“I’m more than a match for you, Isaak Vorobev,” I say You may be the don here, but you don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
I undo his zipper and free his length into my grasp. He’s throbbing hard and hot. His eyes roll momentarily before snapping back into place.
“You may be able to control the world, Isaak,” I whisper to him. “But I won’t let you control me.”
I start stroking. A low, guttural groan sounds from deep in Isaak’s chest. His eyes flutter closed as he plants both palms on the wall behind me and lets his head hang low.
Then he raises his gaze to meet mine.
And I realize that I haven’t won quite yet.
“You’re right. I can see that now,” he says. “You’re much too good at manipulating the men around you.”
My hand freezes on his cock. His cold blue eyes stare back at me unapologetically.
It was all a mirage, my so-called upper hand. There is no winning with Isaak Vorobev. He’s played every game out there, broken every rule, and he always comes out ahead.
He knows my weaknesses and he’s just proved that he’s not above using them to put me back in my place. I have to bite down on my tongue to stop the tears.
I thought I could make him see me as his equal. But I was a fool to think that I could make him see me as anything other than a pawn on his board.
He’s not a man who wants anyone standing next to him.
He’s built to survive alone.
I shove him off me with an angry cry. He steps away easily, tucking himself back in his pants.
“Your father trained you well,” I tell him. Then I’m running up to the manor before my tears can betray me.
33
Isaak
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Murphy?” I say into the phone.
“No, nothing. Just… just bring my son back where he belongs, Isaak.”
Her voice comes through faintly, but that’s because it’s weighed down with grief.
I’d met the woman a few times early on in my newfound friendship with Lachlan. His mother was everything my mother wasn’t: warm. Friendly. Outward with her love, with hugs, with kisses on the cheek and warm mugs of tea.
Not that I’d know what to do with a mother like that. I wasn’t really the hugging kind of son. It was something that Mrs. Murphy had clocked early on during my first visit to their quaint farmhouse in rural Scotland.
“Hugging helps you live longer,” she had told me.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I’d drawled.
Of course, I’d forgotten about that moment until right now. Hearing her voice jogs my memory, pulls out little scraps that I’d pushed back into the recesses of my mind.
“I will,” I tell her. “I’ll bring him back myself.”
“Thank you,” she says faintly.
I hang up a second after Bogdan walks in. He’s been quiet since the fight, but I know he’s been dissecting every single thing that occurred from the moment we set a collision course with Maxim.
Bogdan processes things through analytical thought. The objectivity helps distract him, orient him. It forces him to look at things clinically so that he doesn’t have to face the emotions head-on.
He did the same thing when Otets died. Although I’m willing to bet there had been considerably less affection where our father was concerned.
“How are you doing?” Bogdan asks.
“Fine,” I say curtly. “Just got off the phone with Mrs. Murphy.”
“Fuck. How’s she doing?”
“How do you think?”
“Pretty fucking broken up, I’d imagine. Lachlan was her youngest.”
“Does it matter?” I ask. “Youngest or oldest, a child is still a child.”
“I don’t know,” Bogdan says with a shrug. “I doubt Papa would have cried over either one of us.”
I snort. “You’re right about that.”
“Actually, he might have cried over you.”
“Not because I was his son. Only because he would have lost his successor.”
“Which makes me what—the insurance policy?”
I snort with laughter, and Bogdan joins in. But it doesn’t last long. The silence claws its way back to the forefront.
“He wanted to go back to Scotland this year,” I muse quietly. “He hadn’t been in a few years. Felt guilty about it.”
Bogdan sighs and sinks into an armchair. “Don’t go there, Isaak. Don’t put that shit in your head.”
“He didn’t go because of all this shit with Maxim,” I remind him. “He said things were too volatile.”
“He made the decision, not you.”
“I didn’t exactly insist on his behalf.”
“Why would you? He’s a grown man who made a decision.”
“A decision based on loyalty.”
Bogdan sighs again. “There’s no denying that. Lachlan was loyal. The man never faltered.”
Loyalty. Still one of the highest compliments a man of the Vorobev Bratva can lay at someone’s feet. Ironic, really, that the man who carved those words into our skin was guilty of betrayal on all the most fundamental levels.
“You’re going, aren’t you?” Bogdan says after a pause. He’s eyeing me warily.
“I have to,” I say. “I’m not going to let anyone else hand Lachlan’s body over to his family. I’ll set them up with an account. Lachlan’s salary will be transferred directly to them in perpetuity.”
“That’s generous.”
“I wouldn’t do it for anyone else.”
“Not even me?”
“Especially not you.”
Again, we both chuckle, but it too dies quickly.
I look up at my brother and for the first time I can remember, I feel like the desk is a huge separator between us. A gulf that needs crossing. The office has been set up like that since Otets first took power. No doubt it’s intentional, to remind visitors of who wears the crown.
But today, I don’t like it. I decide to break tradition.
I walk around my desk and take the seat next to him.
He doesn’t comment, but I know he understands the gesture. Maybe that’s what encourages him to broad the topic in the first place.
He turns to me and says, “Sobrat… why didn’t you kill Maxim when you had the chance? You had the fucker.”
I know he’s not blaming me. He’s genuinely trying to understand the frame of mind I was in. The wire I’d been wearing didn’t just transmit directly to my team; it also recorded the whole conversation I’d had with Maxim that day. I’m sure he’s listened to it again and again, just like I have.
And wondered what the fuck happened, just like I have.
“Our father killed his, Bogdan,” I explain. “I was trying to even out the scales. Now, I can take him on without feeling any sense of guilt.”
“You were willing to broker a peace deal with him,” Bogdan points out.
“I was giving him scraps and he knew it. A smarter man would have taken that offer, though. I’ve never made one like it before. I don’t intend to do it again.”
“Then why do it once?”
“Because, at the end of the day, we’re family. And that loyalty to our shared blood is something I can’t ignore, even if I wish I could. But I said my peace and made my offer. He rejected it all. So be it. Going forward, my conscience is clear.”
“So it’s war then?”
“It’s war,” I agree.
He nods grimly. “Good.”