“You are the firstborn,” Vasiliy reminded him, predictably. “It is your duty to marry and keep the bloodline going.”

“You do realize I’m gay, right?” Misha countered, discarding his usual line of argument in favor of the big guns. He was not going to New York to make nice with Aneka Romasko when Riley was almost within reach. The

girl wanted to marry syndicate? Fine, but she was not going to marry Misha. Misha had other plans. They involved a specific person, even if that person might need a bit of persuading—once he’d stopped running. There really was no time to lose, and Misha was willing to use whatever methods necessary to get out of his parents’ most recent honey trap.

Vasiliy, far from being shocked, only snorted disdainfully. “No, you’re not. I’ve seen you with plenty of girls.”

“You hiring hookers for my birthdays doesn’t change the facts. Face it, I’m queer.”

Also, kind of taken. Provided he could corner Riley long enough to talk or fuck some sense into him.

Of course, facts had never stopped Vasiliy Tokarev from forming his own opinions. “You fucked at least one of those girls,” he reminded Misha, a note of triumph in his voice. “What was her name again? Darla? Bambi?

The brunette. Legs up to here. Not much of a rack, though.”

Misha rolled his eyes and let his head thump back against the chair’s high, wooden backrest. “His name was Jace. He was a transvestite. I’m still hoping Anton didn’t realize that when he hired him.” Thump. Thump.

“Also, I was sixteen; I was desperate.” And Jace had been very sweet, if not Misha’s usual type.

“So what?” Vasiliy said, unmoved by logic, though he did sound a tad uncomfortable with the issue now. “He looked like a girl, which means your equipment works with girls. That’s all that’s required. Fuck her, knock her up, keep a boy toy on the side, I don’t care. She won’t care. She comes from Izmaylovskaya stock, she knows how to be a good wife.”

Sometimes, his father drove Misha so crazy he wanted to scream. Or bash in his own head instead of merely giving himself a headache. It was usually this kind of conversation that started it, when Misha tried to explain why he didn’t intend to do something and Vasiliy waved aside everything he said as though it didn’t matter at all. As though Misha was a stupid kid who couldn’t make his own decisions, not a man leading the field in one of the most dangerous professions there was. Though he had to admit, his father didn’t do this to him when it came to the job. It was the family stuff that was killing Misha: the guilt trips carefully engineered by his mother, the games of one-upmanship instigated by his sister, the exercises in

frustration conducted by his father, the expectations and demands hitting his soft underbelly from all sides.