Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“I got your father his favorite vodka,” Lev announced happily and smiled in that way he had where his eyes glinted and his lips turned up at the corners.
“Good,” I said, the response automatic. “He’ll be pleased.”
Because the latest deal had gone off without a hitch, everyone was convening at my father and his second wife’s home to celebrate. They were there to honor my brother, Pasha, who, based on his sterling reputation in financial circles, his master’s degree in business from Wharton, and his numerous charitable donations, had just secured a multimillion-dollar real-estate deal with the great city of Chicago. It was another win for Pasha, and I was truly happy for him. It also made the Lenkov family finally, truly legitimate. At least on paper.
Not that I cared. Or more specifically, not that it affected me.
I wasn’t in charge of the legal side of the family business. I was, in fact, mired in all the illicit pieces my brother didn’t know the first thing about. He was so far removed from it all that he could swear to that truthfully in a court of law. By our father’s decree, the two of us weren’t even allowed to be seen in the same room together outside of the family compound. So while Pasha, legally Pavel, always walked in the front door of our father’s home, my guys and I had to take a path from the street over and walk through lots of backyards, around pools and patio furniture, to ensure we would, if at all possible, go unseen. Over the years, a few people who had been invited to the house had, inadvertently or on purpose, taken photos of me and my brother together, but they had been educated. If anyone checked online, there were no pictures of me anywhere after the age of nineteen when we’d buried my mother.
Inside, away from prying eyes, I knew Pasha was always as happy to see me as I was to see him. Outside, it was a whole other story. He couldn’t be anywhere near me.
In the beginning, when I was younger, fighting for my reputation and standing, it had bugged me that Pasha was the golden boy and I was the outcast. But the older I got, the more I understood the hypocrisy for what it really was and embraced my role. Because yes, my father held up Pasha—and my stepsister, Galina—for the world to see, but it was me, baptized Maksim Oleg Lenkov, he shared his secrets with and advised and had put in charge of the real family business, the one that powered all the rest.
And while I knew that my father hoped to eventually turn the family interests into a hundred percent legal enterprise, at present there was no way that was happening without the money and power that came from working outside the law. It was a catch-22 that was difficult to maneuver, and I knew that at some point there would have to be a reckoning. There was an old saying I never forgot about eating with wolves and then having to howl among them.
At the moment, though, things could continue as they had been: Pasha could eventually be a senator—or more—and I dealt brutally with anyone who opposed our upward climb through the criminal underworld.
My brother and I were two sides of the same coin, each with our circles of influence, and because of that, people tended to reach out to one or the other of us when they needed help. When my phone rang right after I arrived at the palatial house in the Gold Coast, I retreated into my father’s study to take the call from my cousin Nara. Both she and her brother, Vanya, were supposed to be here at the party to celebrate Pasha’s success with the rest of us.
“I can barely hear you over the—Nara, where the hell are you?” I barked, annoyed that she hadn’t been considerate enough to go someplace quiet to call me.
“I’m in a condo downtown close to the Four Seasons,” she practically yelled into the phone, the techno beat of the music behind her still nearly drowning her out. “Vanya’s here because he forgot Pasha’s party was tonight.”
Or more likely, her brother was, as usual, too fucked up to remember. Once Ivan Krupin, Vanya to his friends and family, had discovered alcohol, and then drugs five years ago, finally settling on heroin being his favorite of all, nothing was ever as important again. “And so? Are you still coming? Do you need me to send a car for you or—”
“When I got here, he was trashed already,” she rushed out, her voice catching on a sob, “and when I tried to get him to leave with me, some guys pulled him away and dragged him into a bedroom.”