VLAD

by Ker Dukey

  All my life, my mother promised our lives wouldn’t be like hers. That our marriages would be our choice and not what benefits the family.

  I’d almost believed her too.

  When she couldn’t produce a son for my father, though, he began to train my sister and me for the family business. Made sure we were fluent in five languages and paid for private schools and tutors to build our knowledge of the world around us. He even went as far as making us travel to be educated in the countries’ cultures he thought were important. He reinforced that, just because we’re female, it didn’t lessen our worth or power when it came to business, not if we didn’t want it to.

  We wouldn’t be bound to make a husband happy while he runs an empire because we’d have our own empire and love. Duty would not rule our destiny.

  Lies. Lies. Lies.

  My soul deflated the day my sister told me of our father’s plan to marry her to Viktor. He was only eighteen, same as me. Diana is twenty-four, and to my astonishment, and disappointment, she was going to go through with it. The words, “It will be good for our family,” fell from her lips like cyanide, poisoning the respect and admiration I’d carried for her all my life. She sounded just like Father.

  And if he plans for her to be married, then that means I’ll be after her and the business we’ve been learning to take over since we could talk will be merged with the Vasiliev family. It’s a good business strategy but it strengthens the Vasiliev’s more than anything else. We will be expected to lie on our backs and produce heirs for our husbands like it’s the eighteen-hundreds.

  I wonder if Diana is sad her betrothed is gone or if she’s secretly happy…

  Pondering these thoughts, I take another swig, desperate for more of the numbing burn, and run my hand over the black dress gathered in thick layers on my thighs. The material itches and there’s a draft running up the back of my legs.

  A nudge at my hip causes me to almost spill the liquor in the flask.

  I hiss and scrunch my nose at my sister seated to my right. Her lips turn up in a devious grin, then quickly slip back to two red, plump lines, stoic. Only my sister could look sophisticated with red lipstick at a funeral.

  Her hand slides over mine, taking the bottle and screwing the cap on.

  Party pooper.

  I snatch it back, but my hands are freezing, and I fumble to grasp it, causing it to tumble from my fingers and clatter to the church floor, skittering under the pew in front of me. I cringe internally and begin twisting my earring to calm my nerves.

  My sister’s eyes expand in horror as Vlad turns around in his seat in front of us. It’s almost in slow motion to my galloping heart.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  My breath gets caught in my windpipe as his dark amber orbs flit in my direction. Narrowed. Irritated. Fierce.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Damn, my head spins as if I’ve been drinking a thousand-proof liquor and not just eighty.

  My lids flutter without permission, and my stomach knots. It’s the first time in my entire life he’s ever looked directly at me as though he sees me as more than some kid. Eighteen years, and never once has someone impacted me with just a look.

  My insides curdle, and my lungs fight for air. I’m paralyzed. If looks could incinerate, I’d be a puff of smoke right now.

  His irritation annoys me and excites me all at once. I find my lips moving despite my sister’s hand reaching over to squeeze mine in warning.

  I want to push him and keep his anger, his eyes, his attention all on me. To bask in it—to let it soak into my skin so I can remember what it feels like.

  “Why wasn’t it an open casket?” I want to ask. The curious cat inside me has been wondering since the death announcement. Instead, I appease my sister and father, who would be angry if he knew I’d been drinking and interrupting a funeral of one of the other First Families.

  “Sorry,” I offer with a stutter and a shrug, but his head has already returned front and center, and my words hit air, dispersing into nothing. My arms wrap around my middle and I shrink into the background, back into Irina—back into the shadow I’ve always been.

  I’m not this rebel—not a woman who could be with a man like him.

  I’m just a girl, a Volkov girl, who will do what she’s told and live like a bird with an injured wing, wanting so badly to fly away and make her own path, but stuck flightless.

  I’m the quiet one. My sister takes the driver’s seat while I sit back, unassuming and calculating. A wailing sound draws the attention of most of the guests, and I follow their curiosity to see Vika, Viktor’s twin sister, sobbing and clutching onto Veniamin Vetrov. He’s holding her up with one arm without even looking down at her folded-up, limp frame molded against him like melting ice cream. She’s wearing a pink dress that is almost inappropriate for a club, let alone a church funeral.

  Vlad draws my eyes. Again. I want to see his emotion, his empathy for his sister. Instead, he rolls his head over those impressive shoulders, and the tick in his jaw is back.

  I take out my notepad from my pocket and let the pencil flit over the paper. My mind clears, and the room closes in until there’s nothing but darkness—all except Vlad in front of me.

  The calm washes over me as I study his features, the dark tanned skin stretched over his impressive bone structure. Strong jawline. Neat, straight nose. Feathered fans of black lashes sprayed over dark, penetrating orbs. When he pinned me with them moments ago, it was like amber rays swirling around an eclipse. You know you should look away to avoid damage, but it’s such a rare sight, you can’t help but stare right at it.

  I’m blinded by him.

  Movement rushes around me, expanding the room and bringing me back to the present. Everyone is leaving. I stand, shoving the pad back in my pocket, and follow the coattails of my sister.

  A vise grips my arm, halting my steps. I’m spun around and come face to face with the steel wall of Vlad. He towers over me, but I can’t meet his gaze for fear of what he’ll see in mine. His scent encompasses me, causing my head to lighten. He smells masculine and expensive, just like I imagined. It’s earthy, like rosewood, and warms places I haven’t been touched before. The lapels of my jacket are tugged open with the hand that was just wrapped around my bicep, and he shoves my flask into the inside pocket, the back of his hand brushing against my nipple as he does. It’s not intentional, but I feel it everywhere. He makes the air around me condense, and my lungs compress.

  Breathe, I will myself.

  The baritone hum of his voice hits me like a weapon when he says, “We should get lunch tomorrow.”

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  My mouth drops open as my heart thunders like the cage of a Roman warrior before battle. I don’t know what to say, but I don’t have to say anything because I hear my sister’s lyrical tone.

  “Sure, Vlad, I’ll have it set up and email you the details.”

  Dragging my eyes upward, I see he’s sidestepped me and is looking and talking to my beautiful sister.

  Of course.

  Of course he’s talking to Diana. Not me.

  I shake my head. A laugh bubbles up in my chest, but I gobble it down and leave them to get some air. My childish crush on Vlad has always been a secret, and it will remain just that.

  Two Months After the V Games…

  “The Vetrovs won’t budge,” I tell Father, a headache brutalizing me from the inside out. I refrain from rubbing at my temples and drain the rest of the vodka in my tumbler.

  Father’s brows pull together in his signature scowl. Even at twenty-two, that scowl makes me feel as if I’m nine again and caught kicking a ball in his study when I’m not allowed inside.

  Irritated.

  Bothered as fuck.

  Disappointed.

  Yuri Vasiliev, my father, has a way of making you feel as though you’re not even trying, despite the fact that you may have done everything. He’s taught me well, but one thing I can never escape is the way he mak
es me feel when he’s scowling at me in a mix of disappointment and aggravation.

  Knowing my answer won’t be good enough, I continue. “Yegor wants the land near the border. He wants the land because we want the land. There’s no convincing him,” I grit out. “I’ve spent the better part of three weeks offering him everything under the sun.”

  But that’s a lie.

  I haven’t offered the thing he wants most.

  Father’s eyes narrow—the only indication of his mood. He knows what I want. Question is, will he give it to me? One would think he owes it to me after what he did. He sent my brother away. Banished him from our family and faked his death. Untethered him when we needed him most. We were supposed to be three heads, not two. By cutting off what he considered a weak link, he left us frail, considerably so.

  Viktor was a valuable asset. And my fucking brother.

  He not only annihilated during The V Games, but he was learning so well. With more guidance, he could have been as great as he was being groomed to be.

  Now he’s gone.

  Sent off to America.

  Father exposed his own weakness in doing so. An accident. An untraceable murder. Something with my father’s messy scribble written all over it. A message to our “kingdom” that not only does he see and know all, but he doesn’t tolerate any sort of failing. Being gay is not only a flaw in Father’s eyes, but a betrayal.

  The Vasiliev men are to marry—the conventional way—into families that strengthen our power. And although Niko was in line to link two powerful families, he was to be married to Vika, not Viktor.

  It was a disgrace that couldn’t be allowed.

  Dusted his little problem under the proverbial rug and moved on. Unbeknownst to his enemies who were told Viktor took a fatal wound at the end of The V Games.

  Despite my anger at my father, there’s a pang inside my chest.

  It’s the first fatherly goddamn thing he’s done in his entire life.

  He spared his son.

  “I’ll put a squeeze on them. The government officials are in our pocket. I’ll go over and beyond the Vetrovs. Yegor will give up that parcel of land one way or another.” I lean back in my leather chair and start collecting the papers on my desk, as though we’ve just settled on a plan.

  But we both know that’s not the plan.

  Father must be getting old and tired because he lets out a heavy sigh—a small signal that I’ve won. Vika might be Daddy’s little girl, but she’s very manipulative, and our father cannot stand disobedience or women trying to play games with men.

  “Vika will marry a Vetrov,” Father grunts, his jaw ticking.

  He hates giving in. Hardly ever does. But he, like myself, sees the bigger picture. Always thinking many moves ahead.

  “Yegor’s too old,” I say with a smirk.

  Father’s nostrils flare, a burst of anger bubbling to the surface. I want to fucking throw my head back and laugh at the hilarity of it all. It would appear Father taught me too well. I can play his goddamn games better than he can.

  “Yegor’s a fool. I’ll not have my daughter—a Vasiliev—marry a man who has to wear his pants below his gluttonous stomach. He has no pride in himself, and I won’t have him rutting on my girl like a wild beast during mating season,” he seethes, rage overcoming him for a moment. To say Yegor and Father have their disagreements is an understatement. “She is better than that pig.”

  “Ah, I see.” I arch a brow at him. “Well, she certainly can’t marry Niko anymore.” Our sister, despite the rules, conspired with her lover via an underhanded move to take out our brother after he was the clear victor of The V Games. Niko, also a player in The Games, lurked until the very last moment to strike. Such an evil move, straight from Vika’s playbook. Viktor found an ally, though—a skinny, feisty girl who could bring a grown man to his knees only to cut his throat—and she saved his neck by stabbing Niko when he went for my brother.

  But the sting of her treachery impacted me more than anything in my life. With a mother who abandoned us and fled after the twins were born, and a father who ruled with an iron fist, leaving affection to the nannies and servants, the three of us formed a bond stronger than that of normal siblings. We only had each other to rely on, and that exploded the day Vika decided her pride and own agenda was worth more than her brother’s life. She sealed her fate that day. She’s now my sister only in name.

  “Niko was weak, Vlad,” Father hisses. “She’ll marry Veniamin.”

  At this, I want to laugh. Veniamin may like to play with his brother’s toys, but he doesn’t keep them, and he certainly doesn’t play with my sister. Never has. He knows what an obnoxious backstabber Vika is. Instead, I throw his words back at him. “He is better than that…” Pig. Father’s eyes narrow, begging me to say the word so he can roar and rage at me. But since I enjoy poking at him, I simply keep going as if I wasn’t about to call our sister a disgusting bitch of a woman. “He is better than that father of his.”

  Father’s lips purse into a line.

  “Which is why you need him,” I say, sitting up in my chair. I crack my neck to the right, then left.

  “Go on,” he says, intrigue lacing his tone.

  “We both know Vika is vindictive, which is actually an understatement. The moment he pisses her off, Ven will somehow end up with a knife in his back.”

  Father growls. “What do you suggest we do?”

  I grin at him, my smile predatory. “She can marry Ruslan.”

  “He’s a boy and hardly capable of providing for my Vika,” he snaps, the vein in his neck throbbing. I don’t see my father angry often, but when I do, it’s like cocaine rushing through my bloodstream. I’m flying high and crave more.

  “Which is exactly why he’s perfect for her. Do you think our—” manipulative evil viper “—sweet Vika can persuade Ven? He’s nearly twice her age and hard. Rus is young, soft, and pliable. He’s the in we need.”

  Father’s fury melts away and his calculating expression morphs his features. I’m already missing his loss of control, but I win either way. When he decides on the arrangement of Ruslan and Vika to marry, I’ll get the satisfaction of knowing she’ll be forced to wed someone unattractive and weak—two things she hates most. And since I despise her for what she has done to our brother, that’s music to my fucking ears.

  “We’ll have to wait until he turns eighteen in a couple months,” Father ponders aloud.

  I have all the time in the world.

  “The engagement doesn’t have to wait, though,” I urge. “We can have this settled and decided by the end of the week. This time next week, we’ll be drunk and fat on a celebratory pig roast as we wish them well on their future marriage.” The animal on the fire won’t be the only pig getting roasted.

  Fuck you, Vika.

  You got the only person I truly ever felt close to sent away, and now you’ll pay.

  “Very well,” Father agrees with a sigh. “I’ll meet with Yegor and we’ll settle this once and for all. Ruslan and Vika’s marriage in exchange for his parcel of land. As soon as we have the land, I want it done. We need that opening with Nizhny Novgorod.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’ll have to break the news to her. I’ve got business to attend to.” He rises from his chair and stalks from my office without a backwards glance.

  Another weakness. He doesn’t want to deal with my bratty sister when she has the meltdown of the century. I’m sure he sees our mother’s eyes glaring back at him when Vika lets loose. Vika is the only person I’ve ever seen raise her voice to our father and live to tell the tale.

  A smile turns the corners of my lips up. “I’ll be glad to tell Vika the exciting news, Father,” I utter long after he’s gone. I text her to meet me in my office and count down the seconds until she arrives.

  The moment I get a whiff of her cloying stench, I glance up to see Vika standing in my doorway in a pristine cream-colored pantsuit. Sh
e stares at me with suspicion dancing in eyes identical to our brother’s. Her dark brown hair, cut in a trendy style that suits her striking features, has been straightened into smooth, silky locks that glimmer under the overhead light. She purses her blood red lips as she awaits what I have to say. Despite the makeup, hair, and prissy fucking clothes, she is the exact replica of our brother. Gone is the bouncy little sister she once pretended to be; in her place, stands this possessed, power hungry snake.

  A pang of sadness slices through me. For the loss of her as well as Viktor.

  I’m not to contact him, seek him out, or reach out in any way. It fucking kills me because I know he’s hurting and confused. He’ll rise again, but wherever he is, I know he’s feeling the pain of the loss of his family.

  Viktor would have been better off if Father had just killed him.

  Awareness prickles through me.

  Father didn’t send him away to spare him. It wasn’t a fucking weakness. He sent him away to prolong his suffering. It wasn’t a pardon—it was a goddamn life sentence.

  I straighten my spine and file that epiphany away to dissect for later. For now, I’ll enjoy the fruits of my labor.

  “Please,” I say, motioning to the seat Father recently vacated. “Have a seat.”

  “I’ll stand,” she snips.

  I push the map on my desk her way. Curious, she steps into my office and inspects it.

  “What’s this?” she asks, her voice tight.

  “Ours,” I tell her with a wolfish grin.

  She frowns. “It says Vetrov on it.”

  “Soon, it will say Vasiliev.”

  “How…?” she trails off, and her eyes expanding. “Veniamin? I’m to be married to Ven?” She beams at me, the expression lighting up her face. My sister is beautiful when she’s not plotting evil on her own flesh and blood. Ven would be lucky to have her. That is…until she opened her mouth or spewed her hate.