but that wasn’t why he thought before he spoke. It was how Vadim posed the question, as though he was genuinely interested in the answer. But why?
“The debt would be cleared, and everything was taken care of except for her. Not every girl needs to go to the whorehouses,” Kolya settled on saying.
“So, you took her.”
“I said that, yes.”
“Because you wanted her.”
Jesus.
He was not going to let that go.
“You could say that,” Kolya settled on saying.
Vadim nodded, and relaxed into his chair a little more. “Well, that’s going to be a problem, then.”
Kolya blinked. “Why would it be a—”
“Idriz—the Albanian who just left. I am sure you don’t need me to explain who he is, or who his brother is, for that matter. He was here because of your slave.”
Fucking hell.
That word—slave—raked along every one of Kolya’s nerves. He didn’t like it being used to describe Maya, but he forced himself to stay quiet yet again. This was another one of those situations where Vadim was clearly not looking for a response.
“Valbon Gashi—ring a bell?” his father asked.
“A distant one.”
Vadim waved a hand, saying, “Figures. He’s a cousin to Idriz, and thus, to the boss as well—Saban. He is also the one Ivan Kozlov owed the debt to. I have come to learn that debt was more than what was just on the surface—it was a running tab.”
Kolya swallowed down the discomfort starting to settle in his stomach. “And what does that mean?”
“Valbon had an arrangement of sorts with Ivan … or he had come to one after a spell had passed between them. Maya, that is. The girl.”
“Woman,” Kolya corrected before he could think better of it. “She’s beyond old enough to be called a woman.”
Vadim scowled. “I bet.”
He only shrugged.
“Be that as it may, Valbon took an interest, and Ivan gave in to the man’s request. Debt was paid then.”
“Clearly not,” Kolya countered, “as he still owed.”
His gaze drifted to the documents and money on the table he had needed to find in order to pay back that debt. Not to mention the man had lost his life because of it.
Vadim drummed his fingers to the desk. “Ivan ended up back in Valbon’s debt—not that the details matter this time around, as it won’t happen again. Point being, I have been told that the two came to a similar agreement as before. Only this time, the woman was to go to Valbon.”
Kolya stiffened.
His father likely didn’t miss it.
“Permanently,” Vadim added after a stretch of silence.
Kolya didn’t even have to think about an adequate response, really. “The deal is void with them—Ivan is dead.”
“Mmm, but not her brother,” Vadim replied, wagging that fucking finger of his again. “This … Maya … seems to be in hot demand, all things considered. I’ve gotten word her brother—Alexei—was approached to inherit his father’s debt from the Albanians. They do tend to take their debts seriously, yes?”
Vadim gestured at the papers and duffle of money on the desk. “Now, I can handle my side of this easily enough, Kolya. I have the means and that’s really all I need to do … but it seems this brother of hers is willing to trade Maya for a variety of reasons. None of which I give a damn about at the end of the day, but here we are. It would save me a—”
“That’s going to be a problem,” Kolya interrupted.
It was risky to do that to his father.
Vadim didn’t have a glass close enough to throw, though, so he took the chance.
“How so?” Vadim asked, reverting back to that calm state again.
A dangerous state, really.
“Her position—status—is clear,” Kolya murmured, refusing to budge and entirely unaffected. “She is mine to do with as I want, and I am not handing her over to a man who hasn’t even earned his stars to pay for the debt of a man who never should have had his rank to begin with.”
“Those are strong words.”
“I mean them.”
Vadim sighed. “Kolya, if it’s a slave you want, there is a whorehouse in The Heights full of them that I own. Go pick one, and she can be yours. This slave can fix a whole host of issues, simply by transferring her to a new set of hands, yes? See, easy.”
The visceral reaction at Maya yet again being called a slave was not something Kolya was able to hide at all. His shoulders stiffened, and his hands fisted into tight balls at his side. He heard the crunch of his molars,