“You’ll keep Archer alive? Unharmed in any way?” The question escapes me, a soft thing I didn’t authorize.
“Yes. For a time,” he says, and I hate him for the honesty. “A probationary window where he can earn his freedom. A mercy only your surrender buys him now that we know he’s been betraying us for five, maybe six months.”
The room feels like it suddenly shrinks, and everything in it has moved closer, especially the walls.
“Wh-what do you mean Archer betrayed you for months?”
“Didn’t my brother tell you?” he asks, like he already knows the answer. “The biker rat spilled all the gang’s secrets, including that the leader has been meeting at a bar with Archer every Tuesday for five or six months to screw us over.”
Five or six months.The number hits harder than any punch. While I was worrying about rent and long shifts at the hotel, Archer was busy betraying the mafia behind my back.
A sharp jab of shock pierces my heart, and my eyes uncontrollably widen. “Dom…he knows about this?”
“He pulled it from the biker himself. I’m surprised that he didn’t tell you,” Gavriil states in a voice that says he’s not the least bit surprised because he knows his brother better than I ever will. “Why do you think Dominik would keep such important information from you?”
Because despite his promises to me, Dominik knows Archer won’t be allowed to live now that his betrayal is deeper than the Bratva knew. It’ll be Gavriil’s call, completely out of Dominik’s hands now.
As if it were ever really in his hands…
My throat tightens as my eyes threaten to sting. Archer didn’t just make one mistake. He’s been at this for months now! Not only putting his life on the line but mine too.
How could he not realize that this was going to come back and bite him in the ass, eventually? Is he that cocky or just stupid?
And what am I to him anymore? Because I don’t feel like his little sister that he would do anything to protect.
“I’m sure Dominik had his reasons,” I say, forcing my voice to steady even as resentment curls hot and tight under my ribs.
“One of which is that he would kill your brother on my orders in a second, and then do whatever it takes to ensure you never found out so he can keep fucking you,” he says with the amount of confidence I know I’ll never possess. I don’t clarify that we haven’t crossed that line yet, mostly because then I would have to admit that I wouldn’t ever if Dominik killed Archer.
Would Dominik actually do what his brother claims? Yes, possibly, to spare my grief. Still, I’m furious at him for keeping crucial information from me. Without trust between us, how can there ever be anything else?
“So, you would keep Archer alive and not torture him?” I ask Gavriil. Would he really take the burden off Dominik so I can keep looking at him the way I have been?
“Cross my heart,” he replies and even makes the gesture with his finger over where his heart would be if he had one. “Archer would have to prove his loyalty to us, but not a hair on his head would be harmed unless he sold us out again.”
“And Dominik?” I breathe. His name tastes dangerous in front of this man, like saying it costs something too expensive to pay. “What happens to him if I agree to your…terms?” I ask this before I even question what future awaits me if I accept his offer.
“I do not remove him as my right hand,” he says. “I do not shame him in front of our people. I do not cut away the parts of his power that require him to stand still and obey me like a child. He keeps his position as underboss. He keeps his blood.” The pause is deliberate. “I would prefer my brother not bleed out in Jersey because he’s trying to prove something to me or trying to protectyou.”
It’s manipulation as neat as origami. Gavriil folds my love for my brother and my fear for Dominik into a paper plane and asks if I trust it to actually fly for more than a blink of his eyes. My heart does a trick where it speeds up and slows all atonce. I imagine walking out the door with Gavriil. I imagine how Dominik would react…
No, I can’t.
Not even for Archer.
Dominik and I don’t deserve to be punished for my brother’s mistakes. Archer made the decisions he thought were in his best interest. Now, I have to make mine.
“I won’t go with you,” I say, and I don’t recognize my own voice. “Not like that.”
Something in Gavriil’s expression changes, not anger exactly. It’s disappointment’s colder cousin. He inhales as if patience is the one strength he doesn’t possess. “Pride,” he says. “You will be surprised at how expensive it can be.”
“That’s not what this is, and I feel sorry for you if you can’t understand that.”
He laughs, a brief, dry sound that’s unpleasant. “If you think this ends with a happily ever after, then I feel sorry for you. How do you think you could ever love the man who will be forever stained by your brother’s blood, Alina?”
“He wouldn’t do that. Dominik wouldn’t kill Archer and keep it from me, not even for you.”
“I can see why Dominik likes you,” he says simply. “You have him thinking that there’s still a speck of a good man in him. But that part doesn’t truly exist. He’s not the knight in shining armor in this fairy tale. He’s nothing but what the king orders him to be. And today, that’s the king’s executioner.”
