Page 6 of Ruling Scar
“Go back to this restaurant again. Make friends there.”
Make friends with Ren Callahan and Abe Fujimori? They’re not exactly random people, which in some ways should make this challenge easier. But it doesn’t feel like it.
Besides, they’re all friends already. I was the weirdo lurking in a booth nearby.
Janis doesn’t care. “That’s your homework for this session. Go back to this restaurant and be open to whatever happens.”
And that’s how I end up going to Fujimori’s every week.
CHAPTER 2
Lennie
FEBRUARY
I’m exhausted and I haven’t even gotten out of the car yet.
“Man, when the fuck did the Morozov’s start driving a Bugatti?” my sister, Adeline asks. Her face is smushed against the window, fighting to see in the night, especially with the window’s dark tint.
Mom pulls her back but peeks around her youngest daughter, trying to see herself.
There’s a line of cars. Mercedes, Audis, Rolls Royces, and yes, the Morozov’s new Bugatti. They enter the long sweeping driveway up toward the Zimin’s front door.
We’re here to celebrate Max’s recent marriage to someone named Russet.
I watched Max pull his bride’s veil back and unmask a random stranger. A power play by Marissa who promised her daughter.
Dad doesn’t like Marissa. Nobody does. She’s some two-bit wannabe crime mistress, but as Dad says, the best threats are the ones you don’t take seriously. Hence, why the bratva tried to arrange a marriage and bring her into the fold.
She raised a middle finger and now everyone is fascinated to see what Russet is like.
It’s been roughly a month since the marriage at the beginning of the year and as far as everyone knows she’s treated like his wife rather than a spy.
I’m personally not sure I’d like to be married to Max. He’s nice, but not as friendly as his younger twin brother Roman.
But that’s why we’ve been stuffed into a town car and driven over to the Zimin’s estate. It’s tucked onto some land, in a ritzy neighborhood known for sweeping real estate that isn’t too far away from Manhattan.
I should probably mention the Akatovs also live in said neighborhood.
Not that we ever acknowledge our neighbors.
Dad and Lev Zimin grew up together and work closely. You’d think that would make us close family friends, and we are when it comes to things like this, but on a normal day. . . best to not even mention the name Zimin to my mother.
“Oh my God,” Adeline gasps, pressing her face back to the glass. “She got a face lift.”
Mom would never be caught gossiping like this in front of others, but she leans into Adeline’s side peering around.
Natalie, my older sister, rolls her eyes. She’s tall with dark brunette hair, brown eyes, and tits I’m jealous of.
She’s also a bit of the fun police.
I fall somewhere in between like any middle child. I’m not prim and proper and lethally ambitious like my genius of a sister. I’m also not as stunning and wild as Adeline.
I’m a boring introvert homebody who prefers to read rather than go to parties.
Though, it can be said with therapy, I’m trying my best to no longer spiral in a burning flame of nerves every time I go out.
Too bad my anxiety didn’t get the memo for tonight’s event.
