“Don’t be such faggots and get your asses to work,” Uncle Stepan would yell at them when the boys tired out and wanted to play for a change. “Faggot” had been a synonym of “weakling” for as long as Vlad could remember. None of the boys had known what exactly the word originally meant, but they all knew they didn’t want to be faggots. When the boys complained about being cold or hungry, Uncle Stepan would bark at them to stop being little faggots and start being real men. Faggots weren’t real men as far as Uncle Stepan was concerned, and the boys had never questioned their uncle’s authority or knowledge.
When Vlad turned eleven, the word got another meaning.
There was a new family in the village, something almost unheard of. The newcomers had moved from Moscow and they had a teenage boy several years older than Vlad. The boy’s name was Philip and he was unlike any other boy Vlad had seen in his life: soft-skinned, doe-eyed, and pretty useless at farming; or at anything, for that matter. And yet, Vlad couldn’t quite bring himself to despise him. The boy was nice. He had a nice smile and a lot of funny stories to tell. Vlad liked watching him. That was how one day he caught Philip kissing Sergei, another boy from their village. Vlad was utterly flabbergasted. Having lived in a very sheltered, old-fashioned village all his life, Vlad hadn’t even known boys could kiss boys. Confused, he went to his uncle and asked him about it.
The fallout was nothing short of explosive.
Vlad got the whipping of his life for asking “such a stupid, freaky question.” Philip and his family hastily left the village the same night. Sergei, the boy Philip had kissed, was beaten to death by his own father.
“Serves that faggot right,” Uncle Stepan had said with grim approval. “Abominations, all of them. They shouldn’t be allowed to mix with normal people.”
Vlad’s brothers had murmured their assent while an eleven-year-old Vlad just sat there, feeling sick to his stomach. Was Sergei’s death his fault for telling his uncle about what he’d seen? He had known Sergei. The boy had been strong and capable and didn’t seem like an abomination or a weakling. Or had he been corrupted by Philip? Was it really contagious?
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, kid,” Uncle Stepan said gruffly, patting Vlad on the head. “Those freaks are nothing like you and your brothers. They’re a disgrace to men and should be hunted down and killed like rabid dogs so they don’t spread their disease.”
More than twenty years later, as Vlad walked out of the hotel in which he’d fucked another man’s mouth, he thought of his uncle’s words and felt nausea roll in his stomach. No, he was no longer a sheltered eleven-year-old. He knew homosexuality wasn’t actually a disease. His uncle was long dead, and by now Vlad knew Uncle Stepan’s hate for gay men had been…rather radical. But it was impossible to completely eradicate everything he had been raised to believe.
He wasn’t a faggot. He was normal.
What had happened back at the hotel was a fluke; it would never happen again.
Never.
Chapter 2
Five months later
The phone call came while Vlad was lounging in front of the TV with a beer in hand. Chelsea had just scored against Liverpool, to Vlad’s annoyance and disappointment. He had put a bet on Liverpool, but the goddamn Gabriel DuVal just had to score and ruin it.
His phone went off again and Vlad looked blearily at the caller ID, squinting at it to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.
They weren’t. It really was Roman Demidov, his former boss, and one ungrateful son of a bitch—the man Vlad had respected and foolishly considered a friend of sorts before Roman had fired him over nothing five months ago. Fine, maybe not nothing, Vlad conceded grudgingly, but still. Weren’t fifteen years of loyalty worth more than the fucktoy Roman had been obsessed with?
Vlad stared at his phone before sighing and swiping the screen to answer the call. He didn’t bother with small talk and said, “I didn’t think I’d hear from you again after you told me to fuck off and never come back.” Or something along those lines. Vlad didn’t remember all that well because he had been too busy being choked by Roman, but the gist of the message had been pretty clear. Frankly, he had been lucky to leave with his life. Roman could be absolutely ruthless when he was angry and Vlad had known better than to defend himself.
“The circumstances have changed,” Roman said. “Have you found another job?”
“You know I haven’t,” Vlad said, his lips twisting. He had no delusions: Roman wouldn’t be calling if he hadn’t thoroughly checked to make sure that Vlad hadn’t accepted one of the numerous jobs he had been offered by Roman’s enemies.