Page 127 of Tarnished Queen

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have something to say to me.

My dad wasn’t built for the Bratva world, but he still has the connections. Maybe someone knows something about Xena or the Battiatos. Maybe he’s come to bring me something useful. Something that could help me protect Belle and bring her sister home sooner.

“Fine. Show him in.”

I follow the guard across the lawn to the patio, and then I wait there as he goes to let my father in. When Ioakim’s slumped shadow moves around the corner of the house, regrets instantly rise up in me.

How could someone so weak have given life to me? He can’t even hold up his own weight, let alone carry a family or a Bratva. It’s pitiful.

And he seems to know it. As he approaches, he keeps his head down. Only his eyes rise up to me, the whites glowing in the moonlight.

“Nikky—” He pauses and shakes his head before correcting himself. “Nikolai. It’s good to see you again.”

“Wish I could say the same. You look like shit.”

He holds up his right arm. There’s a cast on his wrist. “I had a bit of a relapse.”

“And the treatment center broke your arm over it?”

He chuckles humorlessly. “I actually broke my wrist. Accident. Fell cleaning gutters, if you can even believe it. And then there were painkillers… It wasn’t anything serious, but I started losing control. I’m clean again, but it was hell there for a week or so.”

That is precisely my definition of hell: being controlled by something beyond myself. Addiction has a firm grip on my father, even now.

“Is that why you’re here? You looking for money for your next fix or something?”

He finally looks me full in the face, his creased eyes wide. “No. Nothing like that. Like I said, I’m clean again.”

“Then why are you here?” I snap. “The sooner we get this over with, the better. I have a beautiful woman lying naked in my bed. I don’t want to waste another second with you.”

I don’t need to brag to him. I don’t care what he thinks. But I want him to know my life is bigger than him. That I have more than he could ever or will ever have. And I did it all without his help.

“Your wife?” he asks. “I saw the news in the paper. There was a picture. She’s pretty.”

“Thanks for your approval. I was dying for it.”

He nods. “The two of you looked great together. I cut out the picture and put it in my top drawer.”

“Am I supposed to be touched?” If anything, the image he paints is sad. Imagining him clinging to news of me from the outside, stashing away newspaper clippings like a rat hoarding treasure.

“No. Well, I mean, if you want to be,” he says with a small laugh. “I’m just saying that… I’m here because I wanted to congratulate you, I guess. You’re building a family for yourself. I’m proud of you.”

Some people wait their whole lives to hear those words from their father.

I could not care less.

“I don’t need your congratulations. I don’t need anything from you.”

He nods. “I know. You’re a self-made man. Independent. You’re better off than I ever was.”

“That’s a low bar.”

He smiles again. I want to punch the expression off his face.

“That therapy the center forced on you must be working if you can stand here and smile while I remind you what a piece of shit you are.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” he says solemnly. “I know. I’ve never forgotten. Not for a single day.”

“I’m sure there are lots of days you’ve forgotten. Most of the ones you spent in the gutter.”

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