Asher

by Shandi Boyes

  I’m happy to avoid any further incidents, but the blonde seated across from Wyatt isn’t as eager. “A screwdriver will work better.”

  With Eda out of view, I break her very first rule by raising my eyes to the blonde. I don’t want to say it’s because the person accosting me is female, so I’m less worried about retaliation, so I’ll keep my mouth shut.

  Even though I don’t immediately recognize the slim, green-eyed woman glaring at me, I’ve seen her around. I think she is Asher’s cousin, but don’t quote me on it. The Yury family lineage is as long as mine, and people are often claimed to be a relative when they’re not. Vaughn has had many ‘uncles’ who are not related to him by blood, so that could be the case with this female.

  “I’m sorry. Were you speaking to me?”

  She smirks, pleased I’ve taken her bait. “I wasn’t speaking to you, more offering a suggestion.”

  When she pauses, I encourage her to continue with a wave of my hand. The more time I spend prodding her, the less time I’ll have to hang out in my pajamas eating leftover sharlotka. The messy, reverse-engineered apple pie cake is my favorite dessert. Bela made it for me every Tuesday, and I missed it nearly as much as I have her when four Tuesdays slipped by without her and her famous pick-me-up.

  Finally, the blonde relents. “A screwdriver would be better to tackle the training wheels no man in this room is interested in touching. It’s a little thin, but that’s not always bad. Especially in your condition. ”

  I have no clue what she’s talking about, but the women surrounding her have no trouble deciphering her riddle. They laugh in sync, like teasing me will be the highlight of their night. It makes me feel sorry for them, which shelves my retaliation. If picking on ‘the help’ is all they’ve got to look forward to, they’ve got more issues than I’m willing to tackle.

  With a shrug, I continue gathering the dirty dishes, my pace only slowing when I reach Asher. He hands me his plate instead of waiting for me to remove it like he has the past month. It’s the smallest action, but it causes the biggest impact to my heart. That’s not something a captor does for their captive.

  The reason for his change is exposed when he murmurs, “If you don’t like the way you’re being treated, Zariah, do something about it.” His words are so soft, they barely wobble the napkin he’s using to clear away crumbs from his mouth.

  If he weren’t shooting daggers at the blonde while speaking, I could have misconstrued his meaning. He’s not referring to our relationship; he’s talking about the quiet snickers the blonde and her friends have been exchanging the past ten minutes.

  “I’m not worried about them. Words can’t hurt me.”

  I skirt around him, preparing to clear the plate from the man seated next to him. Before I can, Asher’s hand darts out to seize my wrist. His hold is firm enough the plates rattle from the zap surging through me, but not enough to hurt me. He’s not aiming to hurt me. He just wants to get his point across.

  “You either do something, or I will.” His narrowed eyes speak the rest of his sentence: and my retaliation will be nowhere near as nice as yours.

  “Why does it matter…” My words fall short. I’m not up for more arguing. Why does it matter why he wants me to do this? He tells me what to do, I do it. Plain and simple.

  Bowing out of our fight like a coward, I nod. I don’t realize how raging Asher’s heart is until he relinquishes me from his hold. I thought the frantic quiver of my pulse was solely because he was holding me. I had no clue most of its thumps were from mimicking his heart rate.

  As I slowly approach the blonde, I try to think of something to say. I don’t want our exchange to turn violent, but I somewhat agree with Asher. By letting her speak rudely to me, I’m encouraging others to do the same. Considering I could be doing this for another sixty years, that’s the last thing I want.

  I’m planning to lead with the good old ‘if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ like my mom always said, but the blonde snuffs out my words as quickly as she does my empathy.

  “Is it true? Are you serving us instead of Mr. High and Mighty over there because you’re a frigid virgin?”

  She nudges her head to Asher during the ‘high and mighty’ part of her sentence. He’s watching our exchange with slit eyes, and even though I can’t see his pulse thrumming in his neck, that doesn’t mean I can’t feel it.

  When I fail to answer the blonde’s highly insensitive question, her nasal squeal shreds my eardrums. “Oh my goodness, it’s true! You’re a virgin. I shouldn’t be surprised.” She softens her words, ensuring I’m the only one who can hear them. “If you can’t get the manwhore of Russia to look past your lack of skills, you’ve got issues. Usually, men line up for miles to make a virgin bleed, but you’ve got no one willing to take you for a ride.” She scans my body, hidden under the frumpy outfit I’m wearing. “Must be those big, ugly training wheels strapped to your hips. Maybe we should slap a learner sticker on your ass and see if we can wrangle up some bottom-dwellers to teach you how to ride.”

  I could brush off her callousness as jealousy. I could walk away and pretend I didn’t hear her hushed words, but with Asher’s eagle eyes boring into me, I’m feeling reckless. He gave me permission to stand up for myself, so that’s precisely what I’ll do.

  The blonde leaps to her feet with a shriek when scraps of pirozhkis land in her lap. She’s lucky they didn’t just come out of the deep fryer, or they would have been scalding hot. The oil dripping from them, though, it will ruin her pricy dress, and I’m sure I can take care of her ugly scowl.

  “Oh goodness. I’m so sorry. Let me get you a napkin.” I snag a sauce-stained towelette off the gentleman’s lap next to me before dragging it down the blonde’s dress. I don’t aim for the oil her expensive gown is absorbing. I hit the spots the grease missed. “Sugar. I think I made it worse.” I make a face like I’m trying to be helpful. In reality, I’m scheming. “I know! We should try soda. I read somewhere that soda is great for stains.”

  “It’s soda water, you idiot!” she scolds when I reach for a can of Baikal. It’s Russia’s equivalent of Coca-Cola.

  “Are you sure? I swear any soda will work. Let’s test it out.”

  I shake the can four times before cracking it open. Sticky, sugary liquid squirts over her and three of her closest friends. I also get some in my eyes and hair, but I’m enjoying dispensing justice too much to worry about a little mess.

  Once every drop of soda in the can has been drained, I toss it on the ground, snatch up the remaining dishes, then make a grand exit. “And by the way, training wheels are only needed when learning how to ride a bike, so if I have them, it’s because the man riding me doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Asher

  The blonde Zariah just put in her place jumps to her feet. “Asher! Do something! Your whore just ruined my dress! This is a vintage Valentino! It’s irreplaceable!”

  Not as replaceable as she’ll be if her nasally voice doesn’t stop shredding my eardrums. Zariah gave her what she deserved, if not a little abstaining. If I had punished her, her dress would be handling more than a grease stain. Trust me when I say blood doesn’t wash out nearly as easily as oil.

  When I stand from my chair, Ilya’s eyes track me. The tick in my jaw has her panicked, let alone my silence. I don’t like being told what to do, and Ilya knows this as well as anyone. She’s a low-grade whore who needs to learn her place. Just because she’s convinced Bahrain her full lips and surgically enhanced tits deserve a place at my table doesn’t mean it is true.

  Even if Zariah and I didn’t have a past, the women who work for me are under my protection. Anything done or said to them is done and said to me. That protection doesn’t extend to the bitches my men keep their cocks warm with.

  I jerk my chin up at Bahrain, advising he either shuts his bitch’s mouth, or I will. Bahrain is my number five. He’s a little rough around the edges and us
ually has more than one relationship going at a time, but he’s good at logistics, meaning we’ve returned my compound to what it was before I left rather quickly. It’s lucky he’s good at his job, or tonight he would have found himself buried in the same shallow ditch Lenin dumped Ruslan in last month.

  The crack Bahrain’s hand makes when it connects with Ilya’s cheek satisfies some of my irritation, but wanting to ensure I’ve gotten my point across, I lock my eyes with Bahrain’s nearly black gaze. “See it doesn’t happen again. If it does, you’ll pay her penalty next time.”

  Nodding, he grips Ilya’s arm and marches her out of the room. He isn’t rushing to fix the split his backhanded strike caused her cheek; he’s racing out to save his own tail. Even though my punishments don’t extend to women and children, I have no troubles subjecting their male counterparts to my wrath when they piss me off. Bahrain barely survived our last ‘discussion’ about his whores learning their place. I doubt he’s ready for a second round.

  Once Bahrain and his bitch are out of eyesight, I drop my narrowed gaze to my second-in-charge, Matvei. “Make sure he has her off campus by sun up. She may give good head, but I’ve had enough of her shit.”

  Matvei scrapes his hand along the scruff on his chin. “You’re not the only one.”

  He had a tough six months keeping things in line while I was gone. The dark circles his eyes held upon my return are just now fading. We always knew he’d face an uphill battle, but his trek was nothing compared to what Nikolai was going through. The Yurys don’t have takeover bids and enemies attempting to dethrone us. Andros Smirnov may be the wealthiest man in Russia, but even he knows the Yurys own it. We’re the core that keeps the country running, the men who’ll do everything in our power to keep Russia the great country it is. No one is brave enough to go against us, not even when its leader takes a six-month reprieve from the mission.

  I smack Matvei on the shoulder in silent support when I spot Lenin at the end of the dining room. He has a look on his face, one I wish I didn’t know how to read. My father is beckoning me.

  “What is it?”

  I follow Lenin down the hallway while he updates me. “Your father’s doctors aren’t happy. His pneumonia has settled, but it did little to alleviate the workload on his tired lungs. They want to put him on a respirator.”

  “So do that.”

  Lenin waits for me to send a quick message on my cell before refocusing his attention on the matter he interrupted my dinner for. “Your father is refusing. He can’t smoke with a respirator.”

  I curse his stubborn ass under my breath before entering the room at the end of the elegant hallway we just walked down. This entire half of the compound is segregated from the rest. It doesn’t just lower the possibility of my father picking up germs, it also maintains the ruse we’ve been running the past four years. No one knows he is sick. Not even Zariah’s father, who was once his closest confidant. I haven’t even told Nikolai.

  I’m not surprised to find my mother floating at the side of the room. She’s far enough away my father can’t see the concern on her face, but close enough he still knows she’s around. Although marrying him wasn’t her choice—name one college freshman who would choose to marry a man double her age?—the old man’s black, wilted heart eventually grew on her. She still holds some disdain from his demand, my and Wyatt’s American names are proof of this, but for the most part, she’s been a good wife who has served him well the past thirty-eight years.

  If it weren’t for her love and guidance, the Yurys wouldn’t be as powerful as we are. My father’s wish to claim his queen was so great, his monarchy nearly toppled within a year of him gaining the reins.

  My mother begged me time and time again not to follow in my father’s footsteps. That’s why I’m stunned by her motives of late. She’s quick to point out she never chose her life, but she has no issues forcing Zariah into the same position. It doesn’t make any sense. Ari and my mother were friends for years before Ari’s untimely death. That’s how my mother had access to the tape she used on me last month when my temper got the best of me. She and Ari shoved it in my and Zariah’s faces at every opportunity they got.

  That wasn’t the worst of their neuroses, though. They planned our wedding long before we understood the word ‘commitment,’ and if the increase in staff hours to clean already spotless areas of our compound is anything to go by, much less the mountain load of silk tulle I saw during my travels, my refusal to wed Zariah last month has only delayed the inevitable.

  My mother is following Ari’s wish for her only daughter to wed in an elaborate ceremony to the letter. By keeping Ari’s dream alive, it weakens the burden on her conscience that she wasn’t there for Zariah as she had promised when she took on the role of her godmother.

  I’m not as eager to relieve her of the burden.

  Until she confesses the real reason Zariah is here, she’s on my shit list. I will forever love and admire her, but it is secrets like this that destroy families. Zariah’s family discovered that the hard way. I won’t let that happen here.

  To everyone outside of my realm, I rule with intimidation, but those closest to me know the real me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a soft ruler by any means. If you do me wrong, I’m more than willing to follow through with any threats I issue, and I’ll never shed a tear no matter how many lives are lost, but I also have a sense of what is right and wrong.

  Killing a man who bid for another’s wife was the right thing to do.

  Marrying Zariah is wrong—I think.

  I push aside my reflection for a better time when I stop at the side of my father’s hospital bed. This wing of our home was once his office. He struck fear into the hearts of many men in this very room, myself included. Now he’s wrinkled, old, and chuffing down a cigar like his days aren’t numbered. Just seeing him so helpless eases some of the rigidity in my spine.

  My jaw muscle spasms from my last confession. He’s a seventy-six-year-old man with failing lungs, yet I still fear his wrath. This is not me, nor the reason I went to the US for so long. I went there to step out of my father’s shadow, to become my own man in my own right, yet what happens upon my return? I step right back into his silhouette. It is why I’m called “Ghost,” because no one can see me in my father’s shadow.

  Frustrated, I snap, “If you aren’t willing to accept the doctors’ advice, why am I paying them?”

  My father’s eyes stray to me. They’re as dark as the man hiding in the shadows, worldly as a man who has outlived his enemies by nearly two decades. The words he spits out are brittle, like the cane he snapped over my back when I was a boy. “So you are home? I had heard rumors.”

  He didn’t hear rumors. He would have known about my return the instant my private jet’s tires hit the runway. I also wouldn’t be standing here if he hadn’t demanded that Lenin bring me. I should be ashamed this is the first time I’ve seen him in over seven months, but I’m not. What could I possibly achieve from visiting him? He is the same now as he was months ago—as stubborn and as opinionated as ever.

  I wait for him to cough up the half a lung he needed to speak before jerking my chin up. “Been back a few weeks. Thought I’d best give Matvei some assistance before he realizes we’re underpaying him for his services.”

  “Matvei? Why didn’t your brother run things while you were away?”

  For the first time in my life, I lead with honesty. “Wyatt isn’t ready.”

  He may have two lungs close to collapsing, but nothing can stop my father’s vibrating timbre when he’s angry. “I don’t give a fuck if the boy isn’t ready; we’re not taking on interns. This is his family legacy!”

  I hear my mother huff when he refers to Wyatt as ‘the boy.’ Our father has never called us by our given names. I’m either referred to as ‘Ghost,’ or I’m not mentioned at all. He knows why our mother gave us non-Russian names, and this is his way of rebelling like she did nearly twenty-nine years ago.

  Ignoring t
he tick in my jaw, I step closer to my father’s bedside. Air whizzes from my nose when I take in what has changed the past seven months. He still has the roar of a tiger, except now it’s in the shell of a kitten. He’s weak, bitter, and old—nothing I hope to emulate. As far as I am concerned, the sooner he dies, the better. Then my mother won’t be forced to watch him wilt away. She won’t need to listen to his rants on how his sons are nothing like him, and she’ll be free from the life she was forced into at the tender age of nineteen.

  “When Wyatt is ready, I’ll be more than happy to hand him some of the power. Until then, I’ll continue running the show while you lie around remembering the good old days.”

  I’ll give it to the old man, weeks, perhaps even days from his death, he still hasn’t learned the words ‘back down.’ He fists my shirt so firmly, my buttons pop. I have no issues removing his grip—if that is what I want.

  I refuse to give him the satisfaction. He wants me to react, to prove to my mother I am just like him. I will never do that. I work hard and play hard, but I’ll never be his bitch.

  Recognizing I’m not going to respond as he wants, my father releases me from his grasp. He pushes me back far enough to lock his eyes with Lenin behind my shoulder. “Get him out of here.”

  I can’t help the smile that stretches across my face when Lenin’s feet remain put. My father is the only person in this room game enough to test me. Not even his henchman budges an inch when Lenin fails to comply with my father’s order. Only a few years ago, Arman would have removed Lenin’s intestines where he stood. Now, even he knows his place.

  With a smirk, I pivot to face the doctors hiding in the shadows. They’re not the standard ones you’ll find at a hospital. You won’t find their skillset at any universities either. They have skills years of battle could never train. They’re ex-Soviet Union medics.