Oleg sat and waited for Radu to speak. He could tell the wind vampire had more to say.
“You know…”
Oleg pasted a curious expression on his face. “You have a question?”
“More of a statement.” Radu leaned forward. “Between friends.”
“Old friends.”
Radu spoke quietly. “It has been five years, and Ivan is still alive.”
“Yes.” Oleg chose his words carefully. “Family is complicated, and he is my brother.”
“He conspired with my own brother, andmybrother is dead.”
“You didn’t share blood with Vano,” Oleg pointed out.
“Are we truly going to argue this?”
Oleg steepled his fingers as he looked across to Radu. “Your brother died primarily because he broke sacred hospitality laws of your clan,” he said. “While my brother…”
“Would stab you in the back as soon as you turned it.”
“Which—to be completely fair—is a long-standing tradition inourclan.” Oleg smiled and sat back in his chair. “As I said, family is complicated.”
“This theft from the warehouse—it’s not an isolated incident.”
Oleg cocked his head. “What have you heard?”
“Some would say that Ivan is… getting sloppy,” Radu said quietly. “He has never been the wisest about who he hires.”
Oleg sighed. “A situation which I have had to rectify on more than one occasion, yes.”
“Many in our clan refuse to work with him. Tanya told me this contract was set up through a shell company. If she’d known it was Ivan’s cargo, we wouldn’t have touched it.”
Oleg had to admit that Radu’s use of Tatyana’s familiar nickname irked him more than a little bit, but the vampire was, after all, her brother now. “Which is no doubt why Ivan made the shell company.”
“She hired a new security person the day after it happened,” Radu said. “Something to do with the computers that I don’t understand.”
“That sounds like her.”
“Ivan’s people are frustrated,” Radu continued. “His men talk to our drivers who talk to my men. You know how these rumors spread. Vampires gossip more than old farmers.”
“Hmm.” Oleg nodded slowly. “So his people are unhappy.”
Radu smiled. “But you know this already.”
“Perhaps.”
“Then perhaps it is time for a change.”
“My friend, you are too young to remember the old days,” Oleg said. “When Truvor the Red ruled from the Baltic to the Black Sea. When his territory extended from Belorussia to the edge of the Khazar Plains. Do you understand what it takes to hold that kind of territory?”
“I know what it takes to hold it because you have,” Radu said. “With fire and blood. Your territory is only a little less than your sire’s.”
“Exactly.” Oleg leaned forward. “And I have held it together for nearly five hundred years. I killed Truvor, then killed all my brothers who challenged my rule. I killed my own blood mate when she became a danger to my people, because if the immortal empire of the Kievan Rus breaks, far more than my own clan will suffer. You are my ally, my neighbor, and my friend. You know this.”
Radu sat back with a smile on the edge of his lips. “And yet Ivan lives.”
