That’s all I do now, apparently.
Endure family time for as long as I’m forced to, then head into the city, hop from one bar to the next, drink myself stupiduntil one of my brothers—usually Kostya—has to carry me out and bring me home so I can sleep it off.
It’s the only method I’ve found that keeps my brain from thinking.
The only way to keep her face from rising in my mind.
But the dreams… they always come.
In them, Stella appears to me.
She tells me she loves me.
She tells me she needs me.
She tells me she’ll never leave me.
And in my dreams, I claim every promise she whispers, every vow she breathes against my mouth.
But morning always comes, and with it the nightmare that is my life.
The life that I’m forced to live without her.
“You’ve got to chill the fuck out, bro. Your whole face is a fucking downer right now,” Kostya says before slipping into the empty lounge chair beside me, turning to stare me down.
“Don’t like the way I look, don’t look at me. There. Problem solved,” I grunt, taking another pull of vodka, not even caring when some of it spills down my chest.
“Jesus, Kill, but you’re a hot mess. The kids are here, for fuck’s sake,” he hisses. “What kind of example do you think you’re setting right now? Especially to Darius. That kid is a sponge. Do you really want him to think it’s cool to get drunk before noon?”
“Kira will keep him in check. Don’t worry,” I mumble, taking a drag from my cigarette.
“She wouldn’t have to if you acted like a normal fucking person.” Kostya scowls, eyeing Darius to make sure he’s too busy having fun to pay me any mind. When he sees Sasha with him on his shoulders, prancing around the pool, Kostya’s frown deepens. “I feel like I just stepped into an old Twilight Zoneepisode. Here you are acting like a sour grump, and there’s Sasha having the time of his life. I don’t like it. This role reversal is too fucking creepy.” He shudders.
“I’m busy, Kostya. Can you take whatever this is somewhere else?” I draw a circle over his face with my cigarette to drive the point home, making sure the smoke pollutes the air between us.
“Fuck you,” he mutters, swatting the cloud of smoke away. But when it clears and I see that godforsaken pitting look in his gaze, my skin starts to crawl.
Fuck, how I hate that look.
I hate it even more than his accusing scowls.
He’s been looking at me like that since Kira’s high school graduation. Since the day he told me he had given my letter to Stella, and that she’d been just as heartbroken reading it as I’d been writing it. I think he expected me to go to her instead of boarding our plane the next day and coming home.
I thought about it. God, how I thought about it. But what would’ve been the point? It would’ve only hurt more to see her.
Things hadn’t changed between us. She still had a destiny to fulfill, and me being in her life would only keep her from becoming the woman she always wanted to be. I couldn’t do that to my Stella. I couldn’t be the weight that dragged her down. She needs a clear head to face theCapos who attended her ceremony and prove—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that she deserves her place among them.
I heard the words she spoke when she took theomertà. The Outfit would come before God, family, and everything else. There was never any room for me. It just took me a minute to accept that.
No. The best gift I could give her was to walk away. Even if it killed me.
Unable to just lie there and witness that crestfallen expression on my brother’s face, I snuff out my cigarette and force myself up from the chair.
“Where are you going?” Kostya asks, wide-eyed.
“To get some more. I’m out,” I say, wiggling the empty vodka bottle.
“That shit isn’t water, you know.”
