Page 5 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

“You’re a relic,” he’d said. “The men who matter have moved past you. You dress it up in loyalty and tradition, but what you are is afraid.”

He had more champagne in him than judgment, so I let it slide. That was a mistake. I should’ve called him out then and there, but for the sake of familial harmony—what little of it there is—I tried to hold my tongue. “You’re drunk. Go sleep it off.”

He spat, “And you will die alone in that oversized penthouse you call a home, Ivan. No one wants to stand beside a man who looks like you. Who is likeyou.” His eyes moved over my face, my hands, with the contemptuous ease of someone who has rehearsed this too. “Look at you. You’re a monster. What woman would want you?”

“Perhaps one day, we’ll find out. Do be careful on the stairs, Hugo. I’d hate for you to have an accident.” I had stomped away, letting the threat hang in the air.

I’m human. His bullshit stung.

Hugo’s fourteen years my junior—my forty-eight to his thirty-four—but he still knows how to get under my skin. He’s known how since his mother married my father all those years ago. He was nothing but a nerdy teenager with a chip on his shoulder back then, but he always knew how to get on my nerves.

Maybe all younger brothers are this way. I’m not sure.

I can’t help that I’m six and a half feet tall. No, I will not stop lifting weights, so I will remain this large as long as I’m breathing. The scars… I could take steps to stop accumulating them, but that would hinder my business. The tattoos? They’re a part of who I am.

And he has always hated every inch of me. He resents that I’m his boss, that I’m the reason his life is so easy. All he has to do is show up, look and sound good, and that’s it. He’s overpaid and underworked, and he hates me for it. I always assumed itwas because I don’t bother to engage his mind in his work, but I stopped analyzing him long ago. It’s not worth the effort.

Hugo is something I endure because he makes me money. Any brotherly bond that could’ve existed was extinguished long ago.

Now, on this dancefloor, with his new wife watching from a table and his face doing something terrible at the sight of me with Luna, I’m not a relic. Here, I’m the pakhan of an organization he will never run, in possession of a woman he discarded and is now regretting, and the accounting, as far as I’m concerned, is settling itself very nicely.

The song ends. Luna tips her face up toward mine, slightly flushed, and says, “You actually dance.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I had the sway-with-authority theory going pretty strong.”

“Noted.”

She laughs again. There it is again. That music in her.

We move to the bar, and I order. “Russian Standard for me. Luna?”

“Singapore Sling.”

The bartender blinks once before starting her cocktail, and she seems satisfied by his reaction. But my bartenders aren’t the type to not know a classic, and our drinks are up in under a minute.

Armin finds me as soon as he walks into the room. My sovetnik is compact, sharp-eyed, Cypriot by birth, Chicagoan by temperament, and he looks at Luna with his trademark unreadable assessment. “Mr. Fedorov.” Then, with thecalibrated courtesy of a man who understands optics, “Good evening, miss.”

“Luna, this is my associate, Armin. Armin, Luna is my date this evening.”

She smiles charmingly. “I’ve met more people at this reception than I did in all my years with Hugo. It’s a refreshing change.”

She lore-drops brilliantly. She made it clear we’re together, and that she was Hugo’s girlfriend for a time, all without making it awkward.

I watch Armin recalibrate in real time, the way a man does when something turns out to be more than he expected. He smiles and holds up his glass. “To changes, may they always be refreshing.”

We drink, and he excuses himself. I explain to Luna, “He does these little check-ins at stressful functions to keep tabs on my mood. He thinks I don’t know, but I do. I’ve known Armin Kazarian far too long not to see what he’s doing.”

“What’s his real job?”

Sovetnik.“Something between an assistant and an advisor.”

“Does everyone here work for you?”

“A reasonable percentage.”

She considers this, turning her glass slowly. “And Hugo?”