Ruthless Creatures by J.T. Geissinger

“Here. Boston. Chicago. New York.”
“New York?” says Stavros, his voice a shade sharper.
“Whereabouts?”
“All five boroughs. But primarily Manhattan.” His smile is
bland. “That’s where I came up.”
Came up? Doesn’t he mean grew up?
Alexei and Nickolai glance at one another.
Sloane and I share a look across the table.
Kage and Stavros haven’t glanced at anyone else.
His voice betraying nothing, Stavros says, “I’m originally
from Manhattan as well. Perhaps I know your family. What’s
your surname?”
Fed up with whatever the hell is going on, I decide to
answer for him. “It’s Porter. Right, Kage?”
After a beat of silence, Kage says softly, “Porter is the
Anglicized version. When my parents came to this country
from Russia, it was Portnov.”
The sudden freeze that comes over Stavros, Alexi, and
Nickolai is arctic.
His face draining of blood, Stavros whispers, “Kazimir?”
Kage doesn’t answer. He simply smiles.
After a moment, his face white and his tone subdued,
Stavros says, “Ja izvinjajus. Ja ne xotel vas oskorbit.”
Kage answers with a kingly nod of his head. “Apology
accepted. Let’s eat.”
I’m too busy putting two and two together to eat.
I was always shit at math, but this equation is too obvious
to miss, even for me.
When Kage told me he was a criminal, he didn’t mean the
garden-variety kind. Your average criminal doesn’t buy houses
with cash or pilot his own plane or scare the living shit out of
three dudes who look like they scare the living shit out of
everyone else.