“You’ve heard of the Rho Epsilon Beta?”
“Yes.” He didn’t have to know it was only recently that we’d come across the fraternity. “What do they have to do with anything?”
“My uncle attended grad school at Oakwood College. The school my cousin currently attends. He joined Rho Epsilon Beta then. Same class as Brackton, your president, and a handful of others who’ve shaped this country’s destiny for far too long.”
Intrigued, I shifted gears. “Why is your stepsister in rehab?”
His top lip curled but a cold, hard gleam flared to life in his eyes. Discomfort? Surely not. “For reasons that, shall we say, are fabricated.”
“How very Victorian.”
He replaced his cup on the saucer with a precision that didn’t allow for the bone china to clink. My grandmother would have wept if I’d been capable of the same grace. “Indeed.”
“What is her role in this?” I queried, sensing that this Yseult played a larger part in the current situation than anyone said out loud.
“It is not as large as it could be, but it will flourish. Soon.”
I read between the lines. “You don’t sound as if your feelings for her are fraternal.”
He chuckled. It was like pitch-black silk. As messed-up as that smile. The humor snuffed out with jarring abruptness. “Oh, they’re not.”
A thought occurred to me. “I refuse to give you drugs if you’ll use them to harm women.”
“A conscience?” Ilya hummed. “Interesting. I want to annihilate my uncle. Nothing I’ve shared with you has been contrived. I want my stepsister and mother freed from their prisons in time to attend his funeral. The only person I intend on harming is him. Satisfied?”
I contemplated Ilya’s answer but, ultimately, tested, “Tell me—there was an operation in Nolita. A child brothel and a fighting ring. Was your uncle involved? The Bratva?”
Expression glacial, Ilya retorted, “It was a personal investment.”
“Not Bratva?”
“No. A lot of the brothers, ones my age, grew up on the streets during the USSR breakdown. They did things to survive that they’d never wish on children. There’d be an uprising among that generation if he used the Bratva to traffic children.”
“Not the older gens?”
“What do you think?” he scoffed. “Did you ever meet Fyodor Turgenev? If the devil hasn’t made that bastard his plaything, then hell doesn’t exist.”
Surprised by the condemnation as well as the richness of his response, I stated, “I’ll provide you with enough C-L-O to kill him.”
“Good.” Glee flashed across his expression until he banked it. It disappeared so quickly that I almost thought I’d imagined it. “This little meeting of the minds, as Taube would call it, I deemed necessary.”
“Why?”
“Because the Irish are fading into irrelevance by their own actions. Their future dictated by the White House. The Triads are too conservative, too insular, for deeper alliances outside of Beijing, and as much as I consider The Forgotten Boys family, in public I can only show so much deference when they seceded from the Bratva.
“Your faction, however, is the future. Your ties on the West Coast are as extensive as those on the East. Unlike the Irish, your relevance grows with each passing day as your drugs tear through the country—” He half-smiled when I winced. “Ah, shame. It’s been a long time since I felt that.”
“I cherish women and created a drug that destroys them.”
“You created a drug that destroys men weak enough to take it. Those men eradicate themselves. Darwin would be proud. You should be too.” He pointed a finger at me. “Evolution isn’t pretty. People die along the way, but that’s what people do. That’s why legacies are important.”
“And that’s what you’re building? A legacy?” I shot him a knowing look. “Let me guess, your legacy is entwined with your stepsister’s?”
“She’s wasted years in that goddamn place. I want her out of there.”
“Why?”
“I already told you. Men are fools when they have no heir. She, and no other, will bear me a son.” Those chillingly cold eyescaught mine. “As for why she matters in this game we play… what do you know of a blogger calledI Told You So?”
