“Where the fuck is ‘slot F’?” I grumble as I dig through the pile of pieces on the floor. One wooden dowel and a slab sit closest, but neither of them matches the drawing in the instructions. Painting the wall pink was the easy part.
The driveway alarm on my phone dings. Swiping to bring up the camera, a blacked out Range Rover pulls into view.
I’m just about ready to jump up and rush to the door when I see Nikolai step out of the driver’s side, and Alexei from the passenger.
Pushing the mic button on my screen, I can talk to them through the speaker. “I need help!”
Frustrated, I toss my cell aside and pick up the diagram again.
A loud slam reverberates through my house as they rush in.
Nikolai carries a rifle, and Alexei two ivory-gripped pistols. Both have wild eyes and are panting, swinging their barrels around the room.
“What the hell, Jax?” Nikolai drops the end of his gun to point at the floor, his blue eyes narrowing.
Helplessly, I hold up the creased paper and shrug my shoulders. “I can’t figure this shit out. I know you have a kid, so thought you would know.”
Alexei slides his Colts into the empty holsters under his arm. “You called us here for furniture?” He rolls his ‘r’ in his thick accent. Shaking his head, he steps over to the kitchen and digs through my cabinets until he finds a bottle of vodka.
“Let’s hope we never have to build children things for you, Alexei,” Nikolai grumbles as he tosses his AK on the couch. “Fine, Jax. We will prepare your house for your malysh.” His thick legs fold under him and he snatches the directions out of my hand.
Alexei slumps into an overstuffed chair across from us with the bottle propped on his thigh. “This is so much trouble. Now, you’ll be like Niki. Boring.” He lifts the liquor and takes a long swallow.
“I think I’d like that,” I admit quietly.
Nikolai looks at me from the side, his lips purse slightly as he gives me a small nod. “It’s good.” He drops the pamphlet on his lap and picks up an oblong shape and threads it into a long rectangular one.
“No, I don’t think—” I hold my hand out to stop him, but shut my mouth when I see him join the two pieces to match the drawing perfectly.
“See? Women are a distraction. Once the novelty wears off, some of the blood leaves your dick and you’ll be able to think again.” He holds out the base of the crib to me. “Put the screw in those holes. I know you can do that, or we wouldn’t be building baby things.” The corner of his lip turns up in a wry smile.
“Ha. Ha.” I hate that he’s right. Obediently, I work on fastening everything together that he gives me.
“Alexei, put that swing together.” Nikolai points to the long metal bars leaning against the wall.
Alexei sits up with a frown. His tousled hair falls over his eyes as he lets the bottle droop in his grip between his knees. “And if I don’t want to?”
Nikolai glares and throws a ball of tape from the packaging at him.
“Think of it as birth control. Get those built.” Nikolai’s thick finger points again.
Alexei grudgingly stands and wanders over to pick at the parts. “It says I need a screwdriver with the little X on it.” He turns in a circle and sits cross-legged. “I guess I’m off duty.” He takes another long pull from the vodka.
I have the tool he needs sitting next to me. “Here.” I toss it gently to him.
He catches the end in the palm of his hand, and it punctures the meat below his thumb. “Fuck!”
“Shit, man. My bad.” I didn’t think I threw it that hard.
He pulls the metal out of his flesh and caps his fingers over it. Standing, he pours a splash of alcohol over his oozing wound. “I’m bleeding!”
“You could have done that over the sink. Go clean up. Then your mess.” Nikolai doesn’t look up, but continues to assemble the jigsaw pieces of the crib.
Alexei throws up his hands. “When I was in Siberia, I fought a great bear! See this scar?” He points with the bottle to a thin white line on his upper arm. Turning, he saunters down the hall.
Nikolai turns to me. “That is a bicycle accident when he was ten.”
Alexei’s voice carries from the back of the house. “When I was in Moscow, I killed two men who were trying to mug me! I got a scar on my stomach from it!”
“He ran into a post when he was fifteen because he put a bucket on his head,” Nikolai whispers, a smile dancing over his lips.
Alexei arrives back in the living room with a cloth over his thumb and a towel. “But what will this scar be? What bragging rights do I have that I was stabbed while building a swing for an infant?”
I’m trying not to laugh. “Maybe it can be a rattlesnake from the deserts of Vegas?”
Alexei’s eyes light up. “Oh, yes. Perhaps you can skewer me again, right next to it?”
“I would volunteer if it stops you from whining.” Nikolai hands me the last piece for the crib.
Snapping it into place, I step back proudly. “Hell, yeah. Look what I built.”
Nikolai’s heavy hand lands on my shoulder. “Careful, or a snake might bite you in the ass for that one.” He waves another screwdriver in his hand menacingly.
“We. I meant ‘we’.” I busy myself with picking up the empty cardboard boxes.
Alexei laughs. “Nikolai doesn’t like to share the credit. Well, nothing.” He saunters over and hands the bottle to Nikolai. “Remember that one girl in Novosibirsk? She was begging for both of us? And you kicked me out of the room, you bastard.” Alexei’s silver tooth glimmers in the sun from the window as he grins.
Nikolai settles himself next to the swing and begins bolting the legs together. “She would have been asking you all night if it was in yet. I didn’t have patience for that.” He waves his hand in an idle gesture, then points to the cradle. “Be useful. Bring that here.”
Alexei nimbly avoids stepping on parts to pick up the seat. “It worked out. I found two women at the bar to come back with me.”
“Da. They both asked that same question all night. Did they get bored and finally just play with each other?” Nikolai gives the swing a test push and watches it rock back and forth.
His eyes unfocus, like he’s looking a long way from here.
“I remember doing this before Elena was born.” He shakes his head with a frown. “It was a better time.”
Standing, he towers over me to hand me my tools. “We have to go, since your ‘emergency’ is taken care of.”
“Yeah, I saw you have the Rover. You guys look like drug dealers in that thing.” I jerk my thumb towards the front of the house where they’re parked.
Alexei picks up Nikolai’s gun from the couch and hands it to the large Russian. “We are today. There’s sixty kilos of coke in the back that we took out from under the nose of a Reaper,” he giggles. “Like, he was doing a line when Niki stepped out. He looked like he saw a ghost.”
Nikolai walks towards the door and shrugs. “He got his fill when I shoved his face in it until he stopped breathing.”
“I noticed at the rally the other night those guards looked high. I didn’t think Reapers dealt that shit?” I always thought they were just running guns and gambling. They’re always lurking around the fights, both in the ring and behind the ropes, taking bets.
Alexei pauses on the porch, letting the sweltering heat roll into my entryway. “You know, the bags all had a ‘V’ on it, but it isn’t like Mikhail’s mark.”
Nikolai nods. “I have an idea, but will need to run it by my brother.”
I follow them outside. “Mikhail might know? Who else runs with a ‘V’?”
Nikolai’s jaw clenches as he looks at me. “My father.”
