With my peripheral vision, I saw Michel’s head turn toward me. “I’m an associate member now.”
Ryan’s head popped up like someone had screamed his name in his ear, and his eyebrows lowered in a scowl.
“Who sponsored you for membership? I didn’t,” I said, watching Ryan get more and more pissed off.
On my left, Konstantin cleared his throat. “Michel had me sponsor him last year.”
Last year, when Konstantin had been only twenty and not even the first tranche of his inheritance had vested, yes, Michel would have been able to pressure him to do it.
Without our connections, Michel wouldn’t have had the stature for any membership. “Then I suppose you can invite a limited number of guests after all.”
Ryan rolled his eyes and went back to his drink, still frowning, though.
Associate membership also meant that Michel could nominate new members. Ryan could warn the membership committee about Michel’s less-than-savory connections. Oncethatkind of person gained a foothold in a club, the usual clientele, meaning those with a moral code, tended to resign. Without vigilance, any club could become an organized crime subsidiary.
The way Ryan’s jaw was bulging as he ground his teeth suggested that I wouldn’t even have to mention it.
“Yes, so they’ll be here in about half an hour. I’ll need both you and Konstantin at that table in the corner over there.” Michel pointed at the darkest table in the darkest corner of the room. “For negotiations.”
There would be nonegotiations.Nothing needed to be goddamn negotiated. I was the head of the house, and Michel was a nouveau riche relation whom I tolerated. “I’m in town for an old friend’s bachelor party, not business. It’s a meeting of the Old Rosean crowd. We rarely get to catch up, and we’ll want to see each other, not outsiders.”
“How very exclusive of you,” Michel sneered and moved off into the crowd.
The bartender set my whiskey cocktail in front of me, and I sucked the whole thing into my mouth and let it burn like brimstone all the way down my throat.
Ryan skirted around the back of Magnus and settled himself on the now-empty bar stool between us. “There’s one in every family, isn’t there?”
“And we brought it upon ourselves.”
“Can’t you cut him out? Your mother isn’t with us anymore. You shouldn’t be punished for her indiscretion.”
My shrug yanked at snarls of resentment deep in my soul. “And yet here we are. Michel thinks he’s the tsar of the family, but the rest of us see him more like a Rasputin.”
“Do you really need to defer to him as much as you do? Your mother has been dead for twenty years, God rest her soul. Your father has been dead for fifteen.”
None of us bothered to add a prayer after mentioning my father.
“Purse strings. He’s the executor. I don’t get full control until I’m thirty-five.”
“Fucking hell, Nico. That’s abusive.”
“You’d think the family trust would’ve had generational rules, but no.” The bartender scooted another drink across the mirror-polished oak bar to me. “It’s only a few more years.”
“Your father always was controlling as all hell, even from the grave,” Ryan muttered.
Konstantin was holding his beer between his palms like he was scrying in its effervescent depths. “Was he?”
Talking about our parents around Konstantin was like mincing between bear traps. “Yes, he was.”
“I guess that’s why my inheritance is tied up until I graduate from college,and thenobtain a graduate or professional degree,and thenget married. I’ll never see a dime.”
His attempt at a joke let us pretend we hadn’t been talking about his dead parents he’d lost as a very young child.
I clapped him on the shoulder, not quite a hug because we were too Scandinavian for physical affection at our ages and in public. “How are your classes, Kostya?”
“Finance, you know. Monetary policy, capital markets, and valuation. Money moves, and people follow.”
I listened to him expound on what he was learning at Harvard, all things that I had studied, and my attention drifted back to the woman outside, her dark eyes staring straight at me, not fluttering demurely, not flicking to me just enough to encourage interest but then away to look over the crowd, lest she show too much interest in me.
