Page 93 of Cruel Kiss

Grigor is already there when I arrive. So is Yuri. Sergei comes in a minute later, shaking off his coat even though it isn't raining. Semyon and Dima trail in after.

Semyon sits like a man with one foot already out the door. He takes the chair nearest the exit and he keeps his hands where I can't see them, down in his lap. He won't hold my eyes for longer than a second at a stretch.

Dima is worse. He keeps looking at Semyon, like he's waiting to see what Semyon does before he decides what he does.

Their loyalty is wavering. I can tell.

"Alright," I say. "Talk to me."

Grigor does the talking. He's the oldest, and he's earned the right to be blunt.

"Lev's people went quiet," he says. "Been that way for three days now. The ones who were buying drinks, making promises, being seen everywhere with everybody? All of them, gone to ground. Happened all in the same afternoon, too, like somebody flipped a switch."

My guess is that's exactly what happened. Lev is changing strategies.

"Quiet is good," Sergei offers.

"Wrong. It's simply what happens before a man draws his gun," Grigor says. "A man talks when he's still trying to convince you. He goes quiet when the deciding's done, and all that's left is the doing."

Nobody argues with that, because nobody can.

"Semyon," I say. "You've been staring at that door since you sat down. Are you expecting somebody, or is the exit just prettier than my face today?"

Semyon's jaw grinds. "I've got a family, Ronan."

"Yeah?" I snarl violently. "Well, so do I."

"You got a woman and two kids that aren't even yours," he spits out. He finally looks at me. "Mine are blood. And the word out on the street is that anybody standing next to you when this breaks doesn't get to keep theirs. So yeah. I got somewhere to be. I got a whole lot of somewheres to be, all of a sudden."

I don't reach across the table and put his face into it, which is what my father would've done. Even though some old, dead part of me would love nothing more than to do exactly that.

Because Lev is out there deciding things, yes.

But guess what?

I'm deciding things, too.

What kind of man I want to be.

What kind of world I want to build.

What kind of example I want to set.

What kind of life I want to lead.

"Then go," I say simply.

He does a double-take. "What?"

"You heard me. Go. There's no lock on that chair. If you've already gone in your head, then take the rest of yourself with it and quit warming a seat I could give to somebody with a spine."I let my eyes pass to Dima. "That goes for you, too. Both of you. If Lev's the horse you want to ride, then ride it. I hope he feeds you better than he lies to you. I won't chase you, beg you, or put your wives in the ground for doing what you think is best. That's the difference between me and Igor, and between me and Lev. So if you can't tell which of the three of us is the better deal, then honestly, you were never sharp enough to be worth keeping."

Judging by their faces, I might as well have fired a gun indoors.

Semyon doesn't get up. That's something. But he doesn't relax, either. He just sits there with his hands in his lap, half in and half out. I know exactly what he is now. He's a man waiting to see how it ends before he picks. There are a lot of those. There always are. They're no good to me.

Then, speaking of men who are less and less certain, the bell over the door jingles.

And Navi comes in.