“Guntram, don't be dense. Join us. Friederich will never let us go by ourselves,” she told me. Great, you need me to cover your rubbish. “Pretty please?” she added and made her puppy eyes which are very impressive and moving.
“All right,” I gave up because I didn't want to have Romeo complaining and accusing me of being
“uncooperative” or a “minion” of Konrad (hey asshole, that's my boyfriend!) or a “sissy” (I wonder if you would dare to repeat that word to uncle Konrad or to Constantin)
I went for my coat and when I returned to the library, they both were ready. I decided to leave Mopsi and she was immediately running to complain to Friederich, who caught us by the foyer. “Guntram, outside is very cold for you.”
“It's only for an hour, Friederich. It's not snowing any longer. We're going to the lodge and back.”
“Take your mobile with you. If it starts to snow call Holgersen.”
“Perhaps it would be a good idea if we take the lodge's key with us, Mr. Elssässer,” Marie Amélie suggested. “If it's too cold for Guntram, we can wait there.”
Reluctantly, well, with a face that Ratko and Milan would love to have, Friederich got his keys out and gave me one. Wow, I was promoted to adulthood. I have my own key now. “All right, Guntram. Get some snow boots.”
No, adulthood can wait for me. Under the snickering faces of the other two adults, Armin and Marie Amélie, I went back for the bloody things.
We walked down the main road and it was truly cold, freezing and they took great pleasure in asking me if I had my snow boots, the overcoat, the gloves, the underwear, etc., with me. Back to high school, but in the Beverly Hills 90210 version. I was stuck with Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Wonder Boy! I started to walk faster to leave them to their own devices and I must have done it very fast because I left them behind after some minutes. Almost a full hour later, I reached the small house almost breathless because of the effort. Yes, I'm not so fitted as before and it was starting to snow again. I opened the house and switched on the heating, making a hot tea for me while I waited for them. Some fifteen minutes later, they arrived in good condition. Just when I was starting to worry because maybe they took that shortcut and with the snow you could easily loose the track.
But they were almost on fire. Really. I had to move aside when I opened the door so they wouldn't crush me in their haste to reach to the wall. Fuck, Konrad and I wait to be alone to make our own porn home movie and Constantin never did more than a few touches or a kiss in public (well, Ivan Ivanovich or Boris Malchenko) I felt truly uncomfortable and went back to the kitchen, closing the door behind me. When I was drinking my tea in peace, Armin, partly dressed, came in and told me to go home because he and she wanted to do it.
“It's snowing! All right, let me call Heindrik.”
“No way, if you do that, we'll get all of them here! Come on, Guntram, you can't be such a sissy!”
“I was happy at home and it was your idea to come here!”
“You get laid with my uncle and I get nothing and here I have an opportunity. Call Heindrik from the road!”
“It's snowing!”
Marie Amélie entered the kitchen only wearing her short dress, with many buttons off and those Eskimo fashion boots. “Armin, I'm waiting!” she whined and I blushed like an idiot because I was sure what she was waiting for and honestly to announce it so openly, it's too much for my taste. Maybe, I'm a prude, but women should be more modest.
“One second, baby”
“Are you still here, Guntram?” She noticed me.
“Having tea,” I growled.
“Be nice and leave us alone, will you? Or do you want to play too? Wouldn't be so funny like with Annette, but perhaps you can do something after all.”
I didn't blush this time because my brain was trying to connect with my ears. Did she want a ménage à trois? With me? Is she crazy or just stupid? I must have gaped at her because the next I knew was that Armin was shaking me from the arm.
“Go home, will you? Be quiet about this,” Armin growled at me very upset. OK, sports with Annette is fine, but another man in the equation is bad.
“Don't you want to stay, Guntram? Perhaps we can teach you something,” She pressed and I was very shocked and tried to hide my embarrassment by putting on the snow boots. “Or do you only like sugar daddies? Have you ever been in bed with someone who's not twice your age?”
“Mind your own business, girl!” I barked because I had enough of her.
“Armin! He's insulting me!”
“Insulting you? I still have not given my opinion of you and frankly my dog does not deserve to be compared with the likes of you!” That was not a nice answer, but at that point I had enough. I'm dragged here, left in the middle of the road and now called “rent boy”? There's a limit for everything.
“Fuck you faggot!” Armin shouted at me and slapped me like a little girl. You need some lessons from Massaiev to know how to hit boy! If you want to hit like your uncle, then know the rest too and be ready to go to the end. If not, don't do it. I returned the blow exactly as Yuri had thought me. One single hit and with “all you have, Guntram, your size doesn't give you the chance of a second,’ I broke his nose and lip and he went mad. Armin pulled out a knife from his pocket and brandished it over my chest very closely. Boy. That's not impressive; a stoned man twice your size is. I took one of the kitchen knives hanging from the metal bar and the minute he came toward me, I launched the knife against the opposite wall, not to hurt, only to warn, because the next was going to be on his leg or arm. Yes, I learned some things at the slum and then, Yuri taught me some more, like this Israeli fighting method, Krav Maga, “just in case you need it,’ The knife just passed along his head and neatly stuck on the wall.
“Next one is to your heart and Milan or Ratko are not here to hold your hand.”
“You fucking animal!” he roared, but changed his mind about attacking me, because I had the second knife ready.
“You're staining the floor, go to the bathroom, I had enough of you two,” I took my overcoat and left the house with the keys still in my pocket. Marie Amélie shouted several things at me but it's not worth to write them down. What was she expecting? She provokes a fight between two men and she thinks that we'll insult or scratch each other faces? I'm not tall or a super Alpha like all these men here, but I'm not a sissy!
I walked back home at fast pace, furious, nervous and with my heart hammering in a nasty way. I had to stop and throw up on the side of the road. Bad sign. I sat in one of the trunks because I felt bad with the cold, the snow and the previous fight. That's nothing for me any longer. Next time, I'll keep distance from those two and if he impregnates her, it's not my problem. Her father should be more careful! I'm twenty-three not forty!
A black Audi screeched its tires next to me and there was my favourite Viking, Heindrik, royally pissed off with me. “Get inside the fucking car, Guntram! Do you want to freeze to death?” he yelled at me. So much for the famous Swedish aloofness. “You should have phoned me the minute those two arrived and threw you out!”
“How do you know?”
“First, you walk in the snow without telling me, and now you do it in the middle of a storm? Do you want to give me a heart attack?”
“I just went out!”
“What were you thinking? You almost killed the little imbecile!”
“How do you know?”
“Video, boy! How did my men pass from watching Playboy TV to Kill Bill? Are you nuts?”
“He started and if you can't stand the fire, stay out of the kitchen!”
“Since when you know how to defend yourself?”
“I'm sorry, Heindrik if your job was endangered.”
“That's not the point here! You could have killed him!”
“And he not? Should I remind you that he pointed me with a razor and even threatened me with it? No!
How dumb of me! I should go to my knees and cry like a little girl because
I'm the stupid boy your boss fucks every night!”
“Don't raise your voice to me! What he did was wrong! What if you missed? His nose is bleeding!”
“I won't. Do you want to try it also?”
“Where the fuck did you learn that?”
“Yuri Rimsky, my former bodyguard and Massaiev too. Former KGB and former French Army. I can disarm one of you if necessary. It's the Israeli method. I'm sick of their permanent jokes and be called a sissy or worse.”
“Yes, we heard it, but you shouldn't do that! What if you would have hurt him? He's Albert von Lintorff's son!”
“What if he hurts me? Do you think I stand a chance in a fight with a heart condition and my size? He's 1.85 and I'm 1.73! He learns combat training with Goran! But I forgot, he's rich and can be a brat all what he wants, fucking fourteen years old girls and stomping over all what's beneath him!”
“It's not like that! What you did was stupid and dangerous!”
“All right, next time, I'll shoot someone down,” I retaliated and had to get my pills out because with the shouting I was feeling worse and in a lot of pain.
“You couldn't get a weapon from any of us!” he said with a lot of self confidence. Well time to try our Argentinean pickpockets' methods. I learn several things from the children in the school. He parked the car and Milan was running to us with Ratko and four more bodyguards, almost unable to control their laughter, in tow.
“Should we stop the other two, Mr. Holgersen? It's pretty messy over there,” Hartick asked.
“Of course! Move there!”
“Pity, some more minutes and we would have gotten a winner for this year's XXX Picture,” Milan snorted. “I definitely would buy it! Where did you learn to hit like that? Right to the centre! Almost my style,” he said proudly.
“Wait we tell Goran,” Ratko added with great satisfaction. I guess I never saw him so happy.
“Please, I'll get in enough trouble with the Duke,” I said, realising in how much shit I was getting into.
“Not so cocky now, uh?” Heindrik smirked. “He even said that he can disarm us!” he snorted.
“Have you lost something, Heindrik? Something bigger than your mouth?” I asked like a little lamb and got his Glock from my jacket and offered to him. All of the men there paled.
“Give me that before you hurt yourself, little prick!” Heindrik shouted and advanced toward me and I knew that that was the moment where I had to draw the line to all those men.
“Stand back or I'll shoot.”
He charged and I shoot to one of the lampposts on the other direction to the Castle—no chance I would do it against a place full of people. The Serbs whistled in unison when the bulb some twenty-five metres away exploded. Heindrik stopped when I aimed at his head this time. Without problems, I dismounted the ammunition clip and threw the weapon at him and then, the rest. “I wouldn't have missed, Heindrik. First place in shooting championships for four years in a row. Retired at eighteen because I had to work. My medals are still in Russia.”
“Do you want to come hunting with us?” Milan said.
“I can't shoot an animal,” I answered.
“See, Heindrik? You and the Strolch were never in danger!” the serious Ratko chortled. “Go inside before you kill one of those pricks, although they deserve it.”
I nodded and went inside to be shouted by Friederich for walking under the snow. He said I was almost blue from the cold and sent me to bed… Yeah, with a hot tea and some apple cake. He never mentioned the shooting or hitting Armin and I'm sure he knows about it. I went to our bedroom and honestly I didn't care if Konrad was going to shout at me. I'm sick of all of them! Before they ignored me, but since I'm with him, some of them snicker or despise me. Not the Serbs or Alexei, of course, but Heindrik and all his boys.
I took a hot shower and I still felt poorly, very cold and changed into my pyjamas. I drank the tea Friederich had left and I felt slightly better. When he came to pick up the tray, he entered in the bedroom to check if I was warm.
“About today…” I started, but he shut me up.
“Sometimes, a man has to do things that are not in his nature in order to preserve it. The men learned a valuable lesson today: don't judge a book by its cover. Don't repeat your actions again because it's not our Lord Jesus Christ’s way.”
Constantin Repin had never been so furious in his life when Oblomov told him that Lintorff refused to give Guntram back. “It was to be expected,” Lacroix had told him. “Lintorff will not give up Guntram. I've asked around and the youth is everything he always wanted. It's more than the physical coincidence. We must convince Guntram to leave Lintorff. If he comes to the meeting, don't hesitate to tell him the truth. He will be shocked and leave with you.”
Oblomov had returned without the boy and Lintorff had taken the money but returned the interests, showing that he was willing to fight for Guntram. The excuse had been: Guntram has to work with his exhibition in Berlin, has a cold and is studying for his tests in London. He wanted to kill Lintorff with his bare hands!
“Do not worry, Mr. Repin, he's willing to meet his family. He wrote me in November and used the studio as his contact address. Obviously he has told nothing about me to Lintorff and wants to keep it quiet. I know he has given the jewels to him, but keeps the painting with him along with the teddy bear. He's clever enough as to give away what seems to be the most valuable in order to keep the Duke unaware of our contacts,” Lacroix tried to reassure the Russian over the phone after he had exploded to him.
“What was on the letter?”
“Nothing. Just a formal letter asking me if I knew something more about his father.”
“Did you answer it?”
“Not yet. I want to see how things develop between you and Lintorff on the 16th. If he refuses, we have another line to penetrate his defences. I've heard these journalists from The Independent Times plan to speak with Guntram during that charity party the Lintorff Foundation gives for its employees and volunteers. Somehow, a journalist, Linda Harris, was invited.”
“Will it not be dangerous for Guntram?”
“No, I don't think so. They're sent by Marianne von Liechestein, Lintorff's mother. She hates him with real passion and vice versa. Lock them in a room and Hiroshima will be nothing compared to their clash. She has been working together with Roger de Lisle and these activists. A dangerous and stupid strategy as they're unprofessional and believe that making a huge scandal could stop Lintorff.”
“Probably they will get a bullet in their heads when he has enough of their yelling,” Repin smirked.
“Yes, I saw them in London. Lintorff had a very bad time, but it didn't prevent him to do what he wanted.”
“The only way to destroy Lintorff or the Order is to attack him on a personal flank. Before it didn't work because the tool was reluctant to act, but this time Guntram will do his job well. Once he looses him, Lintorff will be devastated and you will let me work alone.”
“With all due respect, you have nothing to go against him.”
“Money is not the only driving force in this world, Mr. Repin.”
But here he was; sitting in front of a large meeting table with Ivan at his side, waiting for Lintorff. And the German was late. The Degas on the opposite wall was a good one but somehow out of place in the seriously decorated room.
“I apologise for my delay, Constantin. We had to take a detour. Some people demonstrating in front of the DAX,” Konrad said peevishly, advancing to the middle of the room, going straight to take the head of the table, followed by Ferdinand and Goran, sombre and grouchy as always.
“I understood punctuality was the politeness of kings.”
“I'm nothing more than a Duke. We were never Electors,” Konrad mocked Constantin's fury.
“Speaking of royals, there's one Vicomte missing in this room.”
“Vicomte? Ah, you mean Guntram. No, he will not accompany us today. He was very tired after flying to London for his tests. All
of them passed with flying colours, but you should receive his grades pretty soon. He can start his third year, next spring.”
“You're perfectly aware of my terms.”
“Terms? Yes, the lawyers finished the papers this morning. They have been working non stop since Oblomov visited us, but everything is ready,” Konrad said and pressed a button only once.
Before Repin could explode, three young secretaries entered the room carrying several folders and silently left them over the table. “Thank you, Louisa.” The Duke waited for the women to leave the room before he spoke again. “Everything is there, Constantin, it was really unnecessary to come all the way from St. Petersburg.”
Constantin only looked once to the folders in front of him. “Do you take me for a fool, Lintorff?”
“Those are all the guarantees you provided for the loans. Nothing else. We have not charged you a penalty for returning the capital in advance.”
Constantin lost his patience for the first time in a long time, hitting the table with his fist. “Give me Guntram back!”
“Ferdinand, do you remember if we have any papers establishing that we took a person as guarantee?”
“No, my Duke. It's against all regulations, Sire. Slavery was totally abolished in 1895. I believe Russia was the last country to finish serfdom in an attempt to look just a bit modern,” Ferdinand answered.
“Therefore, our business is concluded, Mr. Repin, unless you would prefer to discuss some more investments in your region.”
“You have no idea what you have unleashed upon your head, Lintorff!”
“Guntram has expressed his desire to remain with his own people and he has been granted a position in the Order. He's one of us, now,” Goran growled. “Get yourself another boy because this one is no longer available.”
“Remember your words, Pavicevic.”
“It goes in both directions, Russian. I already visited your family once.”
Oblomov looked at von Kleist, hopeful that he would stop the confrontation as always, but the German remained unmoved. “There's no need to go to these extremes, gentlemen. I'm sure we could find a suitable solution for all of us.”
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