Page 91 of Jump on Three

“Ah, yeah. Guess I have to go.” I pecked her nose. “And you are late for Rhys.”

She sighed. “Oh yes. Right. I’d purged him from my mind.”

I laughed, no doubt the last one until I saw her next. “Goodbye, Evelyn.”

I held my hand up.

“Goodbye, Ivan.”

She smacked my palm with all her might. “Say hi to Marco for me. I miss him.”

“I’m not telling him that.”

Her nose crinkled.

Messing with me again.

Adorable.

Marco stormed out of his office. His shoulder slamming into mine didn’t slow him down at all.

“All right?” I called.

He flicked a hand up. “Fuck that asshole.”

Then he disappeared into the Friday night crowd.

My father had arrived an hour ago and was already wreaking havoc. He’d locked himself in with Marco right away, barely offering me a nod as he closed the door. I hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but considering I hadn’t seen him since Christmas two months ago, I had expected something.

Stupid of me.

I walked into Marco’s office, unsurprised to see my father had made himself at home behind Marco’s desk. While I was certain that had bothered Marco, I really doubted he’d let it get under his skin. My father must have been in fine form to have rattled him in such a way.

“Ah, Vanya, you are here at last.”

Leonid Sokolov was a massive, ugly man. I got my height and the volume of my voice from him, but that was all I would claim. His skin was pockmarked. His nose red from broken capillaries. And if he stopped slicking his thinning hair back—a style he hadn’t changed since he was my age—he’d look younger.

Despite his lack of good looks, he was always dressed in the finest tailoring. His clothes were not designer but bespoke, custom made for him. He wore diamonds on his fingers and around his wrist.

“Hello, Papa. Good flight?”

He tapped his cigar on a mug, giving me a long once-over. Marco must have been pissed about this transgression. Not only was smoking indoors illegal in California, my father was doing it in Marco’s office. I could have guessed Marco had taken it as a show of disrespect, which it probably was.

Leonid respected almost no one, my mother being the only exception. On occasion, he threw some respect at my older siblings, but it couldn’t be counted on.

He grunted. “Too long a flight to end it sitting in this shithole.”

I took the chair on the other side of the desk. “Lyot is the most exclusive club in LA.”

“Hmmm. That says something about LA, doesn’t it? This place would be little more than a dive bar in Moscow.”

That was a fucking exaggeration, and he knew it. But Leonid lived in his oligarch bubble—if it wasn’t gold, it might as well have been trash on the street.

“Is this what you were saying to Marco?” I asked.

“Hmph. That guy seems to have forgotten how he’s able to have this club at all. Without me, he’d still be working at an even bigger shithole without a tenth of the profit. But he is not grateful. He talks of expanding, of opening another Lyot in Las Vegas, hiring more staff, spending more of my fucking money.”

He shook his head as he puffed on his cigar. “Ungrateful, that guy. I’m not going to consider throwing more money his way until he changes his attitude. He has to remember to whom he owes all this.”