door shut.

Fuck.

I know it’s not Nikolai I’m angry at, but I can’t stop.

I look at myself in the mirror, with my new haircut and the tattoos up my neck. There’s one that readsloyalty, which I’d gotten after I’d made my silent pact to always support Kotya no matter what.

My eyes burn, but I refuse to cry over something this stupid.

There’s a quiet knock on the door, then it opens without the other person waiting for permission to enter. I’m half-expecting it to be Nikolai, but no. He wouldn’t have gotten here this fast, and he wouldn’t seek me out after what I’d said to him.

Instead, it’s Sierra, who’s tilting her head as she looks me up and down. “Wow,” she says. “Pissed someone off?”

I let out a dark chuckle. “Something like that.”

“Are you going to say something like, ‘you should see the other guy’?” she asks dryly. Her gaze sweeps over me again, and she frowns when she sees my hands. “Then again, you probably did do some damage. What happened, Yura?”

I shrug. “Got into it with some rivals.” I wonder if Nikolai will snitch on me. Hewould, with his shaky concept of loyalty and obedience.

Sierra sits down on the bed next to me and takes my hand gently. She rolls it around to look at my knuckles and inhales sharply. “I hope they deserved it.”

“I hope so too,” I whisper in Russian.

She frowns at me. “What?” she asks.

Of course she didn’t understand. It would be nice if she had. It would be nice if she understood a lot of things.

“Nothing. It was somemudak.” I pull my hand away and stand up. “I need to… disinfect this. Don’t want to get gangrene. Who knows where his mouth was.”

“Okay.” She stands up too. “I’ll help you. I helped Kyran with shit like that sometimes.”

Fuck, she’s so nice. I nod and follow her to my bathroom. The first aid kit is out on the counter already, from when I’d had to deal with the whipping.

That seems so long ago. Maybe I should ask Kotya to whip me again so I can get the endorphins and forget all these fucking feelings.

“Do you want to talk about why you’re so pissed off you’re slamming doors?” Sierra asks, so casually I don’t even realize what she’s asking at first.

“I got into a fight, didn’t I? Plenty of reason to be pissed off.” I turn on the water and wash my hands, watching the blood and dirt go down the drain.

“Okay,” she says, accepting those words so easily that I feel guilty about lying to her. “Let’s get you patched up.” She’s silent but efficient, and I wonder how many times she had to patch her brother up.

“Thanks,” I murmur as she wraps the bandages around my hands. “Coulda used somebody like you back in the day.”

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