The little girl pouts, but doesn’t argue.
Lazar has a Mediterranean look about him, like he spends a lot of time in Greece. Very tall, very tan—almost ludicrously tan. And his white linen shirt highlights this. His hair is blondish. Dyed. Or maybe it’s truly sun-bleached, but somehow, I doubt it.
Lazar offers me his hand.
I stare at it for a moment. Normally, Maart would run interference for me in this type of situation, but he’s still back near the door with Rainer and Evard.
I look back up, meet his gaze and narrow my eyes.
Lazar laughs. “Sick. Heart.” He says the words in two separate sentences, the way they are supposed to be said when spoken out loud, but something about it rubs me the wrong way. So when he takes a step forward and claps me on the shoulder—
Well, that’s it.
The next thing I know my knuckles are stinging, his nose is bloody, and several of the soulless mercenaries are pulling me off him and holding me by the arms.
Lazar wipes his hand across his upper lip as the mercs push me away. But then his tongue darts out to taste the blood and he chuckles. “Boy,” he says, meaning me—I am ‘the boy’—“you turned out well.” His accent isn’t thick, but it’s there.
My father does not apologize. But he does shoot me a look. “Go clean up, Cort. Grab a drink, for fuck’s sake. Calm down a little. The fight won’t start for seven more hours.”
“I have brought tribute.” Lazar’s teeth are stained with blood when he smiles at me. “It’s upstairs in the bar. You may have it early, boy. If you are man enough to take it.”
I shoot a dangerous, sideways glance at Lazar and find him smirking at me.
I suddenly want to kill this man. Not sure why. Not sure I need a reason why. I just want to kill this man.
My father spins me around, points his finger in my face. “Do not drink it, Cort. Do you hear me? Do not.” His eyes shoot to Maart. “Give him a whiskey.”
“Why not?” Lazar is laughing. I really hate that laugh. “Pavo will be on the Lectra when he fights. It’s only fair for your boy here.”
“You will not.” My father is deadly fucking serious as he looks me in the eyes. “Do you understand me, Cort?”
I sneer at him and he smiles. Then he squeezes my shoulder again and leans in. “Don’t look at me that way. It’s my job to keep you in line tonight. It’s an important night for you as well as me. Tonight, we are a team and we don’t want anything to go wrong.”
Tonight, we are a team. Interesting way to put it.
“Yes,” Lazar says. Fuck. Why can’t that man just shut up? Every time I hear his voice, I get the urge to throttle him. “The stakes are high tonight.”
“Not now, Lazar,” my father cautions him.
“Why not now? Surely your son would like to know what he’s fighting for?”
I know what I’m fighting for. It was explained to me in the contract. Keeping our family’s controlling interest in this ship.
It doesn’t sound like much, but this is no ordinary ship. A heavy-lift construction vessel, it’s a floating city—and presently the only one of its size. When it’s in international waters—and it almost always is—it’s practically a nation state. Impervious to the laws of others. Not even the Americans can stop the business we do on this ship.
And my father owns most of it. Not all of it—the network would never allow one man to hold that much power. But most of it is practically the same thing.
It generates an obscene amount of legitimate money each year installing topsides onto oil rig substructures. Tens of billions of dollars. But the illegitimate money is just as precious.
These fights, for instance. This night is just one of dozens each year. But they host more than fights on this ship.
“We will talk about this later.”
I nod at my father. I don’t care about the prize. The winning lost its shine more than a decade ago now. I fight because they make me.
I turn and walk towards the door. The mercenaries open it and I slip through first, then Maart, then Rainer and Evard in the rear.
“We’re going this way,” Maart says, heading down.
But I go up.
“Guess we’re not.” Rainer laughs.
“Wait here,” Maart orders them. Then he races up the steps ahead of me. “Cort.” He pauses in front of the door. “You do not want that bottle. Do you understand me?”
I push him out of the way, but he’s not afraid of me and pushes me right back.
I will hit him. Any fucking time I want. But I’m not going to kill him and Maart is no pussy. He will retaliate and he and I are well enough matched that I will probably come out ahead, but just barely.