“I’m not like you.”
“Oh, but you are.” He taps the driver’s license. “This proves it. When it mattered, when someone threatened something you cared about, you did what needed to be done. You became exactly who you needed to be.”
“I became who I never wanted to be again.”
Aleksei shakes his head slowly. “There is no ‘again,’ brother. There’s only who we are. The rest is just pretending.”
He doesn’t get it because he can’t. I hate him for making me turn back the clock and become that kind of man again. Aleksei does not understand, hecannotunderstand, because he has been that kind of man for so long that he’s forgotten there is any other way to be.
It comes to me again, the image of the moment when our roads diverged and he followed his path into the darkness.
The bitter chill of the walk-in freezer. The man’s screams. The door swinging open and Aleksei standing there with the cleaver in his hand.
The blood on the tile.
So much blood on the tile.
I force myself to snap back to the present. “I didn’t come here to debate fate with you, Al. I came to tell you to leave her the fuck alone. And to leave me alone, too, and Sage. We want nothing to do with you. We aren’t troubling you, so don’t trouble us.”
Aleksei doesn’t answer right away. He just sits there, straddling that chair backwards, watching me with those cold blue eyes that are so much like mine and yet nothing like mine at all.
“I can’t do that,” he says finally.
“Yes, you can,” I insist. “You just won’t.”
“No, Semyon. I genuinely cannot.” He stands and walks to the window, looking down at the street below. “You see, I’ve built something here. An empire. And empires require certain things to function properly. Infrastructure. Logistics. Legitimate businesses to move money through.”
My stomach drops. “You’re still trying to push that? You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” He turns back to me. “Your restaurants are perfect for what I need. It would be so easy, Semyon. A little money laundering here, a little creative accounting there. You’d barely notice.”
“The answer is no.”
“I haven’t asked the question yet.”
“The answer is still no.”
He sighs and shakes his head yet again, every bit the older brother who is bitterly disappointed that his younger sibling simply does not get it. “You’re making this more difficult than itneeds to be. I’m offering you a partnership. A real one. We work together. We protect each other. We build something that lasts. That’s what brothers do.”
“No, Aleksei. Don’t ask again. I won’t change my mind.”
I wonder for a moment how far he’s willing to go here. There’s a trickle of something in his eyes, a black cloud. He never lost his temper, not even as a child, but I remember from early on that he somehow always got his way in the end. Obstacles simply disappeared, things shifted, until the road he wanted to walk was cleared.
But this road isn’t clearing. He won’t taint what I’ve built. He won’t touch my life’s work, or my woman, or my little brother. Either he’ll keep his fucking hands to himself, or a severed pinky will be the least of his issues.
In the end, though, he stays calm. The black cloud goes away and he raises his hands. “Alright then. You’ve said your piece and, as your brother, I will respect it. I will find another way, and I will leave you and your woman alone.” He pauses, then adds, “I hear she’s lovely, by the way.”
I grit my teeth so I don’t say the many things I’d like to say. “Glad to hear it,” I answer instead. “Take care of yourself, Al.”
Then I turn and stomp out. The door swings open as I approach. I pass all of his lieutenants lining the hallway and staircase. None of them make room for me. They stand slouched against the wall, smoking their cigarettes, staring me down as I pass.
But with every stair I descend, the feeling of unease dissipates. Aleksei swore he’d leave us alone. He’s many things, that brother of mine, but he’s not a liar.
So when the rusted red door clangs shut behind me and I’m alone in the alley, I let out a breath I’ve been holding for a long, long time now.
With any luck, I’ll never see him again.
48
