Page 5 of Wayward

I only nodded. “So he gave you head? You let him?” All this was for the benefit of the video I was shooting.

“He’s a whore, isn’t he?” Burian asked loudly, tucking himself into his pants and zipping up his fly, his laughter grating, as was that of the other men in the room, who joined him.

“He’s a junkie you’re taking advantage of,” I said with a shrug as Lev walked over to Vanya and pulled him off the guy’s dick. He then shoved him down so he fell backward in a loose sprawl.

It took Vanya a moment to focus, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand before squinting up. “Lev?”

“You need a leash,” my friend growled, hauling him to his feet and walking him over to me.

Vanya immediately started to shake. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes filling fast.

I grunted before turning back to Burian. “Since I got what I came for, we’ll just go now, yes?”

“Oh no, that wasn’t the deal I made with Vanya,” Burian replied, sneering at me. “Your cousin agreed to take care of all of us all night along, and we certainly haven’t been paid in full for what he already put in his veins.”

I was silent, taking the pulse of the room, seeing guys there Burian wanted to impress, the firstborn sons of men he knew and did business with.

When I exhaled a deep breath, calming, figuring out what to do, giving Lev a trace of a smile, he swore under his breath.

“You can shoot somebody next time,” I promised my best friend.

“That’s what you always say,” he groused, sounding bored.

I saw a ghost of concern cross Burian’s blunt features, but it was gone fast as his bravado returned. “You can’t take your cousin home yet, Maks. I’ve got guys in the other room just waiting to tear up that ass.”

I grunted, then told Lev, “Get Stas in here.”

Lev pulled his phone from the breast pocket of his Armani trench coat, which I’d bought him for his birthday two months prior.

“Maks,” Burian prodded, closing in on me, his voice rising involuntarily. “I don’t know what you think you’re—”

“I’m sending this to your father,” I replied flatly, coolly, eyes flicking to Burian’s face for a moment and then back to my phone.

“No, you don’t get it,” he retorted, nearly spitting with resentment and anger, his frustration palpable. “I’m sending the video of Vanya sucking my dick to your father and Pasha so that if your fuckin’ brother thinks he can keep his whole prince-of-the-city act going—”

“So what? My cousin is a junkie whore,” I said, squinting at him. “Everyone knows that. But does your father, or his,” I began matter-of-factly, pointing at the guy with his dick still hanging out, “or his,” I went on, indicating one man after another, “or his, know that having him suck your dicks is what you’re dying for? Do your fathers know you like cock?”

The silence in the room was so pronounced that the driving beat of the music from the other room, muted through the door, was thundering.

They had all been smug and callous when I walked in, but now, suddenly, fear had replaced everything else. Vanya being the evening entertainment instead of all the female prostitutes they had there was a problem. The Russian mob was not accepting of homosexuality, and that was something everyone knew.

The look on Burian’s face was priceless. It was one thing to be fucking women, but a whole other thing to have a man even sucking your dick. I had never understood the hypocrisy of that, or the difference.

Lev snorted derisively, which turned Burian’s attention to him.

“You think this is funny?” he snarled at Lev.

“I bet there’s no one in the other room waiting to tear up his ass,” Lev scoffed, one thick golden eyebrow lifting rakishly. “It’s all you guys wanting a piece of the boy. Huh, Burian?” he drawled, the condescension thick in his voice. Before the other man could even respond, Lev turned away from him as if he were nothing, of no consequence, no threat whatsoever, and playfully waved at me until I moved the phone from where it was trained on Burian’s stunned, now pale face, to a wickedly leering Lev. “Your son likes to fuck boys, Mr. Petrov, did you know?”

The guy Vanya had been sucking off finally yanked up his pants, zipped up his fly, and started begging me to delete the video.

“Shut up!” Burian shrieked at him.

“My father can’t see that,” another guy almost whimpered.

“My brother, my father—” One of the men in the back gasped. “They can’t ever—”

“Burian, you didn’t say anything about your father watching us get—”