Maybe she won’t do that, though. She might choose to plead and bargain instead.
But she doesn’t. Instead, she asks me a question.
“Did you kill him?”
“What?” For a second, I think she means my brother. But that wouldn’t make any sense. We just established he’s alive, and she said she’s glad for it. “Who are you talking about?”
“Did you kill my brother? Did you kill Anatoli?”
16
SIMA
To be honest, I don’t really expect him to answer. Petyr is the world champion of ignoring what he doesn’t want to hear. Acting like my words mean nothing would be nothing new in the Gubarev playbook.
That’s not fair. He apologized.
Guilt fills me. I grip my Kindle harder. I admit I wasn’t expecting that—for him to admit he wronged me. Petyr Gubarev never makes mistakes. He’s always right, and if he’s not, it’s everybody else who’s wrong.
I wonder what would have happened if he’d told me those words earlier. Before I took off. Back when we could still fix this.
Maybe things would be different now.
But they’re not.
No, they aren’t.
And I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.
Finally, Petyr’s voice comes, low and steady. “I did.” He doesn’t sound apologetic now, not in the slightest. “We both know he deserved it.”
I don’t know why I’m hurt. Deep down, I already knew.
I close my eyes and draw in a breath that doesn’t come easy, then let it out slowly.
Things couldn’t have ended any other way. Anatoli himself told me what he was planning. He said he would use Lev’s betrayal to ambush Petyr, then finish him. I warned Petyr, but I didn’t know if he had taken my words seriously.
When he found me later, strong and alive, I knew what that meant. My brother had to be dead.
I don’t regret that Petyr is the one who lived. Far from that.
But I still wish there could have been another way.
“I know,” I say at last, my voice almost a whisper. “You’re right.”
My brother chose the life he lived. He was cruel. Dangerous. It was only ever going to end one way for him.
My chest tightens with something I can’t name at first.
It’s not anger. Not surprise, either. It feels closer to grief, but a sticky sort of grief that doesn’t have anywhere to go. Not for the brother I knew, but for the possibility of what he could have been if he’d chosen differently.
I remember the first time I realized he liked to hurt things just to see them cry out. His voice sounded like a sneer when he told me that “the butterflies barely even feel it when you rip their wings off; what do you care?” And he looked at me like I was the idiot,the burden, like he would rather see me married off as a child bride than share the same roof with another useless girl.
He never let me forget that he had power and I didn’t. He was our father’s pride and I was disposable.
A part of me wanted to hate him. Most days, I did. When he bullied Maksim, when he was cruel to Lara and me, I despised him.
But blood is still blood.
