19
Erik
For the next two days I avoid the mansion, though some distant part of me notes that I am really avoiding myself.
If I look at Camille, I will be forced to see the pain there. Perhaps that will awaken some feeling in me. I cannot allow that right now, not with the storm quietly tearing its way through the Bratva.
Fyodor is at the heart of the storm, a thunderous motherfucker who wants to chip away at the foundations until the whole thing comes crumbling down. Then he can rebuild it, with himself as the figurehead.
But I can’t avoid the confrontation forever. I have a meeting with Anatoly and Fyodor, ostensibly to discuss the men who have been stepping out of line, really so that I can study Fyodor the same way I studied Camille at dinner.
She lied to me, I remind myself as I walk into the kitchen. She may not have told McCauley anything of use—I would be in a jail cell if that were the case—but she still betrayed my trust.
I find Ashley in the kitchen, hunched over the sink, cursing under her breath.
“Nothing sticks like bacon grease,” she growls. “They never teach you that in culinary school.”
I smile, leaning against the door. “It saves you money on a gym membership, at least.”
“Oh, life’s small victories. You are going to ask me to prepare mushroom caviar, I assume?”
I nod. “Anatoly would be distraught if we served anything else.”
I am about to leave when she clears her throat and turns to me.
“What?” I growl.
“You know,” she begins, “Camille has not left her room for two days.”
“Is she sick?”
“Not physically,” she says. “But, Erik, you have to talk to her. You have to try and see things from her point of view. She’s alone, she’s trapped … she has no one to turn to, except her mother and you won’t let her see her.”
I wave a hand. “She will get over it in time. Is there anything else?”
“Erik!” she snaps, tossing the pan into the sink. Soap suds fly into the air. “The longer you leave it, the worse it will get. She is not going to get less upset with you sitting up there going over and over it. Why not just talk to her?”
“You know what I’m dealing with,” I tell her. “I have the detective trying to take my head off at every opportunity. If he does not get me, Fyodor and his dogs surely will. The Bratva is one step from ruin and here you are … what, Ashley? Playing at therapy. You should start one of those talk shows Americans are so fond of.”
She smiles cuttingly. “We are American, you jerk. Stop—”
“Stop what?” I snarl.
“Acting!” she breaks out. “I know, and you know how much you care about Camille. You cannot tell me you’re happy with this arrangement.”
“I have never told you I feel anything for the girl,” I mutter, but even to myself my words ring false.
“You don’t have to,” she says. “I have known you longer than Fyodor, Oleg, even Anatoly. You cannot lie to me.”
I wander over to the kitchen table and sit down, watching the light rain pattering against the window. I think about Camille up there with her face pressed against the glass. I think about her pacing around, staring at the world I have stolen from her.
This is the last thing I need: hot guilt coursing through me like something alive.
“She betrayed me,” I rumble.
Ashley sits across from me. She wipes her hands on her chef’s shirt and gives me a sideways look.
“Erik.” The way she says my name disarms me, as it so often has. “How many times have you reduced grown men to tears just by speaking to them? All across the city, there are men who spin you stories to keep you happy. You inspire fear. I know that is not by accident.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Get to the point.”
She glares back, completely unfazed. “Why should you expect anything more from Camille? She is not part of this world. She was scared, you idiot.”
“But I did expect more from her! That was my mistake.” I push back from the table and rise to my feet. “That will be all, Ashley. We will take the appetizers in the conference room.”
She sighs, standing slowly. The judgment in her face is too much for me.
I cannot meet her eye.
“You know how I feel,” she says. “Now you have to ask yourself: how do you feel? Because a man can only pretend for so long. Sooner or later, his true colors show.”
My footsteps pound loudly as I stomp for the door.
That was something Father used to say.
“The problem is,” Fyodor says, with his wan smile that could mean anything, “many of the men agreed with Damir. They care only about their families, Erik, about the money they bring home every week. If we can increase our profits by aligning with other elements, they reason, why shouldn’t we?”
They reason.
I take a sip of vodka, masking my disdain.
Everybody at this table knows who has been stoking this particular fire. Damir was not a leader. He did not inspire the men. If discontent is still running through the Bratva, there is only one man who could be fueling it.
“They are shortsighted,” I say. “Like eager orphans they will take to the streets to steal what they can. But what will they do when all the pockets have been picked, all the alliances broken? Do they truly imagine that the Aryan Pact, that the Cartel, that the hoodlums dealing crack on the corners will keep their families fed?”
“Erik makes a good point,” Anatoly says, pushing his plate away and folding his hands. He looks between us like a referee at a fight, ready to stop any eye-gouging or throat-grabbing. “What has the Aryan Pact ever done for us?”
Fyodor bites down, just for a moment. But I spot the anger.
He has always been good at hiding
