Chapter 13 Episode 13

Lev looks more intrigued than Yulian does, which in and of itself is alarming. My brother has always been the bloodthirsty one. “You have reservations about how this will play out?” I ask Yulian. “The Ivanovs have a lot of allies, Anton.” “Ivanov has been around for a lot longer than us, Anton. He’s got a big ass Rolodex and who-the-f**k-knows how much cash squirreled away. Money talks, brother. You know that.” I snort. “If he can buy the loyalty of any one of my allies, then he’s welcome to them. What’s left of them when I’m finished, at least. No, I want real men at my back. Not turncoats who’ll try to stab me the moment my concentration has shifted.” Yulian looks like he’s about to keep arguing, but then he wisely falls silent. Good. The pounding in my temples is getting worse and I’m done explaining myself to them. “We’ll prepare,” Lev says shortly. I glance at my brother. “Yulian?” He nods, respectfully enough. “I will do whatever you ask me to. I am the younger brother, after all.” I grimace as he invokes our father. Those were his last words to Yulian on his deathbed: Do whatever your brother asks of you. He is your don now. He’d been too weak at the end for more than a few labored sentences. Yulian sighs. “Papa would know what to do if he were here.” I stamp down the annoyance, but I can’t stop the words from escaping. “Our father is the man who started this s**t in the first place.” Yulian’s eyebrows knit together. He hates when I say anything remotely negative about our father, but he’s far too old and experienced now to keep pretending the man was a saint. “Elevating the Ivanovs? Sharing power, assets, and business?” I say. “It was a foolish decision based on a foolish friendship. How could he have been sure that his friendship with Rodion would translate to their sons or their successors?” “He was counting on your marriage to Marina to seal the deal,” Yulian bites out. “I can’t see how you lay the blame for that debacle at his feet, brother.” My eldest son. Rodion’s only daughter. The final link to join our two kingdoms forever. I scoff in my head. As it turned out, it was more like the final nail in his own coffin. “He was a fool,” I say bluntly. “A fool to think I could be distracted by a pretty face and miss the vile b***h that lurked underneath it.” Yulian’s face sours, and I know I’ve gone too far for him. But I’m too pissed and too resentful to care. “You married her,” he scowls. “You agreed.” “I told him it wouldn’t work. He didn’t listen. He never did.” “He knew what was best for us.” “Except he didn’t,” I snap. “Clearly.” I move towards the edge of the yacht, aware that Lev and Yulian are both watching me carefully. My thoughts are scattered tonight, caught between two fiery women who couldn’t be more different. “I’m heading back home,” Yulian says in a strained voice a minute later. He gets to his feet. “It’s been a long-ass night. I need a drink, a blowjob, and ten hours of blackout sleep.” I watch him saunter off the boat and down the dock, pretending like life is just f*****g peachy. When I twist around, Lev is still watching me. “You know it upsets him when you talk about your Otets that way.” I shrug, unapologetic. “He’s put the old bastard on a pedestal. Reality is always a shock to the men who are unprepared to deal with it.” “I remember your father,” Lev tells me. “I remember the way he was around you two.” “No, you don’t,” I say firmly. “You remember how he was around Yulian, and you assumed that was how he treated me behind closed doors. It was not. I was his heir—I wasn’t offered choices; I was given orders. Yulian is lucky that I’m not as hard on him as our father was on me.” “Yulian’s not your heir, though, Ant,” Lev points out. “Maybe you’d treat him differently if he was.” I roll my eyes. “My brother is a lot of things, but a leader is not one of them.” “I guess that means you’re having children one day, huh?” I stiffen instantly. Some topics are off-limits, and Lev should know better than to ask. But I’m sick of yelling, sick of reprimanding. So I just sigh, “One thing at a time.” He nods and leans back in his seat, white teeth flashing in the moonlight. “Amen to that.” “My only concern now is quelling this storm before it breaks.” “And what about the other little problem that disembarked a few hours ago?” Lev asks. “That?” I scoff. “That is not a problem. That’s a little blonde distraction that I can handle.” “I recall you saying the exact same thing about another blonde who ended up carrying your name.” I narrow my eyes. “Sometimes, I forget that you have an elephant’s memory.” Lev gives me a humorless laugh. “The difference is that you never looked at Marina the way you looked at that girl tonight.” “And how did I look at her?” I ask, against my better judgment. “Like you wanted to rip her to pieces just so you could see how she’s fit together.” He isn’t wrong about that—I just can’t figure out why. Sure, Jessa was beautiful. Sexy. Interesting. But I’ve come across many women who tick off the same boxes. They’re a dime a dozen in my world. So what is it about this woman that has me so interested? “Am I wrong?” Lev presses, as if he can sense my roving thoughts. Lev raises his eyebrows. “Sounds like a problem to me.” I exhale and push myself off the side railing. “Get some sleep, Lev. Tomorrow, we need to meet with new weapons suppliers. I have two names you can add to the list.” “Give me their contact. I’ll set it up.” “The numbers should be on my—” I frown. My pants pocket where I keep my second phone is empty. “On my phone,” I mutter. “Which should be in my hand right now.” “Didn’t you have it below deck?” Lev asks. “During the meeting with Benyamin?” Something itches at the back of my mind, a feeling I can’t shake that something is wrong. I stride downstairs into the first oval room on the right. The center table is empty, but my memory is clear: I put the phone down on the table. Right before Benyamin showed his hand and I shot him. Right before Jessa screamed and Lev dragged her into the room. Right before I left her in here alone… with my phone on the table and a threat in her head. “f**k,” I growl, turning to Lev who is standing at the threshold of the door. “You were right,” I grimace. “She is going to be a problem.” “You’ve only been here two nights,” Chris argues. “That’s nothing. Please stay, c’mon. Are you gonna make me get on my knees and beg?” I’m in his kitchen with the small bag of belongings I’ve acquired in the past few days. A sweatshirt and cotton shorts Chris bought for me at the store, a spare toothbrush from his medicine cabinet, and two phones—mine and the one I stole from the yacht. I spent the first night at Chris’s place in a sleepless haze of panic and worry. For a while, I thought I might never sleep again. But then, almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I went stone-cold unconscious and woke up sixteen hours later. Now, in the light of the day, everything that happened at the yacht club feels like just a bizarre nightmare. One I’m rather eager to forget. “I’m feeling a lot better. I think I’m ready to figure this all out.” “I’m not sure if you remember this, but there’s a bad dude after you, Jess.” His brown eyes are pained, filled with the same worried expression that’s been plastered on his face since the moment I showed up on his doorstep, tearstained and breathless. “First of all,” I say, grabbing my stuff, “Anton is not ‘after’ me. He was just… threatening me. All bark, no bite.” It takes everything I have not to laugh at myself. No bite? Yeah f*****g right. Chris looks at me incredulously. “‘Just threatening you.’ And that’s… better?” “He was just trying to scare me,” I say. “But I don’t think he would have, like, done anything.” “That’s easy to say when you’re standing here, far away from him, wearing Walmart shorts with Lola Bunny on them.” “Hey, you bought these for me, so I think it says more about your taste than it does about mine.” He sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “What can I say? She’s a hot rabbit.” I smile at my best friend and hold out my arms to him. “Can I get a hug before I go?” He crosses his arms across his chest. He must’ve been hitting the gym regularly since we had our little falling out, because he’s gotten quite buff. Well, compared to old Scrawny Chris, at least. “Jessa, I just think you’re not taking this seriously.” “Of course I am. But I can’t spend my life cowering in fear.” “Which is a great philosophy in principle, but doesn’t exactly hold up when there’s, ya know, legitimate s**t trying to kill you.”