I sigh.
Being a lone wolf is . . . lonely.
“They say things about you,” I tell him. “Things that upset me.”
“What things?” he growls.
My stomach clenches. I don’t want to tell him.
My father is a strange mix of brashness and oversensitivity. He’s as blunt as I am in telling other people how it is, but when it comes to himself, he’s quick to take offense, and he’ll hold a grudge till the end of time.
But I’ve never been able to hide what I feel.
“They say you’re duplicitous,” I tell him. “Even the other Ukrainians say it. The Odessa Mafia—”
He interrupts me, going into a rage as I knew he would.
“They’re JEALOUS!” he roars. “They want to cut me down any way that they can. They hate what I did on my own, without any of them! They’ll lie and slander and say whatever they can to try to hide their own weakness, their own failure . . .”
I grip the receiver, frustrated and confused.
I knew he’d react like this. He always does.
When my father is happy, there’s no one more charming, more engaging. But when he’s angry . . . the switch flips, and there’s no talking to him.
It’s why we fight so often.
Everything is black and white to him. You’re with him, or you’re against him.
And if you’re against him, you’re his enemy.
“You don’t believe any of it. Do you?” he demands. “You don’t believe their lies?”
“Of course not, Dad,” I say.
But I want to know. I want to know what happened with the Odessa Mafia.
“Do you know the Lomachenkos?” I ask him.
He’s quiet. I can still hear his heavy breathing from his rant. He’s put on weight the last few years—he’s not as fast as he once was, though I still wouldn’t get too close when he’s angry.
“Kyrylo Lomachenko was my cousin,” he replies at last.
“Was?”
“Someone cut his throat six years ago.”
“But it wasn’t you. You had nothing to do with it.”
“I won’t be questioned by you, girl,” my father snarls, his temper flaring up again like a fire hit by a blast from the bellows.
“Please, Dad,” I say desperately. “Just tell me what happened.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” he says. “I was sending him old Soviet guns in shipping crates. He was smuggling them in past the port authority. I was perfectly happy with our arrangement. Obviously, someone else was not.”
There’s no hint of a lie in my father’s voice. He sounds as honest and certain as ever.
I let out a sigh of relief. “Alright, Dad,” I say. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“What are you letting them give you shit for, anyway?” my father demands, recovering his cheerful bluster. “I thought you were made of stronger stuff, Nix.”
Well . . . he’s right about that.
I’ve never been one to roll over in a fight.
“Don’t worry about me,” I tell him. “I know how to take care of myself.”
“That’s my girl,” he says.
I can almost see his grin, half-hidden by his red beard.
The second week of school is better than the first. For one thing, the pace of our classes is only increasing, which means nobody has much time for hassling me.
Also, anytime anybody gives me a dirty look, I tell them to fuck off with enough vigor that it seems to dissuade the others.
Only Estas seems entrenched in his grudge against me. He mutters insults at me in the hallways and glowers at me everywhere I go.
I don’t care as much anymore—I believe my dad, not some random fucking idiot who thinks hoop earrings are a fashion statement. As long as Estas keeps his hands to himself, I’m just gonna ignore him.
At the same time, I pluck up the courage to join Sabrina for lunch again. While Bram Van Der Berg slouches at the far end of the table, seething and silent, only consenting to speak with Dean Yenin and Cat Romero, I still manage to have a reasonably pleasant conversation with Sabrina, Cara Wilk, Hedeon Gray, and Ares.
Well, it’s mostly Ares and me talking—Sabrina gets pulled into conversation with a couple of extremely friendly German boys at the next table over.
Cara is writing something in her notebook, her head bent over her pen and her dark hair pooled on the edge of the page. Her script is too cramped to read, but it looks like she’s working on a story.
Hedeon is glaring across the dining hall at a table containing several beefy Seniors, including one with the face and proportions of a silverback gorilla.
Hedeon has his hand pressed against his side. He’s slumped in the same direction, breathing shallowly.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask him. “You look like your ribs are broken.”
I’ve seen it before—several times in my father’s men, and I broke my own ribs once, the same day I ruined my dad’s favorite horse when the both of us took a tumble off a ridge ten miles from home. That was a fucking miserable hike back to the house, and not just because of the ribs—I knew my father would be furious that he’d have to shoot the horse.
“They might be,” Hedeon admits, wincing.
Cara glances up from her page, pen pressed against her lower lip. Her brows draw together in sympathy as she looks at the mottled purple and yellow bruises running down the side of Hedeon’s face.
“Why’s he always fighting with you?” Ares asks Hedeon, jerking his head in the direction of the silverback gorilla.
“He’s angry that I’m the Heir,” Hedeon says.
“That’s your brother?” I ask, finally understanding.
“In a manner of speaking,” Hedeon replies, as if it pains him to say it.
“That’s Silas Gray,” Ares explains to me. “The Grays adopted Silas and Hedeon at the same time. They’re almost the same age. So the Grays had to pick one son for Heir, and one to be his lieutenant.”
Cara absorbs this silently, pen still pressed to her lip and soft hazel eyes watching Hedeon’s face.
“How did they choose?” I ask.
For a minute, I don’t think Hedeon will answer. He’s obviously in pain, and never in the best of moods to begin with. I quickly learned that unlike the rest of the students, Hedeon’s foul mood and rude rebuffs have nothing to do with me—it’s how he behaves to everyone.
Still, he likes to associate with Sabrina’s group, probably because none of them pester him with annoying questions like the one I just asked.
To my surprise, he takes another shallow breath and says, through gritted teeth, “They pitted us against one another. From the time we were small. They forced us to compete, over and over and over again. All kinds of challenges. When we would lose, they’d punish us. I often lost. Silas was always bigger than me, and stronger.”
Ares looks startled by Hedeon’s answer. I’m guessing this is new information for him, too. Cara’s pale pink lips have opened in dismay, the pen dropping to the table.
“The competitions were brutal,” Hedeon says. “The punishments for losing even worse. They whipped us. Burned us. Cut us. Made us hold our hands in buckets of ice water until we cried. We were only four when it started. And it went on for . . .” He sighs. “Until we came to Kingmakers.”