The morning after the wedding that felt like a drag, I found my brothers in the kitchen with my father. We all had our own places, but we often ended up here at the building my father owned. Each of us claimed a floor as our apartments, but the main levels my father considered his residence were where we met up for meetings and other gatherings.
Seeing them here didn’t necessarily mean something was up. We had our duties but always worked as a team. When my grandmother showed up, though, I furrowed my brow and wondered what she wanted now.
While Damon, Nik, Saul, and I had our respective crews and priorities, Grandmother didn’t really have an overarching role to fill.
The sight of the folders in her hands suggested she’d at least done some research on something, though.
“What’s all that?” I asked as I poured my coffee.
“In a minute,” my father said as he set his coffee cup down. Resting his hands on the edge of the granite island, he looked at each of us one by one. “Before you all take off, I want to address this matter of attacks and threats that have occurred over the course of the last week.”
I sighed, bracing myself for another rundown of the incidents that had popped up. This wasn’t the first time we’d be discussing it, but it seemed that my father had talked to my brothers at different times. We would be speaking about it collectively now, and I hated the annoyance of this feeling I couldn’t shake. That this was the calm before the storm. Life was a constant storm among Mafia families, but unlike anything else we’d faced, I couldn’t tell who was causing this storm.
Without anything to add, I stood back and listened as the others spoke. When my father had a direct plan for me to act on, he would tell me what it was and I wouldn’t waste time to start on it.
“And what the fuck were you talking to Katerina last night for?” Father demanded, eying Nik sternly.
I looked at him, unsurprised that he seemed unruffled to be put on the spot like that. No one was as cool and chill as my brother. His mask was enviable, but I was curious what he’d say.
“Just talking,” he replied with a shrug.
“No. You weren’t just talking,” Father snapped.
Again, Nik shrugged. “We were.”
“About what?” Father demanded.
“Nothing much. Stupid little shit that women care about.” He smiled at our grandmother, who didn’t seem impressed.
“Stupid little shit?” Father shook his head. “No. There is no ‘stupid little shit’ to discuss with our potential enemies. No one can confirm who’s trying to mess with us, whether it’s the Kozlovs or the Romanos,” he said, referencing the former Bratva family we used to get along with and the Italian Mafia family we’d never seen eye to eye with.
“Perhaps it’s better to stay away from Katerina until we can determine whether Anton’s the one behind this trouble,” I advised. I wasn’t in charge. Our father called the shots, but he held just as much dislike as I did for Anton Kozlov, Katerina’s uncle and the current head of their family.
Nik huffed. “Relax.” Once more, he shrugged.
“Relax?” Damon asked with a quirk of his brow. “Why are you so defensive of her?”
“Defensive of Katerina?” Nik smiled at him, mocking him. “I’m not. There’s nothing going on between us. We were merely speaking at the wedding because we know each other. She was whining about something I supposedly said to her years ago. It’s nothing.”
Nothing? No, I wasn’t buying that line. He was telling us to drop it too many times for me to believe him. He was trying too hard to shut down this topic for it to be nothing.
“Were you bullshitting with her to get her to lower her guard?” I guessed. He was calculating like that, and it was how he operated as a spy so well.
“What?” He scowled at me.
“Are you keeping your attention on Katerina as a way to spy on the Kozlovs?” I asked.
Father smiled, nodding, as if that would appease him.
Nik lowered his head and sighed as he shook it. “Maxim, relax.”
“That’s not an answer,” I replied.
“I know what I’m doing,” he said instead, hedging again.
“You might think you do,” Grandmother said, speaking up for the first time since she’d joined us for this unofficial family meeting. She tossed the folders onto the counter, letting them spread. “But I doubt that any of you realize what else you’re doing.” Picking up one folder, she rifled through the contents.
I stood next to her, seeing from this distance that the papers in this folder made up a dossier on a Mafia princess.
“You—all four of you—are neglecting your duty to bring an heir into the family,” she stated regally.
“Not this again,” I groaned.
“Yes. This again. I know you’re all stalling and dragging your feet on this, but from a tactical standpoint, you are weakening the Ivanov name.” She set the folder down and crossed her arms. “I don’t care if you’re not ready to settle down. I wasn’t when I was arranged to your grandfather. Grigory, you weren’t inclined to take a wife when you met Beatrice. But that doesn’t matter. Without any planning for the next generation, you are weakening the family line. We have no child, no offspring, no one to plan the future upon, and that does weaken us.”
Father sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
“I saw all those families last night at the wedding. And I could see how strategic they were, thinking ahead, to have a family to pass their legacy on to. They were all ahead of the game, waiting on children to be born so they could grow and get stronger.”
I glanced at my brothers, finding them rolling their eyes just like I wanted to.
“All of our enemies are smart to think of the next generation and build theirs up.” She flung a hand up before slapping it on her arm over her stomach. “And none of you can?”
“You’re the oldest,” Saul said with a shit-eating grin as he looked at me. “What are you waiting for?”
I shot him a glare, warning him not to tease me any further.
“Yeah, you’re the oldest of us,” Nik said, seeming eager for a chance to give me hell and put the pressure on me.
“I’m aware,” I bit out.
Damon faced our father. “Can’t you just arrange for him to take a wife and be done with it?”
I shoved his shoulder, not really moving him much. “No. No one is going to be arranged for me.” If I had to take a wife who’d be likely to con me and betray the family, I wanted to pick her out. I would hold on to that control.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Grandmother said. “Marriages are arranged all the time—”
“No,” Father growled. “Enough of this. There’ll be time later to deal with finding you all decent matches.” With that final word, he shook his head and turned to stalk out of the room, as if the idea of marriages or finding women turned him off from finishing this conversation at all. That was how badly he’d been betrayed by my mother.
“Maxim,” Grandmother said once he was out of the room, “you could—”
“Later,” I replied hotly. I respected her and loved her, but for fuck’s sake, it was as though being a guest at a wedding had given her a dose of wedding fever.
I rolled my eyes as I caught Saul and Nik smirking at me, barely holding in their laughter at this hot seat I was in as the eldest.
Hell no.
“I understand we’ll need heirs someday,” I said dryly. We all knew that. Someone would need to be waiting as the next generation to carry on our legacy and manage our power and wealth. “But not yet. Not yet for me.”
Grandmother stared me down, but I wouldn’t bend.
What’s the fucking rush?
“I’ll have time to deal with that later.”
She tipped her chin up and sighed. “I’m not convinced you will.”
It wasn’t a matter of whether I wanted to or not. Breeding a woman to get the next heir was part of my duty, and I would see to it—one day.
Just not today.
“There’s no rush to expand our family, Grandmother.” I shrugged, taking my leave and planning to shove the idea of finding a wife out of my mind for as long as I could.
