Page 54 of Silenced

“We all do,” Misha mutters.

“The Krestniy Otets doesn’t seek our friendship, just our servitude,” I sign though I can’t help but agree with them.

“He needs taking off his perch,” Maxim grouses. “Maybe he’ll stop thinking he’s the next Tsar of Russia, then.”

Misha whistles. “Treason, Maxim?”

“Why not? We did it in New York.”

“You’re a big-headed asshole,” Dmitri retorts.

“Don’t be Icarus, Maxim,” I agree. “Flying too close to the sun won’t serve you well.”

My words have unintentional amusement drifting through me.

I, on the other hand,canbe Icarus when Cassiopeia is my little sun…

“Jesus, is he smiling, Dmitri?” Misha demands, eyes wide in surprise.

“He’s being weird.”

“Weirder than usual?” Maxim asks with a snort.

He clears his throat. “Yeah.”

Maxim’s regard is intense. “Think about it, Nikolai.”

“Think about what?”

“A takeover. If anyone could do it, it’s you.” His stare remains unusually direct. Maybe he thinks he can hypnotize me into agreeing to take part in his madcap schemes? “You have the loyalty of a lot of the men. They trust you.Respect you.”

“Fear him, more like,” Dmitri argues.

“That as well,” Misha inserts with another chuckle. “The trifecta of leadership—trust, respect, and terror.”

“Stabbing first, twisting the knife, then feeding the body to your gators later earns you quite the reputation,” Maxim concurs.

“If anyone even knew we were talking about this, we’d get our asses killed,” Dmitri remarks.

“This is a secure line,” Maxim insists. “No one can get into this channel, but it’s important. The Krestniy Otets is the one who’s flying too close to the sun. And we know what his Obschak and Sovietnik are like…”

Dmitri stiffens.

Why wouldn’t he when his father is the Krestniy Otets’s Sovietnik?

Again, I rest a hand on his shoulder. He relaxes,minutely, but it’s better than his tension from before.

“Careful, Maxim,” Misha rumbles, astutely reading between the lines.

Misha is a wild card. On the regular, he makes Maxim look Type A, except I can’t help but notice how he’s changed since he took up with his new squeeze—Page 6 darling Aspen Daniels.

A relationship I definitely do not approve of.

Maxim grunts. “Dancing around the subject does him a disservice. We all know what that piece of shit put Dmitri through. How is it fucking right that he gets to lord it over everyone?”

“Might is right,” I sign.

“And that’s my point! We take away their fucking might. They’re nothing. Old pieces of shit who can be slain in their beds if we get together—”

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