VLAD (The V Games #1)(21)
She nods and gives me a thankful smile. My sister wants me to try to make this work. For her, I will. I’ll never let my guard down, but if she has hopes of finding happiness, I won’t stop her. “I’ll speak to Vlad,” she vows. “Order what you want and I’ll convince him to let us spruce up the north wing.”
I raise both brows at her. “And what makes you think big, bad Vlad will agree to chenille and teal?”
My sister winks at me. Such a devious wink. “I can be convincing when I want to be.”
Weapons.
The V Games aren’t complete unless we’re the proud owners of the best weapons on the planet. Father has sent me after women—dirty little playthings to be used as pawns and distractions for next winter’s games—but I’m taking care of my own agenda as well. While he’s training used-up whores to be duplicitous sex vixens, I’ll be training someone on how to disembowel a man in three seconds flat. The games I play are far more vicious.
I’m training a new someone.
My last someone was ripped right from my grip as of last week.
Anger, furious and explosive, bubbles just below my surface.
In due time, I’ll deal with that error.
Vas had always been a deviant shithead, and although I wanted to throttle the little terror when he would torment Irina, I saw the darkness inside him. I wanted to bottle it and take it out when the time was right. He made an excellent trainee when I tracked him down nearly a year ago, already fighting in underground circuits and running his own street crew. He was nothing but a thug, but a cunning one, and willing to learn and train. Perfect.
I taught him everything I knew…
And then Leonid ripped him away now that his blood is actually worth something. Leonid knew he was his the entire time Vas trained with me—they both did—yet they failed to offer that information, instead learning what they could while they could.
In due time, they’ll understand their mistake.
“I like this one,” I tell Oleg, the arms dealer who’s traveled from nearly five hundred miles away to offer me his stash.
“Just one?” he asks, his voice gravelly from too many years of smoking.
“To start,” I say as I hold up the knife. It glistens under the overhead light. It’s curved like a curled claw with a sharp blade on both sides. The tip is shaped like a fishing hook. Whomever meets the end of this won’t live to tell about it. “What else you got?”
My new trainee, Stepan Koslov, from the Second Families, who are deemed lesser than the First Families, doesn’t move a muscle beside me. He’s every bit as tall and wide as Vas was. Where I thought Vas was just some kid of a housekeeper, I know Stepan’s bloodline. His father, Nestor, is a small arms dealer. Nothing of Oleg’s caliber, but they are local and good to buy from in a pinch. Stepan runs his mouth a lot less than Vas, which works in his favor. But where Vas moved without hesitation, Stepan is still learning and thinks too long before each move. Stepan may be the older of the two at nineteen, but he’s just not quite there yet.
Yet.
I will break him in like I broke Vas.
A ruthless, fighting killing machine.
A winner.
Leonid can go fuck himself when he loses. You can’t go nose-to-nose with someone like me and come out unscathed. I always win.
I hand the blade to Stepan and he grips the hilt. It fits perfectly in his massive hand. My heart tightens in my chest as I recall handing my brother a blade before he entered The Games just over two months ago. At least with Stepan, I feel nothing for him. He could walk into those Games ten months from now and get gutted like a fish within the first few moments and the only regret I’d have would be that I didn’t train someone better.
He will be the best, though.
“This one,” Stepan growls from beside me as he hands me back the knife. “I like this one.”
I give him a nod as I tuck it away inside my jacket and then follow Oleg to another trunk full of weapons. He shows me grenade launchers and guns. Those interest me for selling to the neighbors to the south. Unrelated V Games business. I snap my fingers over the chest and motion for the entire thing.
Oleg lets out an appreciative whistle as we continue “shopping.” I pluck unique items that will prove to one day be useful for Stepan along the way. Once I’ve accumulated enough trunks to satisfy the Kazakhstani mob, I motion for Oleg to follow me. Stepan stays behind, guarding our haul without having to be told. He’ll make for a formidable player in The Games. Unlike Vas and Viktor, he obeys my goddamn commands.
I walk out of the garage and into our house. Oleg knows the drill. He brings weapons all the time. My father and him go back to before I was born. Now that I’m more or less in charge, I deal with Oleg. Who the hell knows what Father actually does these days besides meddle in my business. Oleg steals an apple from a basket and I have to listen to his crunching and slurping the entire way to my office. If I were a lesser man, I’d shove the half-eaten fruit down his windpipe and let him suffocate. There’s nothing worse than a loud eater. Loyalties or not, one day that bullshit will get him killed.
Once inside my office, Oleg settles his beefy frame in one of the chairs. I walk over to a giant portrait of my father, Vika, and myself. The one that used to include my brother as well has been removed from the premises. I allowed it as a sign of respect for my father, but the rest of my pictures in my office of my brother and I remain. I grab hold of the bottom left of the giant frame and pull it from the wall. Behind the obnoxious painting is my massive safe. While Oleg makes love to his apple, I key in my code and open the safe. Inside is a duffle bag full of money—money that’s already been negotiated with Oleg. He knows the drill. I may like to pretend I’m deciding on the weapons, but I end up buying them all.