Kingmakers, Graduation

16. Adrik

16

ADRIK

S abrina’s voice is tight as she orders, “Pull over here.”

It only takes a glance for me to understand what’s happening. In the glare of our headlights I see a spare figure dressed all in black, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the boot of a Hellcat.

We pull up behind him. He stands and ambles toward us, moving slowly, gingerly—old scars, old injuries. His body is as battered as the boots on his feet, his face much the same. Still, you can see the traces of a powerful beauty. Like an aged rockstar, he retains a dark glamour that time can’t erase.

Sabrina steps from the car, her sneakers crunching across gravel. I exit as well, unwilling to lurk in the driver’s seat.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hello, Sabrina. ”

I would give a great deal to be able to smooth down Sabrina’s hair without him noticing, or re-button her shirt the right way.

His eyes pass over the evidence of what I’ve done to his daughter, then fix on my face.

It seems feeble to introduce myself—if Nero is here, he already knows who I am.

Instead, I nod my head toward the Hellcat, its engine long cooled, its black body gleaming in the night.

“Nice car.”

Nero says, “Would you like a drive in it?”

I can feel Sabrina’s tension. If I look at her, she might shake her head.

Nothing will prevent me from accepting the invitation. I’m no coward.

“Sure.”

“Wait in the Mustang,” Nero orders his daughter.

He wants to keep this confrontation out here on the road, away from Ivan’s property.

Sabrina opens her mouth to give a fiery retort. It’s me who shoots her a look, asking her for once in her life not to argue.

“We’ll be back in a minute,” I say.

I hope that’s true.

I slip in the passenger seat of Nero’s car, leaving the seatbelt unbuckled. I don’t want to be restrained, not on this ride .

Nero climbs in behind the wheel—slower, stiffer. His face gives no hint of pain but he must feel it, every day.

He pulls away from the curb smoothly, one hand on the wheel. He drives like a professional, with a precision that can only be obtained by years of focused practice.

In the dark and silent car, I ponder how to begin this conversation. Nero’s presence means he already knows some of what is passing between me and Sabrina. Maybe all of it. I don’t know what she’s told him, or what he’s discovered.

Nero suffers no such hesitation. He’s as quick as his daughter.

He says, “Why do they call you the Legend?”

Sabrina told me the Gallos love to play chess. I suppose we could call this the King’s Gambit—Nero offers a benign, even generous opening. If I take it, he’s sure to spring a trap.

I try to deflect.

“It’s just an old nickname from school. We were the first class to win three years of the Quartum Bellum . I doubt anyone would use it anymore—not since your nephew won all four.”

People absolutely still say it, but I’m downplaying what now sounds ridiculous and immature in the small space of the car, coming out of the mouth of the man known as the Moriarty of Chicago.

Hoping to disarm him, I end with a statement, not a question, volleying the conversation back at him.

Nero is far from disarmed.

In a silky tone of politeness he says, “That’s right, I forgot that you knew Leo. Well enough that you convinced him and my daughter to leave school in the middle of the night and attack an armed fortress of Malina.”

Fuck me.

Nero knows everything. And he’s not pleased.

I appeal to common ground. “Leo and Sabrina were never supposed to be a part of that. I’m sure you can understand how far I would go to bring a family member home, and how impossible it is to prevent your daughter doing anything she’s set her mind to.”

The ties of family loyalty are as powerful to the Gallos as they are to the Petrovs. And Nero knows Sabrina better than I do, for better or worse.

Nero turns into the canyon, a drive I would hesitate to take at night, especially with no reduction in speed. He’s accelerating, the car flying down the dark and winding road cut deep through the mountain peaks.

“I understand,” he says, his voice cool and rational. “But understand me now—you are a gravitational pull toward danger and chaos, and you are pulling on my daughter. Starting with the night she met you. In fact, I’ll wager that you’ve already planted the idea of her coming to Russia once she’s finished school.”

Nero sees inside my head. He has the right idea, wrong timeline. I haven’t planted a seed—I’ve grown a tree. Sabrina wants to come, I know she does. But Nero’s influence is powerful—he’s here to chop that tree to the ground.

As I remain silent, the speedometer creeps up—eighty-five, then ninety. There’s no jerk of the wheels under Nero’s steady hand, and no hint of emotion on his face .

In Russia we have a saying: In the still water, the devil dwells. I’ve never met a man with water stiller than this. Nero is ice-cold, driving a hundred miles per hour through the canyon. His breath is unchanging. No pulse in his throat. He is not afraid—not of me, or the car, or the grim reaper sitting in the backseat with his scythe hanging over our heads.

I want to stay as calm as him—I want it desperately, but heat rises up my neck, sweat prickling my palms.

I blurt out, “Russia is no different from Chicago if you’re living the life we live.”

For the first time I see anger on his face. A darkness that suffuses his features like ink in water, obscuring all but the words he throws at me like poisoned darts.

“You wear no sheep’s clothing with me. You think I don’t know the Bratva? I know you very well.”

The Gallos’ dealings with my countrymen were familiar to me before Sabrina relayed any part of it. Nero stole the Winter Diamond, the prize of the Bratva—igniting a firestorm that almost burned the Gallos to the ground.

He hisses, “You gave us your word. You signed a contract with my father. Then you shot him in the face and put seven bullets in my back that were aimed at my wife. If your people had their way, Sabrina wouldn’t exist.”

I can’t deny the betrayal of the blood oath, a crime even the Bratva blush to remember. Alexei Yenin signed his print in blood, then launched a massacre at the wedding of his own daughter and Sebastian Gallo .

All I can say in defense is, “That wasn’t me, and that wasn’t my family.”

“No?” Nero sneers. “Then show me your shoulders.”

I don’t hesitate. I wrench down the shoulder of my shirt, baring nothing but flesh.

Instead, I point at the wolf on my arm. “I wear my own brand. Mine and no other. I have no quarrel with the Gallos.” With a flash of teeth, I add, ”I’d like to keep it that way.”

I won’t be intimidated by Nero.

He looks at the wolf, rapid thought flickering behind those dark eyes. He resembles his daughter so strongly that I feel the strangest mix of connection and confusion. Nero stole the diamond—I want to steal the thing most precious to him.

“I would never hurt Sabrina,” I tell him. “I’d do anything to keep her safe.”

“Anything? I’m sure you think so …”

The speedometer is up to 120. We’re racing down a dark road meant for less than half that speed. Each curve presents us with a sheer rock face, rushing toward us at sickening pace.

Eyes as black as that stone, Nero says, “I would drive us into a wall this moment before I would risk you hurting her.”

I don’t think he’s bluffing. Like father, like daughter—Nero will take this way past the line. He’ll risk anything to extort a promise from me.

I won’t be robbed—not of Sabrina, and not of my word. He’ll have to pry her from my cold dead hands .

My voice is as steady as his. “I’m not the one taking your daughter from you. Sabrina won’t be caged. She’ll bite her own arm off before she’ll let either of us tell her what to do.”

I see him flinch—just a twitch of his thumb on the wheel, but the clear sign that my arrow hit home.

Slowly, incrementally, the speedometer sinks. We’re still flying down the road, but no longer hurtling to our deaths.

Nero’s eyes stayed fixed on the road, his final threat spoken more to himself than to me: “We’ll see about that.”