CHERUB: Guardian Angel by Robert Muchamore Read Free Book Online Page B

staff would suddenly start doing it as a kid who happens to know an awful lot about computers arrives on our floor?’
    Boris growled in Ethan’s ear. ‘Confess or I’ll pulp you.’
    ‘OK, I admit it,’ Ethan said. ‘My mum left me money. So what if I surfed a few sites? I’ll pay for your satellite bandwidth.’
    Leonid rose up from his desk and thumped the table. ‘I don’t like that smart mouth. You were told not to communicate with anyone from your past life. The CIA and FBI will be monitoring all your online accounts. The clan still has major business interests in the United States and after your mother’s death and your disappearance the authorities there are over us like a rash. You start spouting your mouth off about something you shouldn’t and you could screw that up.’
    ‘You think I’m an idiot?’ Ethan snapped back. ‘I’m not a baby. You think I didn’t keep secrets when I lived with my mum in California?’
    Ethan heard an almighty crack as Boris smacked him around the back of the head. ‘You dare talk back to my father?’
    As Ethan stumbled, Leonid walked around the desk to face him off.
    ‘There’s a natural order to things,’ Leonid explained. ‘I’m at the top, you’re at the bottom. If I can’t trust you when you’re living two rooms away, I sure can’t trust you to keep your trap shut when you’re off at some poncy school in Dubai.’
    To drive the argument home Leonid twisted Ethan’s ear.
    ‘You can’t stop me from going to boarding school,’ Ethan said, his voice getting higher as his uncle cranked up the pain. ‘You’re not the boss of the clan. It’s up to Irena.’
    ‘I ought to smash your fingers for this defiance,’ Leonid shouted. ‘You’d better learn to respect me, because your grandma won’t be around for much longer, and then . . .’
    ‘Then what?’ Ethan shouted, as Leonid tailed off. ‘Maybe I’ll get murdered, like my mom did?’
    Leonid laughed and snapped his fingers. ‘If I wanted you killed, I could kill you like that.’
    ‘If that was true I doubt I’d be standing here,’ Ethan scoffed. ‘Irena has eyes and ears all over the Kremlin. You might act like the big man, but you can’t take a shit without your mommy knowing all about it.’
    Leonid cracked a knuckle, then laughed incredulously. ‘What makes you so sure that I killed your mother?’
    Ethan shrugged. ‘It would make a lot of sense.’
    ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about and you’d best be careful who you go spouting your theories to,’ Leonid said. ‘Besides, I’m not here to debate with a child. Just stay away from the computers or there will be deep trouble.’
    Ethan shook his head contemptuously as he turned towards the office door. This insolence popped Leonid’s fuse and within seconds Ethan found himself face down against the desktop, with Leonid’s thumb jammed painfully between his shoulder blades.
    Leonid looked at Boris as Ethan squirmed. ‘Get the cosh.’
    ‘Piss off,’ Ethan spat.
    Ethan couldn’t look around far enough to see Boris taking a half-metre-long rubber cosh out of a filing cabinet, but he felt Leonid ripping his jeans and boxers down to his knees in a single violent stroke.
    ‘Noooo!’ Ethan moaned, as Leonid enthusiastically swung the cosh against his bare arse.
    The pain was extraordinary and the humiliation compounded by Boris howling with laughter and pulling an Android phone out of a pocket.
    ‘Say cheese!’ Boris whooped, as he snapped a picture. ‘I wonder what Natalka will say when she sees this.’
    Fortunately Leonid only gave his nephew three strokes before turning Ethan on to his back and eyeballing him.
    ‘Mouth shut, fingers off computers,’ Leonid ordered. ‘And no school for the rest of this month. You can come out here to the stables and shovel horse shit.’
    ‘I’ll tell Irena,’ Ethan said. ‘She’s my guardian, not you.’
    ‘You don’t know my mother so well,’ Leonid laughed. ‘Go