“Great. Your preoccupation with my preoccupation has been noted.”
“Don’t be an asshole. I’m doing this for the family. I don’t want Polly and Lev affected by your personal shit.”
I get to my feet. “I have no personal shit. I have this Bratva and this family—that’s it.”
“And if it came down to a choice?”
That takes me back. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“If you had to choose between her and us, what would you do?”
I glare at him furiously. “Is that an actual question or are you just trying to piss me off now?”
“Given how you’ve been behaving lately—”
“I would never pick anything or anyone else over this family. I swore to protect Lev and Polly and that is what I will do until the last breath leaves my body. You may doubt everything else I say and do, but never doubt that.”
Nikolai’s eyes flash but in the end, he nods. “Alright, brother. Noted.”
I stalk over to the window, wondering why he hasn’t gotten the fuck out of my office yet. Surely he can see that I need some space.
“There is something else,” comes his voice from behind me.
I close my eyes and sigh. Of course there is. “Tell me.”
Nikolai pulls up the file he carried in here nearly an hour ago and slides it across the table towards me. “Igor’s body showed up last night.”
Fuck.
I don’t hesitate to open the file. I’m expecting bad—but what I’m faced with is downright gory. It’s fucking inhuman what Sobakin’s animals did to Igor’s body. I only hope that he died before the worst of it.
“A clean death was all that was necessary to get his point across,” Nikolai says with an audible grimace. “They mutilated his corpse to send a message.”
“Well, then we need to send them a message of our own.”
Nikolai gets up and walks over to the locked drawer that holds reports that I haven’t combed through in over a year. It’s not because I’m uninterested—it’s because I’ve memorized every single word on every single page.
“There are too many unanswered questions, Uri,” he muses as he punches in the lock code, opens the drawer, and starts leafing through the folders. “We both know that. It’s all right there in black and white.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
His lips tighten like he’s trying to keep more words from spilling out. “No. Neither have I.”
Our eyes meet and, in our shared anger and our shared grief, everything else is stripped away and I’m able to see my brother.
“His days are numbered. I promise you that.”
Nikolai shakes his head. “I don’t want promises. I want action. I want fucking revenge.”
I haven’t opened the drawer in a long time. Seeing Igor’s body makes me realize that I need to dive in again. I need to remind myself of why I’m here and why I’m doing all of this.
Just like Nikolai…
I need revenge.
41
URI
“How was your day, Lev?”
It’s the third time Polina has asked and I have a feeling she won’t stop until she gets a response out of him.
“Lev, Polly asked you a question.”
He glances at me for only a second. “I want Alyssa.”
“Alyssa?” she asks immediately, her eyes glomming onto me. “Who’s that?”
“My friend,” Lev replies without missing a beat. Sure, now, he decides to speak up. “She’s my very pretty friend.”
Lev’s preoccupation with her might be getting a little out of hand. As soon as the thought comes, I snort. I’m one to talk. I’m in ten times deeper than he is.
“You made a new friend?” Polly asks as her tone brightens instantly. She waits until Lev’s head is buried in his cereal bowl again before she turns to me and lowers her voice. “Is that a real person?”
I shake my head. “He likes to play pretend sometimes. That’s all this is.”
“He’s never named an imaginary friend before. Especially not a ‘very pretty’ one.”
I shrug. “There’s a first time for everything.”
Thankfully, she lets the subject drop. The moment Lev finishes his bowl of cereal—for dinner, no less—he’s bouncing out of his chair and gunning straight for the gaming room.
“I keep waiting to get used to that,” Polly says, so softly I almost miss it.
“To what?”
She shrugs. “To Lev. Being… different.”
I rack my brain for something to say, anything at all, but I come up blank. “How’s school?” I ask instead. Pol makes a retching sound. I raise my eyebrows. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“You know what Lev’s sounds mean.” My eyebrows rise a little higher. It’s been a while since Polly last sounded like a snotty teenager. “Shoot, sorry,” she says with a sigh. “That was bitchy.”
“It’s okay. Sounds like something’s going on. Wanna talk about it?”
“It’s nothing major. Just Rachel being Rachel.”
“I thought you were sticking to your side of school and she was sticking to hers?”
She smirks a little. “You were listening.”
“I do that from time to time.”
She nods. “I know. Nikolai doesn’t, though.”
Much as I want to kick his ass sometimes, I also feel the need to defend him. “He’s got a lot on his plate recently. I wouldn’t take it personally. What’s Rachel doing now?”
“You really want to know?”
“If it’s affecting you, I sure as fuck want to know.”
She suppresses a smile. “Honestly, it’s all mind games with her. She’s alienating Clare and me. She gets off on the power high.”
“Do you need me to come down and sort her out?”
“No!” My sister looks aghast. “That would just make everything worse.”
“How?”
“Uh—having my big brother come down to straighten out the queen bee? That would be so embarrassing.”
“If you change your mind, I’m right here.”
“I’ll remember that.” She looks at me from the corner of her eyes. “I know I wasn’t gonna come home next weekend, but I was thinking, I dunno… maybe I could.”
“You know you can come home whenever you want.” I pause, then ask, “Is there a reason you have in mind?”
She winces and hesitates.
“Polina.”
With a sigh, she lets loose her held breath and her chin falls to her chest. “There’s some stupid event at school that requires a parent to be present,” she explains “I just don’t feel like I want to be there for it.”
“I can be there,” I suggest. “Or Nikolai.”
“Neither one of you are my parents.”
“You realize I’ve changed your diapers, right?”
“Ew, stop.”
“Pol—”
“I just wanna come home, okay? You said I could come home whenever I wanted and I want to come home next weekend. That’s all.”
I nod and relent. “Whatever you want.”
But even as I say it, I know it’s not true. No one, no matter how powerful, can have whatever they want.
Even if it’s as simple as wanting your parents back.