Fractured Ties by Bethany-Kris Page 0,3

eyebrow from the last glass that shattered in his face. It’d taken ten stitches from one of their paid doctors to keep it closed, made more difficult by the fact that Kolya’s face was constantly set into some kind of variation of a scowl or frown. It was never relaxed enough not to strain or pull on the stitches.

“Well?” Vadim demanded. “I know you can speak, yes? I taught you how.”

Actually, his mother probably had.

Kolya didn’t correct him.

“I was telling Konstantin that the rug could use a clean.”

Vadim’s gaze drifted to Konstantin who only shrugged as if to neither confirm, nor deny, and then back to Kolya just as fast. “Hmm.”

Once his father’s gaze was off him again, Kolya relaxed slightly. Not a whole lot, though. Just being within a visual distance of his father kept him teetering on a very dangerous edge. That’s what Vadim wanted—that’s what he liked.

Kolya was not an exception to the rule, but rather, an example of it.

Vadim muttered something low to the man in the corner of the room who was using the wall as a leaning post—the only other man besides Kolya, Konstantin, and his father’s Sovietnik, Grisha. Anatoly, the bull who had come to drag Kolya out of bed this meeting, was busy glancing at something on his phone, but still seemed to hear whatever it was Vadim said to him.

“Nyet, not yet, boss,” Anatoly said.

Vadim scowled. “Blyad. The suka seems determined to test my very gracious patience, no?”

Anatoly only shrugged in response.

Kolya was struck with a heavy jolt of irritation in that moment. He had taken two things from his father, though he hated when people had the audacity and nerve to point them out. One was his father’s disposition—reverently distasteful, constantly surly, and almost never pleasant—and the other was his features.

From the dark, short-cropped hair to the sharp line of his jaw, the square-cut chin, and ice-blue eyes. Even the shape of their straight, thick brows—giving them both the gift of a persistently dismissive or disinterested expression—was the same. Even their large, muscular builds were similar, although Kolya had a good inch or two of height on his father now. Right down to the prominent cheekbones, and cleft in his chin, it was all the goddamn same.

Sometimes, he wished it wasn’t.

“Not sure gracious is the right word to use, yeah,” Konstantin muttered low.

Jesus Christ.

The little shit was doing his very best to test Kolya for all he was worth tonight in their father’s presence. It took all Kolya’s control and effort not to smirk at that statement. He sobered quickly enough when Vadim’s sharp eyes turned on them again.

And just like that, the pounding headache from his drunken episode earlier was back, at the idea he was going to have to put on his give-a-fuck suit for his father and act like he gave a shit why he had even been called there in the first place.

“I have a job for the two of you,” Vadim started.

One that couldn’t wait until a decent time?

Kolya’s thoughts were testing his control, too, it seemed.

Konstantin passed Kolya a look, and then went back to his father. “Why are we taking the job?”

Wrong question.

“I give jobs to you,” Vadim stated, the cold gleam coming into his eye as he spoke, “but you do not get to ask me to justify or explain why I’ve given you them. Understood?”

“Yeah,” Konstantin said, stiffening a bit beside his brother.

“What job?” Kolya asked.

It worked to get his father’s attention away from Konstantin for the moment. Soon, the man would be able to go back to petting whichever pussy he preferred on the bed, and maybe he’d be in a better mood tomorrow when they had to meet up again.

But who knew?

“A brigadier has gotten out of hand—owes debts to someone after he’d already been warned on that end. Not only do I need you to collect something worthy of satisfying the trouble he’s caused … again,” Vadim added with a growl, “It would be helpful if you could make his lesson permanent. I’m sure they’ll be others around. Nature of his business. It’ll be a good reminder for them, too.”

Dirty work.

Kolya wasn’t even surprised.

“I can’t handle the issue personally, since I have the Markovic Bratva arriving this morning, and will need to deal with Vasily.”

Kolya could hear the disgust in his father’s tone. Vadim made a decent effort to play nice with other organizations when the need arose, but that was about as far as it went. He