Page 6 of Wayward

“Shut up!” he screamed as I began uploading the video to the cloud.

“Lev, go see if there’s anyone in the other room waiting for Vanya, because if there’s not, part two of this video is about to get even better. Mr. Petrov is going to have an aneurysm.”

“He’s gonna shit, is what he’s gonna do,” Lev said cheekily. “I’ll bet you his father cuts off his dick.”

“I refuse that bet since we both know that’s exactly how it will go down.”

Lev was laughing as he swaggered by Burian to check the other room. Interesting to watch the others move for him, like Moses with the Red Sea, no one trying to stop him, just making way.

“It’s your move,” I told Burian, my tone sharp, cutting. “I’m tired of you going after my family, so if you want to do this, I’m ready. Because Pasha can plead ignorance and separate himself from Vanya, no problem,” I continued, sounding almost bored, “or even embrace Vanya and help him to beat his addiction. But you? I know your father. He’s just like mine, and we know their definition of a man doesn’t include Vanya sucking your dick.”

Burian closed the space between us. When we were nose to nose, he said, “You think your fuckin’ family is so much better than mine, but it’s not.”

“No,” I agreed. “We are all the same kind of filth. The difference is that you’re still small-time with the gambling and the loan-sharking, with the prostitution and the drugs. My family, because we’re bigger, more diversified, has other interests and does things on a much larger scale than you and yours can even dream of.”

“You’re a piece of shit, Maks.”

“That doesn’t change the narrative here in the least.”

“Guess what,” Lev announced cheerfully, stepping in beside me, “there’s nobody fuckin’ back there in the room with the big-ass king-size bed.” He cackled. “Make sure you get that on the motherfuckin’ recording, because we both know that’s where Vanya was going next.”

I forced myself to chuckle. “Oh, Burian, what will your father say?”

Burian snarled and took several steps back before lifting his hand to point at me. “You think I’m going to let you or your whore cousin or his sweet little piece of ass of a sister out of here? I’ve got ten fuckin’ guys out—”

“Hey,” Sava said loudly as he strolled into the room, smoking a cigar and slamming the door behind him.

Everyone but me and Lev recoiled as they saw the splatter of blood on his white undershirt.

“What’s happening in here?” Sava asked Lev.

“Not much. What’s happening out there?” Lev replied playfully as Sava reached him.

“I found Alexei in a closet behind the barbecue enclosure out on the patio,” he said solemnly before looking at me. “He was trying to do the right thing and protect Nara, but they jumped him. He took two in the chest.”

“The guys who did it, they told you?” Lev asked.

“Yeah.”

“You’re lying,” Burian snarled at him. “No one said—”

“But they did,” Sava assured him, pulling a Ziploc bag out of his left pocket and unrolling it with a flip of his hand so everyone could see the bloody tongues and various fingers. “They talked a lot when they still could.”

The chorus of gagging was instant, and one of the guys standing closest to the couch jerked to his left and threw up.

“You went and got that baggie from the kitchen, didn’t you?” Lev asked him, shaking his head. “That’s disgusting. What’d you do with that stuff before, just left it on the counter while you searched the drawers?”

“Yeah,” Sava confirmed. “Lots of DNA all over.”

“I’m gonna barf,” Vanya warned them, unsteady on his feet.

“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.