My father spins me around, points his finger in my face. “Do not drink it, Cort. Do you hear me? Do not.” His eyes shoot to Maart. “Give him a whiskey.”
“Why not?” Lazar is laughing. I really hate that laugh. “Pavo will be on the Lectra when he fights. It’s only fair for your boy here.”
“You will not.” My father is deadly fucking serious as he looks me in the eyes. “Do you understand me, Cort?”
I sneer at him and he smiles. Then he squeezes my shoulder again and leans in. “Don’t look at me that way. It’s my job to keep you in line tonight. It’s an important night for you as well as me. Tonight, we are a team and we don’t want anything to go wrong.”
Tonight, we are a team. Interesting way to put it.
“Yes,” Lazar says. Fuck. Why can’t that man just shut up? Every time I hear his voice, I get the urge to throttle him. “The stakes are high tonight.”
“Not now, Lazar,” my father cautions him.
“Why not now? Surely your son would like to know what he’s fighting for?”
I know what I’m fighting for. It was explained to me in the contract. Keeping our family’s controlling interest in this ship.
It doesn’t sound like much, but this is no ordinary ship. A heavy-lift construction vessel, it’s a floating city—and presently the only one of its size. When it’s in international waters—and it almost always is—it’s practically a nation state. Impervious to the laws of others. Not even the Americans can stop the business we do on this ship.
And my father owns most of it. Not all of it—the network would never allow one man to hold that much power. But most of it is practically the same thing.
It generates an obscene amount of legitimate money each year installing topsides onto oil rig substructures. Tens of billions of dollars. But the illegitimate money is just as precious.
These fights, for instance. This night is just one of dozens each year. But they host more than fights on this ship.
“We will talk about this later.”
I nod at my father. I don’t care about the prize. The winning lost its shine more than a decade ago now. I fight because they make me.
I turn and walk towards the door. The mercenaries open it and I slip through first, then Maart, then Rainer and Evard in the rear.
“We’re going this way,” Maart says, heading down.
But I go up.
“Guess we’re not.” Rainer laughs.
“Wait here,” Maart orders them. Then he races up the steps ahead of me. “Cort.” He pauses in front of the door. “You do not want that bottle. Do you understand me?”
I push him out of the way, but he’s not afraid of me and pushes me right back.
I will hit him. Any fucking time I want. But I’m not going to kill him and Maart is no pussy. He will retaliate and he and I are well enough matched that I will probably come out ahead, but just barely.
He knows I’m not going to hit him today. Not on a fight day. I will have enough bruises when I step off the platform tonight. I don’t need any extras going in.
“You do not want that bottle. Do you hear me?”
I want that bottle. And he knows it. That’s why he feels the need to repeat himself.
“Fuck.” He sighs, then opens the door with a bang. “Oh, hey!”
I am not in the mood for one of his charismatic long-winded speeches to explain my actions, so I just push him out of the way and enter the reception hall.
My eyes take in the massive room and… well, well, well. There she is. The girl from the window.
Anya, Lazar called her.
She is young. Much younger than me. Maybe eighteen. But probably not.
I know how these people work. I know their sick hearts better than I know my own.
But she is very pretty. Slender and willowly, like a ballerina. But on the small side. Fragile and strong in the same breath. Her hair is light blonde, very straight at the moment, and long. Her fair skin and soft features tell me she is not actually related to Lazar. There is no resemblance whatsoever. He calls her ‘daughter’ in the most derogatory way possible. Same way my father calls me ‘son.’
The other little girl is missing. They look enough alike that they might be real sisters, but again, I doubt it.
Anya. I say her name in my head. Memorizing the way it feels. Enjoying the hate it conjures up.
Not for her. I do not give a single fuck about her.
Lazar. He’s familiar in an unfamiliar way. And everything about that is ugly.
My gaze wanders over to the bar and I stride towards it with purpose. Everyone is silent as I reach for an electric-blue bottle on the top shelf.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
I look at Pavo, then down at the bottle of Lectra in my hand, taking a moment to appreciate the almost-glowing light-blue color of the drug inside. It doesn’t look like water. You don’t need to be smart to know this is not colored water. It’s too thick. Viscous. Like an oil. But it’s not oily going down. It’s cold. Ice cold. It burns your throat, then your stomach, then—just a few minutes later—you float.
You float through worlds. You feel like Superman. You want to kill people and save the world in the same instant.
It’s indescribably seductive.
And addictive.
I look up and study Pavo for a moment, looking for the tell-tale signs of Lectra addiction, but he’s too far away to see the blue ring around the iris.
I’ll be close enough tonight to solve that little mystery.
“You can’t take that.” Pavo is still moaning. “It’s Bokori.”
It’s fucking tribute, is what it is. And we both know I will win this fight tonight, so even if Lazar didn’t say I could have it early, I could take it anyway.
“Did you hear what I just fucking said?”
