This camp might have been started to bring us together, but we’ve both kept interacting mostly with our respective sides of the fence. We even eat at separate tables. I work out either alone or with Niko. Yulian works out with Cyrus or their men.
We only really get together in classes or when Yulian and Niko are fighting.
My feet come to a halt near the closed door. Some muffled noises are coming from inside, but I can’t really make them out.
So I head to the next room and sneak inside. It’s a mentor’s, but he’s out grocery shopping today.
I slide to the balcony and jump across to Yulian’s, careful and silent.
Through the ajar glass balcony door, I can clearly see him standing in the middle of the room.
Yaroslav Dimitriev. The man whom even my dad thinks twice about before stepping into his territory.
He looks similar to Yulian, but his hair is a lighter blond, and both his eyes are pale, icy blue—like Yulian’s left eye. A beard shadows his face, and he’s unnaturally tall and bulky, his frame threatening to tear through the seams of his gray three-piece suit.
That’s where the similarities end. Yulian’s skin is warmer, his features sharper, his face undeniably more striking. From my research, I learned his mother came from a minority ethnic group in the North Caucasus, which explains the darker complexion, the almond-shaped eyes, the quiet beauty that sets him apart from his father’s brutish presence.
I flatten myself against the wall next to the glass door and remain still.
This is risky, and Yaroslav will have my balls if he figures out I’m spying on him, but this will likely be my only opportunity to get some information about him and his Bratva, so I can’t miss the chance.
Besides, he shouldn’t be here, and I need to find out why he chose to ignore that rule and the consequences.
“Twenty punishments in a month.” Yaroslav’s gruff voice carries through the room as he counts on his hand. “Smoking, drugs, loss of focus, wandering around without security, not improving learning skills.” He switches to the other hand. “Fighting without supervision, poor results on intellectual tests, average strategizing, spending too much time on meaningless activities.”
“Actually, I was making a bomb?—”
Slap!
My muscles tighten as the harsh sound of flesh against flesh echoes in the room. Yaroslav hits his son so hard, he falls on the wooden floor, coughing.
Something in my chest twists when Yulian paints a smile on his cut lips and jumps up again, dusting his shirt off as if the hit were nothing.
That’s not the first time it’s happened.
Fuck. The black eye and the bruises on his side…?
Did Yaroslav come around last night as well?
“Have I or have I not told you to wait for permission to talk?”
“But it’d take a long time to mention everything I got punished for,” Yulian says, then stiffens.
For a hit.
He knows he’ll get hit and yet still runs his mouth?
What on earth iswrongwith him?
His dad flexes his fist but doesn’t hit him again. “What’s with all the punishments? You have to do better than these lackluster results.”
“I’m the best at shooting in this camp.”
“That’s not enough. You have to be the best at everything, or strive to be. But it seems you’re trying to drag my name through the mud on purpose.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He lifts a shoulder. “You said I had to be here, not that I should be the best. You need to specify what you want from me, you know.”
“I’mspecifyingthat you need to do better. If you don’t want to get Alina in trouble, that is.”
