“Wrong,” he tuts. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand. ‘Brother’ is a bond for life. It’s not something you can turn on and off.”
I flick a hand to shut him up. “Enough with the philosophical bullshit. What do you actually want, Aleksei? Spit it out.”
He rests back on his palms, utterly at ease. “For starters, I want you to stop pretending you’re something you’re not.”
“I’m not pretending. I’m a chef. A businessman. That’s who I am.”
“You’re an Izotov,” he corrects. “You can wear all the Tom Ford suits you want, build all the fancy restaurants, fuck all the pretty girls with their college degrees and their clean hands. But at the end of the day, you’re still the kid who watched me gut a man in the Tolstoy’s kitchen. That’s in your blood, Semyon. Same as it’s in mine.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m not that kid anymore.”
“No?” Aleksei pours himself another shot. “Then why are you here? If you’re really so different, why did you call me?”
I say nothing. He watches me and knows exactly what that means, this fact that I cannot or will not answer. I know what it means, too.
He picks up the bottle and arches a brow. With a sigh, I hold out my glass. He refills it to the top. “I’m not trying to screw you over, you know. Truly, I’m not. It just hurts me to see you deny parts of yourself. It’s not healthy.”
Aleksei reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of his beloved cigarettes. He taps one out into his hand, then, just like with the vodka, offers it to me.
I take it with a grimace.
He lights his cigarette, then raises the flame to mine. The taste of menthol floods my mouth, wiping out the wintergreen gum I always chew.
“Family,” he says as he exhales a long column of smoke, “is everything. We were born into hell, you and me and Sage. You’ve tried your way to pull yourselves out of it, and I’ve tried mine. But it doesn’t have to be so hard. It doesn’t, Semyon. It just doesn’t.”
I take a drag from the cigarette and let the smoke curl out slowly. “I’ll ask one more time, Al: What do you actually want from me?”
He takes his time answering. Another puff on his cigarette, another sip of his drink. “I can have everything put back together by tonight. Every wire, every pipe, every piece of equipment. Like it never happened. If…”
My heart lurches. “If?”
Aleksei reaches into his pocket again. This time, he pulls out a folded piece of paper and extends it toward me. I take it from his fingers.
When I unfold it, I see that it’s a photograph. The man staring back at me is fifty or so, weathered and scowling, with a thick neck and dead eyes. I don’t recognize him, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is what Aleksei’s asking me to do.
“You want me to kill him.”
“I want you to prove you’re still my brother.” Aleksei taps ash from his cigarette into his shot glass. “This man means nothing to me. He’s a loose end, a nuisance. I could handle him myself in five minutes. But I wantyouto do it. To show me that all this—” He sweeps a hand at my tuxedo, as if that encompasses everything there is to know about the life I’ve chosen. “—hasn’t made you soft. Prove you’re still the Semyon I pulled out of that freezer. The one I protected.”
“And if I do this,” I say slowly, “you’ll fix Project Olympus? Everything back the way it was?”
“Down to the very last bolt and screw. By tonight. Before your gala even starts.” He smiles. “You’ll have your empire, Semyon. And I’ll have my brother back. What do you say?”
I look out into the gloom of the club as I inhale the cigarette down to the butt. The menthol burns harsh and cold in my throat, familiar in a way I wish it wasn’t.
Aleksei watches me and waits. Patient in the way spiders are patient.
I look down at the photograph again. Dead eyes stare back at me. Some stranger whose life Aleksei wants me to end, just to prove a point.
The old Bastian—Semyon—would’ve done it without hesitation. The price of survival was never too steep to pay. But that’s not who I am anymore. Semyon is dead.
Is he, though? Is he?
I think about Eliana waiting for me right now. In less than two hours, we’re supposed to step into a grand room of our own design and show everyone who’s watching thatsheis the accomplishment I am most proud of.
I think about everything I’ve built, everything I’ve become.
I think about everything I stand to lose.
