We’ll both have guns. We both have our fists too of course. I can only hope it doesn’t come to that. But in this life we lead, it’s always a possibility.
As the buildings thin and the road opens up toward the coast, my mind drifts—not to the present danger, but to a memory from the distant past.
MANY YEARS AGO…
The restaurant is dimly lit, the kind of place where important men conduct important business without being overheard. I am fourteen, seated across from my father in a corner booth. The tablecloth is crisp white, the silverware heavy. My father is unusually quiet tonight, his eyes scanning the room with that predator’s focus I have come to recognize.
“Father,” I ask softly. “What is wrong?”
He does not look at me. His voice is calm, almost gentle. “Nothing, Kirill. Eat your food.”
But I know him too well. When my father says “nothing,” something is almost certainly afoot.
A man walks past our table—mid-forties, expensive suit, unaware of anything but his own destination. He heads toward the restroom at the back. My father watches him go, then sets his fork down.
“Come,” he says, rising. “Stay close. Do as I say.”
I follow without question. We enter the restroom. My father locks the door behind us with a soft click. The man is at the urinal, back turned. He glances over his shoulder, surprised.
Before the man can speak, my father pulls a silenced pistol from inside his jacket. The shot is a softthwip. The man’s head snaps forward. He collapses without a sound, blood pooling on the tiled floor.
I stand frozen.
I have seen death before, and violence too. But never like this. Never at my father’s hand. Never so cold and deliberate. The man didn’t even have a chance to explain himself or beg for mercy. But then again, maybe that was the whole point.
My father holsters the pistol and turns to me. “Keep the door shut until I say otherwise.”
He washes his hands calmly, as if he has just finished a normal meal. I stand guard, heart hammering, until he nods. We exit the restroom together and walk back through the restaurant like nothing has happened. No one notices. No oneeverdoes—and maybe that’s a choice they are making.
Outside on the busy street, the evening crowd flows around us.
My father lights a cigarette and exhales slowly.
“Who was he?” I ask, voice steadier than I feel.
“Mycousin,” my father replies. “A wretched traitor. He was selling information to rival families. Small leaks at first, then bigger ones. He thought I would not find out. He was wrong.”
My father looks at me, eyes hard but not unkind. “The life of a pakhan can be brutal and lonely, Kirill. You will have to makechoices like this one day. Men will smile to your face and stab you in the back. Family will betray you for power or money. You must be ready. You must be willing to do what is necessary, even when it turns your stomach.”
I nod, swallowing the bile rising in my throat.
We continue walking down the crowded street, two men among many, as if we have not just left a dead body cooling on a bathroom floor.
My father, the pakhan, made no mistake.
PRESENT DAY…
The memory fades as the road curves along the coast. The city lights have fallen behind me. Darkness swallows the landscape, broken only by the occasional glow of distant houses and the hazy mist rolling in from the sea. The headlights cut through the fog, illuminating the winding road.
“This is your destiny,” I say, my voice calm but the realization as to what might happen creeping up to me once more. “The pakhan never falters in the face of death.”
I glance at the passenger seat.
My pistol rests there, loaded and ready. If Viktor has turned, if this meeting is a trap, I will do what my father taught me.
I will act without hesitation.
Viktor may have his Forever Boy and a softer life outside the business, but I will protect the Antonov family at any cost. Even if it means putting a bullet in the head of a man I recently shook hands with in good faith. That is just the life.
