Page 70 of My Wild Horse King

“If you want to be a therapist,” he says, “then finish analyzing me. Maybe I chose the company I chose because I wanted to stick it to people who gamble while staying safe. But why didn’t I just go to work for my grandfather? That would’ve been easier and safer.”

“You admire him,” I say, “but I think you didn’t really want to be around him very much. He probably makes you angry, even if you wish he didn’t. He’s upset that he enabled your mother, but your mom did what she did, at least in part, because he cut her off.”

Luckily the road is straight and flat, because he glares at me for way too long. “You might be right.” His head snaps back, and he says nothing else for quite some time.

I let him sit in his thoughts.

It’s what I’m doing—reminding myself ofwhyI’m not supposed to be gawking at Gustav. I have a goal now. A goal that’s not just ‘get some guy to like me.’ I have a plan.

I mean, assuming we don’t all get killed.

But for some reason, I don’t think Leonid will kill me. He might kill Gustav, though, and that bothers me more than it should. I barely know the guy.

Whether I like it or not, though, I’m vested. I want him to at least survive, and more than that, I find that I want him to succeed. I want him to reach his goal—the one we basically just tried to derail entirely. “Will your grandfather really not choose you to be his successor if the IPO doesn’t go perfectly?”

“Aleksandr, Grigoriy, and Alexei really do appear to have the funds to buy most of the shares,” he says. “Grandfather won’t like it, though. Having private Russian citizens prop up my company?” He sighs. “I’m pretty sure that driving back here with all of you ruined my chances to be his successor, yes.” He looks. . .resigned.

Not depressed.

But not far from it.

“I’m really sorry,” I say.

“It’s not your fault.” He huffs. “It’s not really Kristiana’s fault either. I do know that, but I can’t help wishing things were different.”

“Why do you want to take over his company? Yours seems to be doing well, and you said you have plenty of money.”

“Part of it is that I hate losing, and my cousin’s a total jerk.” He’s frowning. “But part of it is that having that kind of control, owning that company, would be the kind of security that’s almost impossible to obtain.”

“Security?”

“No matter what happens with the economy, no matter what someone tries to do or take, I would be safe.”

“Would you though?”

He scowls.

“I’m not trying to be a jerk, but if you’ve learned anything in the past few days, isn’t it that there reallyisno way to be safe? I mean, life isn’t ever guaranteed.”

“So that’s it?” His hands are gripping the steering wheel so tightly, I worry he’ll pop it off. “We should justgive up? There’s no way to be safe. We can all just float around life, letting what happens happen?”

I turn back and look over my shoulder. “Those six idiots are the safest people I know,” I say. “They have each other, and they trust each other. That’s rare.”

“Wonderful,” he says. “Well, they don’t trust me, and I don’t trust them, so I guess I’m still at square one.”

“I’m not sure.”

“What now?”

“You can look at people now and know what you’re looking at. Bad people. Good people. Complicated people, whatever the case may be, now you know it.”

“I guess.”

“You know people better than they know themselves. You said I’m not entirely black, but what do you see when you look at the six of them?”

“Why do you think I agreed to come?” He huffs. “They’re mostly sparkly and shiny and bright. Disgustingly so.”

“And other people? The guys at the rental car place, for instance? People on the streets?”

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