Page 50 of Inked in Devotion

On the fourth ring from the same anonymous number, I answered, “Da.”

“Nikolai.”

“Dimitri. It took you weeks to call me back.”

“Fuck you, mudak. The brotherhood is pissed at you.”

“Really?”

“From what I heard, the Vozhokari is out for blood. Your firstborn belongs to them.”

“I never agreed to that bullshit. It’s an ancient order that should have been eliminated long ago. How about you, Dimitri? We share the same blue eyes.”

“I’ve paid my dues and fucked their vessel. She miscarried. I’m not considering marriage again.”

Dimitri had a girlfriend whom he loved enough to consider marrying. But she couldn’t stomach the Petrovs’ duty to the Vozhokari. Her love died the second Dimitri fucked another woman. At least, that was the story Grigori told me.

Two hundred years ago, the Petrov clan left the Vozhokari order of assassins with the condition that each descendant male with piercing blue eyes would fuck one of the Vozhokari vessels to produce the next undying assassin.

“They killed my parents,” I said. “You think I owe them anything?”

He sighed. “I’m just giving you fair warning. It’s all over the financial news, and you know Uncle keeps an eye on that.”

I wondered now if the Vozhokari found out even before the news broke and they could be behind the apartment attack. But how?

“So clan Petrov is pissed, huh?”

“They don’t want a repeat of what happened to your parents. And they don’t think they can gain custody of your child if anything happened to you.”

“Good luck with that. I trust Kirill more than having my child be raised by any of you.”

“Ouch, cousin, you didn’t turn out terribly.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Anyway, I thought you should know.” He paused but didn’t end the call.

“Anything else?”

“So the news was speculating…it’s a boy.”

“You think I’m going to answer you?”

He gave a derisive laugh. “We breed boys.”

“You make it sound like we’re studs.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Well, time to change that idea. And next time, call me ASAP when I leave you a message.”

“Fuck you,” he replied with a laugh before the line went dead.

So the news had reached Moscow at light speed.

Dimitri and the rest of the Petrov family worked for the Moscow mob. It was Grigori, my cousin, who took a bunch of the clan across the pond and joined the Zahkarov bratva. My cousin, who suggested that I honor the tradition of copulating with a Vozhokari. One would think that kind of ritual had died out with the Dark Ages. I refused and called him a pimp, so he framed me as the Mistress Strangler. He thought a few months in prison would make me change my mind, but by that time Grigori had become persona non grata, hunted by the bratva and the feds, I was stuck in prison. But Grigori made a deathbed confession to clear my name. Kirill asked me to stay in prison for a year and then, right before the election for a new DA, our lawyers produced the evidence. Kirill’s candidate won. A wrongfully imprisoned man—me—always won the court of public outrage.

Grigori had blue-gray eyes that were considered inferior for procreating with the Vozhokari. There were only a few of us left with the shade of blue eyes the assassin order coveted.