Wayward, page 3
“Go out the door and down the hall,” I snapped at him, glowering, having passed the bathroom on my way to the bedroom with Lev.
“I’ll take him,” Sava said, and smiled at the younger man. “You’re a pain in the ass, kid, and I see rehab very soon in your future.”
“It never works.”
“That’s because you gotta put in the effort to really change,” the older man stressed to him.
As Sava and Vanya went out, Stas stuck his head in the room, glanced around, and found me. “Adrian’s got Nara, so we’re good to go. I don’t wanna be here when the police show up to bust Petrov for killing his own guys and leaving them next to the barbecue.”
One of the men behind Burian gasped. “Oh shit.”
“Plus, Sava left traces of blood all over the kitchen.”
“That’s so gross,” Lev grumbled.
Stas nodded. “Oh, you have no idea. It’s a mess in there and nobody’s in there, so they haven’t noticed. Gonna be hard to explain.”
Lev gave an exaggerated nod. “No doubt.”
“So I’m gonna carry Alexei down the freight elevator,” Stas continued. “I already talked to a couple of guys, and we’re covered.”
“You got someone coming to get him?”
“Yeah, the place over on Montrose, they’re sending people now,” he said, ducking out of the room.
“Holy fuck,” rasped the guy who had been getting head when we walked in.
I was always thorough, as were the men who worked for me. Normally, when we visited people, we went with latex gloves and booties on our shoes, but this, a big sex and drug party, the forensics would be a mess. Good luck finding any trace of us, me and my men, in the sea of DNA in the suite.
“I’m bored now,” Lev muttered, going for the door. “This was not what I was expecting.” Halfway there he stopped and looked at me. “Do you know how many guns I have on me at the moment? I could’ve killed all these assholes ’cause as far as I can tell, none of them are strapped, but now, with you and your fuckin’ phone”—he shook his head, irritated—“it’s a waste of my goddamn night.” He walked to the door and hurled it open before disappearing, leaving me alone in the room with twelve men.
“So.” I sighed, looking Burian in the eye. “You stay away from my family, I’ll stay away from yours. You show no one your video, mine stays secret as well. Do we have a deal?”
It seemed like Burian was in shock.
“And I know you and your guys were behind the robberies last month at a couple of our clubs and that you tried to bullshit and blackmail some of our distributors. I’m telling you now—find some other family to harass, or the next time I see you will go much differently.”
Burian tried to hold my gaze but ended up unable to, glancing away quickly. I knew why, had been told by a lot of people: my eyes looked dead. They held no mirth, no spark, no warmth. I had, my uncle Leonid always told me, the eyes of a shark, ready to deal out death without any hesitancy or sentiment. I had no qualms about taking life, and there was no missing that fact. My uncle, of course, loved that about me. My mother had always said it wasn’t true.
Burian shuddered involuntarily.
“You should get rid of the bodies,” I cautioned him. “I mean, I’m covered”—I showed him, wiggling my fingers inside my leather gloves—“but you fuckers have your prints everywhere in here.”
Lots of noise then, guys yelling at Burian.
“And again, I don’t want to see you, and I don’t want to hear that anyone else has either.”
I turned my back on him and walked out, giving him easy access. If he wanted, he could have shot me or come at me with a knife, but I knew he wouldn’t, too much of a coward. The fact that I reached the doorway, went through, and closed it behind me without incident let me know that I had put Burian Petrov right where I wanted him—far away from my family.
TWO
An hour later, I sat beside Vanya in the waiting area of the New Life Drug and Rehabilitation Center on Lakeshore Drive. I was filling out admittance forms for him and his plus-one. It was understood that some of the people checking into suites at the very expensive, very private, upscale facility would not be doing so alone. It was also understood that no one outside of the staff and the person paying would ever know who was a patient there and who was there to protect said patient.
I sent Nara with Lev to Vanya’s apartment so she could pack a bag for her brother. It gave her something constructive to do instead of crying. Stas and Adrian went with them and were given the tedious task of searching the tiny one-bedroom flat from top to bottom for any drugs or drug paraphernalia. No old mirrors with coke residue on them would be allowed to remain, nothing hidden inside the toilet lid or stuffed in the back of the freezer or behind the drawers in the desk. If it was there, between the two of them, they’d find it. I even wanted the pot gone, which bummed Lev out. He said he’d keep any marijuana for his private use, but when I pointed out that it could be laced with anything—this was Vanya we were talking about, after all—Lev agreed that Stas should flush anything he found. Better to err on the side of caution.
I sent Sava to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Krupin, because for some unfathomable reason that I never understood, he was really good with parents. He promised Vanya in the car that he’d bring his folks to see him in a couple of weeks once the initial withdrawal was over. They shouldn’t see him before then, and Vanya agreed. Not that the clinic would have allowed that anyway. But he knew the drill; he’d been through it before.
“You’re not going to show that video to my father, are you?” Vanya asked me, his voice shaky now as he was coming down, scratching at his face absently and practically vibrating in his chair. “I mean, he’ll be—”
“No, idiot,” I told him, putting myself down as the emergency contact on the form, along with his father. “No one’s ever going to know what went on tonight except for all those men who saw you and me and my guys and, of course, your baby sister,” I finished sarcastically. “But don’t worry, that’s not a lot of people to witness the lowest point of your life.”
He groaned.
“I swear to God, if anything had happened to her…” I trailed off, suddenly too angry to speak, my throat going dry just thinking, again, of all the possibilities.
“I know,” he whined, raking his fingers roughly through short blond hair, pulling hard, unable to help himself. “Don’t you think I know?”
“You look like shit,” I said, clipping my words. “You’ve got sores on your face again and—she could have been raped!” I yelled at him, getting up and pacing, unable to not come back to Nara over and over again. “You could have been raped too, you stupid fucking idiot!”
Vanya started to cry then, and when I saw the tears, it hit me suddenly that we were exactly the same age. It didn’t feel like it because I’d always felt more like his parent than peer, especially in that moment, but nevertheless, we were both thirty years old. It was wild because I always thought of him as sixteen.
I walked back up to the window and tapped gently. The woman there, in pale-blue scrubs and oversize tortoiseshell glasses, slid the glass open and took the clipboard and pen from me.
“Do you have a box of tissues?”
“Of course,” she said kindly, and passed me the one on her desk.
I brought Vanya the box and then returned to the counter, waiting to hear if she had any questions, since she wasn’t the same woman who’d checked us in the last time. This one was younger, with freckles and long, curly blond hair piled up in a loose bun with a decorative hair fork on top of her head.
“And are you the responsible party, Mr. Lenkov?”
“I am.”
She glanced over the information before her head snapped up and she met my gaze. “There’s no insurance on this?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, pulling out my wallet and passing her my black American Express card. “No insurance.”
She looked at the card in her hand and then back up at me.
“You don’t take that?”
“No, we take this. I just…” She seemed to think it over, biting her bottom lip.
“You’re hesitant to let me know that you’re going to charge the cost of a luxury automobile on my card, between my cousin’s treatment and his guest.”
“Yes,” she said, clearly relieved, as evidenced by her sharp exhale and the drop of her shoulders. “That’s it precisely.”
I nodded tiredly. “I know.”
Her gaze softened. “You’ve done this before.” My silent lift of brows prompted her to reach through the window and cover my hand with hers. “I’m so sorry.”
“Third time’s the charm, right? Isn’t that what they say?”
Her mouth fell open in surprise.
“But yes, I know how much it is, and I’m good for it.”
“Of course,” she agreed quickly.
I signed the receipt, and then, just like the two times before, Vanya and I went through a heavy steel door that had to be unlocked before we could proceed. Once on the other side, we were greeted by another woman, older, her dark-tanned skin luminous in the warm, muted glow of the overhead lights. It was like being welcomed into someone’s home, as there were no stark fluorescent fixtures at New Life, nor basic linoleum or vinyl flooring. Their stylish imported fixtures and stunning decor had been featured in interior design magazines, and the sheet tile flooring was made to look like hardwood. In the waiting room that resembled the reception area of a spa or country club, we were directed to take a seat on either the overstuffed couch strewn with throw pillows or on one of the many tufted leather chairs.
“I’ll go and get his intake counselor, and the two of us will be back in just a bit to get him settled in.”
“Take your time. We know it’s late.”
Instantly, there came a sweet smile from the maternal-looking woman before she thanked me in a calm, reassuring tone.
“Everyone’s so chill here,” Vanya told me. “It always freaks me out.”
I had nothing to say to him. The fact that Vanya could comment on this as if another cycle of rehab was normal made me bristle with irritation. But since that wouldn’t help at all, I stayed quiet. I felt bad about yelling at him earlier. It was useless to get mad at him; anger didn’t move him at all. Neither did encouragement or tenderness. The only thing Vanya truly cared about was his next fix. Addiction was a disease. You didn’t rage at sick people; you got them help. So again, that was what I was doing.
After several minutes, Vanya cleared his throat. “You must’ve been horrified when you saw me on my knees in that room,” he whispered, having trouble getting out the words.
I exhaled sharply. “I was horrified that the drugs would make you degrade yourself like that,” I said hoarsely, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. I hated how weak he was. How his will was nonexistent, how very frail and lacking in self-worth he had become with every passing year. In the beginning, when Vanya’s addictions were new, I had been full of sympathy, ready, willing, and able to help. Now, as I prepared to say the same words to a new counselor and hear, again, about the importance of sticking with a program and about sponsors and meetings…try as I might, I couldn’t dredge up even the smallest amount of compassion.
The idea that anything or anyone would ever, could ever, have the kind of control over me that drugs had over Vanya was simply too alien to contemplate. It was, in fact, the worst thing I could imagine until tonight. Now, thinking of all the horrors that could have befallen Vanya’s sweet little sister was the new nightmare.
“Maks?”
“It killed me to know that you allowed your situation to impact Nara. You knew she was there, and you knew she’d never leave you.”
“I—”
“You did. You knew. And you would have never forgiven yourself if something happened that couldn’t be undone, but the blowjobs you were giving? I don’t give a crap about that.”
Vanya was quiet for a moment and then slowly, like my words had just sunk into his brain, looked up at me. “What?”
“If you’re gay, be gay. If you’re bi or whatever else, I couldn’t care less because it has zero to do with me. What I do care about is that suddenly you’re dragging innocent people into the dangerous end of the pool with you. It used to be we’d just have to deal with the fallout, with finding you passed out in some hotel room somewhere, but now I’m getting calls from your sister, and she’s following you around to try and keep you safe, and—” I noticed then that Vanya was staring at me like I’d grown another head, and the thought came fast that my cousin wasn’t taking me, or the situation we found themselves in, seriously. “Are you listening to me?”
“I am.”
“Because it doesn’t look like you’re listening or that you give a shit.”
“I do. I really do, I swear to God,” he urged plaintively, sounding serious and truthful, trying to get me to hear him. “I wanna change.”
“Then fix yourself, Vanya,” I stressed, wishing I could simply will my cousin into submission or shake him hard enough and long enough to imbue him with some common sense. I mean, think about it: I’m the one getting shot at. I’m the one people try and kill, not you, so if I outlive you, how utterly ridiculous is that going to be?”
Vanya nodded as though in a trance.
“Why the hell are you looking at me like that?” I yelled, close to tearing his head off, so sick of the festering weakness in him, I could puke.
“I just… In the room with Burian and the others, you made it sound like…”
“What? What did I make it sound like?”
“You made it sound like you cared that I’m gay!” he shouted back, leaping up and pacing the room before rounding on me. “You made it sound like you gave a shit about that, but you never have before so—”
“No,” I said flatly, staring holes through him. “I don’t care.”
“Then what the fuck was all that?” He was almost in tears and had to suck in his breath to beat back the deluge, and I saw it then, how hard he was fighting to keep himself together.
“That was about Burian Petrov’s father.” I took a breath, calming quickly, and Vanya followed my lead, taking a breath and sinking down into the chair across from me, a large coffee table separating us. “I’ve met the man, and along with being a racist and misogynist, he’s a homophobic prick as well.”
Vanya remained quiet, just staring at me.
“You know as well as I do that in our family—in the business our family’s in—there’s a specific definition of a man.”
“Yes,” he agreed quietly.
All my life I’d been told by my father and uncles and all their friends not to be soft, that kindness was weakness, that men didn’t stand or sit or speak in certain ways, and it all translated to the same thing, to the same warning: don’t be gay. There was a way men were supposed to be, supposed to act, and it was not gentle, not forgiving, only black and white, life and death. Anything less than stoicism created a liability they couldn’t allow.
“It’s horrible,” I told Vanya. “I hear them say the same things to their grandchildren that they said to me and you and Pasha when we were young.”
Vanya was hugging himself, his eyes filling with tears.
“So I know what to say to put the fear of God into Burian about his father because my father—and yours—are the same.”
“Yes,” Vanya agreed, wiping at his eyes before they overflowed. “But at least ours aren’t violent.”
I clenched my jaw and looked away, and Vanya shivered beside me.
“Did your father beat—”
“I’m not going to discuss my father with you,” I assured him, which I knew answered the question regardless. He hadn’t hit me in front of my mother, not ever, and never on the face. Anything she could see, he wouldn’t do. Her wrath was not to be taken lightly. And I could have told. I could’ve lifted my shirt, shown her the bruises, but I wasn’t stupid. It was his world; we were all just living in it. He would’ve never let her leave and take me and my siblings; that could never be allowed to happen. So instead, I received her hugs and kisses and his fists. It had been, at the time, a reasonable arrangement.
“Maks, I didn’t mean to—”
“Just realize that what I said to Burian was what I knew would scare him the most.”
“And you make it your business to know what that is, don’t you.”
Of course I did. It was yet another reason why people always thought twice about crossing me; they knew they’d be crucified.
Vanya said, “I remember when Nara tried to explain it to me after she took all her psychology classes.” His tone and smile were bittersweet, his hand on my knee. “She said, ‘Vanya, all the hypermasculinity in our family that we all grew up around is so very toxic.’”
“Like you didn’t know that already,” I scoffed, head back, sighing deeply.
“She said it’s a death sentence for any boy being raised in that environment.”
And it was for some.
“You know,” Vanya went on, “even if you’re not gay…even simply being kind, like Pasha is, means there’s no place for him in your father’s world.”
I nodded.
“That’s why even though he was supposed to take over for your father—he’s the oldest, after all—you did instead.”
“I still went to college and—”
“At night,” Vanya snapped. “Don’t bullshit me. You had scholarships. Between your grades and football, you could have gone away. Everything could have been different.”
“It was a long time ago,” I said dismissively. “Why’re you bringing up ancient history?”
“You always talk about me being weak, but so is Pasha.”
“Pasha is not a junkie whore,” I retorted, cutting deep.
“Yeah, no. I know,” Vanya agreed with a shrug, “but we both know Pasha couldn’t handle the blood. We all heard the story about the racehorse.”
“Pasha and I have different strengths.”
“So the breeder was out of money, and they’d made the poor choice of selling the stud rights, a year earlier, to your father.”
