Page 10 of The Pakhan’s Heir

“What?”

“Your best man. You need one if you’re getting married,” Kostya says.

“I don’t know. Hadn’t thought about it. Don’t really care.” I turn to them and point my finger at them. “Eenie, Meanie, Miney, Mo.” My finger stops on Rikki. “Rikki, you got it.”

“That is hurtful,” Kostya says.

“Nothing to be hurt about. Not a real marriage,” I remind them. I straighten my jacket once more. “Hey, Kostya, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about Nona Sokolov, would you?”

“Like what?”

I shrug. “Anything. What she looks like, what she’s into. I kind of need tonight to go smoothly since I’m going in blind.”

He sighs and says, “Word on the street is that she’s a smoke show, but she’s young.”

My father did hint at that. “How young are we talking?”

“Around Yeva’s age.”

I shake my head distastefully. “That’s just great.”

“Hey, that’s not so bad, you know. She’s the daughter of a Pakhan and you know we all had to grow up fast to survive. She’s probably just your speed.”

“She'd better be,” I say, a bitter tone coming out. “You know, the toughest thing about dating is finding a woman who can hold my interest. Or at least one who can keep up with me in the bedroom.”

He shrugs. “I mean, I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s a political marriage. You fuck her once to consummate the thing and then you never have to do it again. At least not with her, anyway.”

I scoff. “Anything else I ought to know about her?”

Kostya thinks for a minute. “Well, she was going to college out of state. Guess that’s not happening anymore. Not that it was going anywhere. She was about three years in and she hadn’t declared a major.”

I pause. “Three years in… and she’s Yeva’s age? Yeva’s already in graduate school.”

“She took a couple of gap years after high school,” Kostya says.

I don’t like the sound of this. She sounds like a flake at best, a bimbo at worst. Neither bodes well for a companion. Kostya sees the look on my face and walks up to me, pats me on the shoulder.

“Maybe she’s a party girl. Could be a great lay.”

I scoff but say nothing to that.

“That should be interesting when you become Pakhan,” Rikki says. “Sounds like the kind of marriage our grandparents had.”

He’s not wrong. My grandfather married a woman from his village. She was young and pretty and as dumb as a box of hair. My father used to tell us that if my grandfather had ever left her alone in their backyard, she’d never find her way back to the house.

“Just let her have a brain in her head,” I say. “The last thing I want is to lead this woman around like a fucking dog.”

“At least you know she can read.” Rikki chuckled. “She made it to college.”

I roll my eyes. In my mind, I’m picturing some skinny party girl who spends all her time at frat parties feeling up, making out with jocks and doing keg stands. I’ll probably have to spend my days worrying about her fucking my brothers if I don’t watch her closely.

“It’ll be fine,” Kostya says. “You’re the future of this brotherhood and as such, you will make this work. You always do.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and look at the time. “I gotta get going or I’m going to be late,” I say. “Hang out here for a couple of hours until I get back? I’m pretty sure I’m gonna need a drink and I’d rather not do it alone.”

“We’ll be here,” Rikki says. “Good luck.”

It’s a good night for an intimate dinner date. A bad night for a blind date when meeting your future wife.