Fractured Ties by Bethany-Kris Page 0,37

and his usual scowl sharpened into a glare.

He couldn’t hide it.

Vadim didn’t miss it.

“Ah,” his father murmured.

“What?”

“You can’t have the girl to love or marry. She’s neither appropriate for your status, nor would I approve of her for you, given her circumstances. You should already know this—why the defensiveness and anger?”

“Who said anything about love or marriage?”

Vadim cocked a brow in challenge.

Kolya refused to rise to greet it.

Clearly knowing he was not going to get what he wanted, Vadim tipped his chin up to almost appear as though he were looking down on his son as he said, “Brand her properly for status if you’re so serious about this keeping her thing, although why, I don’t know. She’s a dime a dozen. Do know that any problems that come from this can and will be easily solved. I cannot control what the Albanians want or do when their expectation falls short.”

The statement was offered freely.

Flippantly.

And yet, it irked Kolya like nothing else.

“Is that a threat?” he asked his father.

The change in atmosphere was damn near instant. Tension so thick it could be cut with a fucking knife. And yet, Kolya didn’t take back the words as he probably should. No, he let them hang out there just as freely as his father had given his, and let Vadim make of it what he wanted.

Vadim stood from his desk slowly. “The Albanians had a deal worked out on this—what they chose to do from here on out is their decision, and you are to step back.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Try that again, yes?”

Kolya shook his head. “Won’t do it, no.”

“I gave you a chance, remember that.” His father reached over and pressed a green button on the side of the desk. Speakers crackled in the room before a ringing echoed. “Grisha?”

“Yes, boss?”

“Give Idriz a call and let him know his man may remove the girl.”

“Calling now.”

Vadim pushed the red button on the same base and never took his gaze away from Kolya as he said, “You have forgotten your place and lessons—a reminder is always good.”

Kolya barely heard him; he was already turning to leave.

He did hear someone else, though.

“I have one of those, too, comrade,” Vasily Markovic said. “A son who makes me want to choke the fucking life out of him.”

“I’ve spoiled him,” Vadim replied. “We always spoil the boys, no?”

Fuck.

The man had been listening on speaker the entire time, when Kolya thought his father had actually hung up the phone when he first came in.

What did it matter?

He had other problems to handle.

Maya. Maya. Maya.

7.

MAYA FOUND time passed a lot faster when someone had something cute to keep them distracted—something like a small, black puppy with big, yellow eyes. Kolya hadn’t said much when he’d taken off early that morning, but it was closing in on noon and he still hadn’t returned.

She wasn’t sure if that meant good things, or not. She was still wrapped up in the way his lips had felt pressed against hers the night before, and the confusing mess her life currently was, all because of Kolya fucking Boykov.

Why did he have to be the way he was?

Interesting.

Dark.

Different.

Kind.

Frightening.

Entirely fucking confusing.

It would be so much easier to deal with Kolya if he could just stick to being the emotionless, expressionless block of ice he sometimes reverted back to. Then, she wouldn’t have to also tie that same man to the one who’d spent hours upon hours with his pup, or the same man who had stared at her like she was the most amazing thing he had ever seen when he thought she wasn’t looking.

Because, yeah … she’d seen that, too. She watched him, too, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

Still, even as she had made a simple breakfast that morning and then after, gotten Sumerki ready for his morning walk, her mind drifted to Kolya. The blank expression he had worn as he’d readied to leave the house, and his flat tone when he said goodbye.

Whatever he was going to do, he hadn’t wanted to.

Vadim, she heard him say on the phone the night before. His father. Was that where he had to go, and why did he clearly not want to?

And there Maya went, right back to concerning herself over a man she probably had no business doing anything for. She was more bothered by the fact she worried at all. And what exactly that might mean.

Instead of letting her thoughts drift to the troubling Russian who had decided to keep, house,