Thirty-Seven

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Nikolai Dimitri Leonov

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Nikolai Dimitri Leonov

The room is dead silent, no one, none of the twelve men in the room make a sound except for me.

All that is heard is the rhythmic drumming of my fingers against the dark wooden table.

"Nothing?" I repeat myself, my eyes scanning each and every one of them with an unmatched intensity. "There are twelve of you, ten if you graciously excuse Sergei and Eugeni as they were not even in the country, but you mean to tell me ten of our highest-ranked men could not tell we had a rat running rampant through my business while I was out of the country."

My Russian comes out rough as anger backs my words, all men stay unflinching at my tone but I could see how if I carried on a bit more I might start making them all flinch.

How funny, twelve of the highest trained, most qualified men in all of Russia flinching at a twenty-year-old heir.

What has this world come to?

I push my chair back a bit and lean my body forward, clasping my hands together and resting my elbows on the table looking each and every one of these men in the eyes as I intimidate each and every one of them.

"How funny, none of you have any more to add to this conversation?" 

Again absolute silence, nothing more than hushed breathing in the room, but if you listened close enough you could hear a foot tapping lightly on the floor, a leg shaking creating the noise.

A sign of nervousness.

Hmm.

I do my last sweep of the room and let out a scoff in disappointment, pushing my chair back with a loud scrape against the wooden floor and grabbing my coat jacket which had been hung over my chair, I button it up as I start to leave the room.

"You're all dismissed, all of  you keep a lookout, if you hear absolutely anything you better report directly to me, I don't care if you think the information is basically useless or if it's in the middle of the night you come straight to me." The threat was clear in my tone, if I found out they were withholding information it was essentially a death sentence, and even in the darkness of this world all truth came to light and it was a lot better for you if you lit the candle rather than being caught in the spotlight.

I open the dark, heavy wooden door and let it slam behind me. Heads tip in respect as I walk past but I barely pay any mind to any of them and make a beeline for my Audi. 

Once I was settled and in the privacy of my car, the one place I know I can't get overheard I dial the number I hadn't spoken to since I left Italy over a week ago and listen to it ring five times before it answers.

"You would think since we're now on other sides of the continent you would let me have some room to breathe," Livia answers like she always does, never with a hi or hello, how are you doing but with some way to act annoyed with me.

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