Page 144 of Dirty Grovel

Is the Pavlov Ship Sinking?

“Fuck all you media vultures,” I snarl to no one, slamming the papers shut and hurling them away from me, just as my phone beeps with a reminder from Sutton’s pregnancy app.

We have another ultrasound coming up in a few days. It’s the one bright spot in my shit storm of a life and I can’t even enjoy it properly.

The cops are circling like sharks.

The entire fucking Bratva is breathing dragon fire down my neck.

And on top of it all, my fiancée refuses to engage with me, apart from a sour look here or an angry grunt there.

I’m still fuming when Oksana walks in, her heels striking the floor like ice cracking right before I fall in the frozen lake beneath. She’s wearing a blindingly white suit and a nude scarf tied delicately around her neck.

“Son,” she greets, stopping in front of my desk, her eyes combing over the headlines splayed across the floor.

“Remind me to fire the person who put these gossip rags on my desk.”

She doesn’t smile. The crow’s feet stamped in the corners of her eyes look carved deeper than ever. Like she’s aged several years all of a sudden.

I tense, rising to my feet slowly. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Boris.” She sighs. “He passed away early this morning.”

I gawk. Boris is… dead? It feels strange to even contemplate the reality of what that would mean.

I try to shape the words in my head, in my mouth, but they fail to compute.

Boris is dead.

Boris… isdead.

He’s gone. He isn’t coming back.

“Fuck me,” I breathe, falling into my chair and leaning back. “Leave it to Boris to kick the bucket and leave another mess for me to sort out. His timing couldn’t be better.”

Oksana seems to appreciate exactly what I mean. She walks to the bar and pours out two glasses of the strongest vodka I have on offer. Then she hands me one of them.

“We will have to make a show of it,” she says, caustic yet detached. “We’ll have to give him a large funeral, a proper sendoff.”

“Excellent. One more circus to plan on top of all the rest. Not to mention every vodka-soaked relative will be descending on us from the motherland.”

“It isn’t great,” Oksana agrees. “But you will need to consolidate your power, Oleg. You’ll need the support of those vodka-soaked relatives in order to achieve it. You are thepakhannow.”

Fuck me.

I am thepakhannow.

I’ve waited half a lifetime for this moment.

And yet, now that it’s here, it feels so meek and hollow.

“Just so you know,” she adds, “there were reporters sniffing around at the hospital this morning when I left. The news of Boris’s death is probably circulating as we speak.”

“Beautiful. More gasoline for the dumpster fire.”

Literal fucking seconds later, my phone starts lighting up like a damn Christmas tree. I pick it up and stare at the first couple of messages on my screen.

Some are from declared allies.

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