Kingmakers, Graduation

9. Sabrina

9

SAbrINA

I t takes several more attempts for Adrik and me to actually put our clothes on. We fuck again in the shower, and once more on the bed, so ineffective at making ourselves presentable that it’s almost dinner time before we’re fit to leave the hotel.

We each buy a fresh outfit at the shops along Stradun, Old Town’s main street.

Adrik is now wearing a loose linen shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, with his same battered jeans. The shirt should make him look casual and summery, but it doesn’t.

Adrik’s features—like the markings on certain husky dogs—always seem to be scowling. His narrow blue eyes and thick black brows are ferocious, his body language so pugnacious that he could never resemble anything as benign as a tourist.

His charm can be disarming, but the moment he’s not smiling at me, or turning me into putty with those dangerously talented hands of his, I remember that he’s Bratva and that he ran train at Kingmakers long before any of my cousins showed up. There’s a ferocity to him, an edge of viciousness I like.

I’m also wearing cosplay of a kind—a twelve-dollar sundress bought from a kiosk run by a little old lady whose face was as wrinkled as a paper bag from long hours spent squinting into the Mediterranean sunshine. The dress is white eyelet lace, ruffled at the skirt and shoulders, which makes me look as sweet as a daisy. Underneath, I’m still poison ivy.

I sit across from Adrik at a café table overlooking St. Saviour’s Church. The waiter has brought each of us a glass of the local plum brandy, and I’m about to order a shit-ton of food, ‘cause I burned a lot of calories with all this marathon fucking.

“So,” I say, fixing Adrik with a cool stare. “When are you going to tell me why you’re really here?”

If I’ve surprised Adrik, he gives no sign of it. He simply smiles, lifting his brandy and swirling it gently so the amber liquid rotates lazily within the glass.

“Why do you think?” he asks.

I consider the options.

At first I assumed he was here to fuck me, but he’s put in too much effort.

I don’t believe in anything as stupid as love at first sight, and even if I did, the Bratva aren’t romantic.

Which leaves only one possibility, as surprising as I find it …

“You want me to join you in Moscow,” I say .

Adrik smiles, pleased that I understood so quickly. “That’s right.”

“Why?”

“I see something in you.”

“What?”

“Talent,” he says simply. “I want you with me. I want the best by my side.”

My face feels hot, the brandy already going to straight to my head. It’s been a long time since I devoured those pastries this morning. My stomach is empty, my body wrung out.

“So this is a job interview.”

Adrik shrugs, a heavy raise and drop of his shoulders. “If that’s how you want to look at it.”

I poke my fingertip through the holes in my lace skirt. “I don’t need a job.”

“Everyone needs a job.”

“I’m still in school. I’ve got three more years at Kingmakers.”

We’re interrupted by the waiter, who deposits a basket of fresh-baked flatbread directly between us.

Adrik and I reach for the bread at the same time, our knuckles brushing together with a static spark. Every time he touches me, even as casually as this, it upsets my heart rate.

I take an enormous bite out of the bread, chewing hard.

Adrik holds his in his hand, eyes fixed on my face .

“In three years’ time, I’ll own half of Moscow. The time to get in is on the ground floor. Like a start-up.” He smiles, enjoying his comparison. “That’s the American dream, isn’t it? It’s no good buying Apple stock now—you want to be Jobs and Wozniak, building circuit boards in a garage.”

I swallow my mouthful, only half-chewed. The bread scrapes its way down my throat.

“I don’t need to work in a garage. I’m an heir, in case you forgot. I’ve got an empire waiting for me, already built.”

“Sure,” Adrik says carelessly. “If you want to be a realtor.”

I’d like to throw my drink in his face. He’s being deliberately insulting, trying to goad me.

That’s what he wants—to make me lose my temper.

So I keep an iron grip on my calm.

“I think you know better than that.”

Adrik sets his bread on his plate and leans forward, eyes burning into mine.

“I know exactly what your father is up to. He bought dozens of distressed retail spaces in the so-called ‘Magnificent Mile’ in the aftermath of the pandemic. Now he’s buying up property along the 1-80 and 1-55 corridors, building warehouses, filling the need for supply-chain distribution. In another five years, he’ll be the single largest holder of commercial real estate in all of Chicago.”

My mouth is open, no words coming out. Adrik is describing my father’s operations as accurately as I could myself .

“Your uncle Callum is gearing up for another run at the governor’s mansion, Dante lives in Paris with his wife and children, and your uncle Sebastian handles the less-legal side of the Gallo empire.” Adrik ticks off my relatives on his fingers. “Your younger brother is only sixteen, and technically not your father’s heir, but by all accounts, he’s more deeply involved in the family business than you’ve ever been.”

Now my face is flaming, because that’s also true—Damien may appear quiet and reserved, but he has a brilliant criminal mind. He’s been running my father’s books since his twelfth birthday. They spend hours together analyzing potential acquisitions, running the numbers on the properties for which my father negotiates with ruthless aggression.

I’m always invited to these meetings but they don’t interest me the same way they do Damien.

Truth be told, I’d rather work with Uncle Seb. But even there, the Gallos have been divesting our most egregious illegal activities. Each year that passes we clean up our books, a larger percentage of our income coming from legitimate sources.

“What’s your point?” I snap.

“My point is this,” Adrik says patiently, “I don’t think you want to be Nero’s heir. I think you want to be a fucking gangster. You don’t want to inherit an empire—you want to build one.”

I lift my brandy, taking several swift swallows.

Even though the sun is sinking, the stone walls of Old Town still reflect the heat of the day. The air is still and muggy, no breeze off the ocean.

I’m hot and flustered. I feel cornered by Adrik, attacked by him .

But also … flattered.

He came a long way to make this pitch. He pulled out all the stops. It feels good to be courted—professionally, not just sexually.

I set down my glass.

“If I was going to build an empire, it would be for me, not you.”

“No one builds an empire alone,” Adrik says. “Not even you or me.”

I’m not exactly a team player—I barely get along with my own family.

They think they know my strengths and weaknesses better than I do. They think I need their caution and their advice.

I don’t.

I’m the smartest of any of them, not just some pretty face, not just some fucking kid.

Adrik met me once, and he saw me for what I am: valuable.

He came to scout me, like a VP of the Cubs who just saw a kid with a ninety-eight mile per hour fastball.

“I don’t know shit about Russia,” I say. “I’ve never even been there.”

“So come visit.”

I pick up my drink, taking a long, slow sip.

“I’ll think about it.”

Adrik drives me to the airport in Barcelona, a journey that takes us three days in the open-top Alfa Romeo, stopping in Piran to walk the se a wall, in Milan to shop in the Piazza del Duomo, and in Monaco to bet the last of our cash on black.

I’ve never spent so much uninterrupted time with someone. Usually, by the end of a date, no matter how well it went, I heave a sigh of relief when I’m alone again, free to eat what I like, read what I like, and wander through my own thoughts without interruption.

Even with Ilsa, spending too much time together was sure to end in an argument. Every one of our fights occurred because I was bored and started acting like a jackass, teasing her about things she takes too seriously, or challenging her in a way I knew was sure to wind her up. Or just flirting right in front of her.

Adrik has a thick skin. It’s hard to offend him. He has a level of confidence impervious to minor slights like me turning my head to get a better look at a stunning redhead sauntering by.

“You want to go talk to her?” he inquires without a hint of jealousy.

“Maybe,” I say. “I love gingers.”

“I know,” he laughs. “I’ve met Nix. I don’t think you offered to room with her out of the goodness of your heart.”

“I don’t perv on my roommates,” I inform him. “I only watched her change at most three or four times. Maybe five. But not more than six.”

Adrik chuckles. “If we’re not drawn to beauty, then why have eyes?”

“My thoughts exactly. Good food is for eating, fast cars are for driving, and beautiful women deserve to be ravished.”

“Life is for living,” Adrik concurs. “Take all you can get while there’s breath in your lungs. ”

We’re in agreement on this topic, and many others.

The only point on which we differ is whether I should join my fate to Adrik’s for the foreseeable future.

He hasn’t brought it up again since our last dinner in Dubrovnik. Yet I know his offer is on both our minds, all the time.

Nix isn’t my roommate anymore. She left Kingmakers to move to Oregon, to be with Adrik’s cousin Rafe.

Adrik wants me to do the same: abandon my schooling and my ambitions in favor of his.

Everything within me rebels against the idea.

And yet, when he drops me off at the Barcelona airport, and I turn to see him standing by the Alfa, arms crossed over his chest, dark hair blowing in the breeze … for the first time, there’s no relief in the feeling of being alone again.