He’ll never get to win again.
Nico turns to me, and something in his expression cracks, barely, but enough for me to feel it in my ribs. "I didn’t mean to lie to you, Steph, I just… didn’t know how you would react to the truth. Or what I even wanted to do with it." His throat works, and for a second, he looks young again, young and tired and carrying too much. "Silvestre, Aurelio, Donna Margarita," he winces at her name, "pieced things together." A ludicrous thought hits me. I almost laugh at it. Donna Margaritawashis sister. Fate must really be laughing her ass off. "I was there for three years. Trying to come to terms with who I thought I was and who the Valverdes thought I should be. They warned me about the Cells. They were worried too, that if they found out where I was…"
He trails off, unwittingly giving birth to another question. Donna Margaritawasa Cell. We'll probably never figure out who that woman was, what she wanted, or who she really worked for. I'm worried that years from now we'll still stumble over her ghosts.
"Every day at Valverde’s house," he continues, oblivious to my dark thoughts, "I thought about calling you. Every damn day. But what was I supposed to say?" He lets out a humorless laugh. "Hey, turns out I’m the secret heir to theBratva empire. All I have to do is kill the current Pakhan, who also happens to be a certifiable sociopath. Want to help me, big brother?" He shakes his head, frustrated with himself.
"I didn’t know then what I wanted to do with the truth. Or what the truth even made me."
Wind whistles through the broken window, cold against the heat between us.
"Silvestre and Aurelio kept me hidden," Nico continues as his voice tightens. "And yeah, kind of like a prisoner. He had a thousand ways he could’ve used me. He could’ve traded me to Grigori for favors. Or sold me out to the Cells and let them take apart whatever was left of the Voronin line." He stops. "But he trained me, and he also treated me like family. Like his nephew."
The silence that falls isn’t empty. It’s full of every nightmare he lived through while I slept safely in New York, thinking he was dead. My mind spins, and my chest goes tight enough to ache. Three years. Three fucking years with Aurelio Valverde, every hour a coin flip between survival and execution. Because after what I saw in Caracas, I'm pretty sure Silvestre wouldn't have hesitated to pit Nico and Aurelio against each other. He finally had aspareheir. A boy raised as my brother—my shadow, my equal—living like a disposable secret, knowing death might walk through the door at any moment.
My stomach twists.
Just imagining how Nico must have lived, how he must have slept with one eye open, how he must havewondered whether morning would come, makes something hot and vicious rise in me.
At least Silvestre died screaming. But staring at Nico now—alive, scarred, breaking open in front of me—I realize with perfect clarity: I’d resurrect that bastard myself just to kill him slower.
"Steph, I lied to you." Nico picks back up. "I didn't escape. I was kidnapped. The Cells found out that Aurelio had me and hired the Mexicans to extract me. I didn’t know what to make of it. How do you tell your brother that he’s not your brother? That he’s the son of the man who destroyed your family?"
My heart twists with the realization that I no longer know my brother at all. The Nico I knew would never have been able to lie that convincingly to me in the hospital. And there had been a lot of lies. How much of what he says now can I believe?
"You just tell him," I whisper.
Nico’s voice softens. "I did manage to escape in Mexico for a little over a week. I put the drive in the bank because I wanted you to have the truth. All of it. I wanted you to burn Gustave and Aurelio to the ground. I didn't have anyone's phone number, so I went to an internet café to contact you. God, I wanted to talk to you so badly," he wipes his forehead, and I wonder how different things would have been if he had gotten in contact with me that day. "I called Conti Holdings' main office. After some sweet-talking, I got the switchboardlady to connect me, but she called Gustave. Instead of learning my lesson and hanging up, I told him where I was." He shakes his head, glares at Gustave. "A few hours later, the Cells picked me up." For whatever decency still remains in him, Gustave looks at Nico. "You called the switchboard; they would have told Donna Margarita if I hadn't." But there’s something in his eyes that might qualify as regret if I were still inclined to grant him the benefit of interpretation.
Somewhere in a corner, a mouse squeaks, protesting the interruption in its living quarters. Or maybe it's a rat, that would be more fitting. Donna Margarita. Again! She must have finally ratted Nico out to the Cells. Was that how they found him in the first place? I ponder that. I wouldn't put it past her. She found a way to make Silvestre believe that she hadn't been sitting on Nico's secret for years without telling him, and then she figured out a way to let the Cells know, too. I can almost see it. Oh, you won't believe who I saw in Caracas… My jaw tightens. Oksana will appreciate this part. Oksana.
My wife.
A sudden yearning to go to her overcomes me, nearly becomes overpowering, but I push it back down. This is still business.
I have one more question for my father. "Why?" I ask him. "Why all of this?"
Gustave lifts his head, weary and furious all at once. I can tell he doesn't have an answer other thanyou always playboth sides. Just like he was for the Valverdes, Nico was the perfect pawn in my father's schemes until Donna Margarita blackmailed him; that's when Nico became a liability. The wind stills. Nico’s hand lifts.
"Don’t," I whisper, not knowing why.
He hesitates only for a breath.
Then—
BANG.
The shot echoes through the empty floors. Gustave slumps. His blood hits the warped wood.
I don’t move. I don’t look away. I stare at the empty eyes in front of me that used to make me believe he was something he wasn’t and say, "Too quick."
Nico nods. "I know. But I’ve got more work to do. This was just cleaning house."
"What are you going to do?"
He holsters his gun, jaw set like carved stone. "Find out who’s behind the Cells. And then decide what Alexei Voronin is worth."
"And Grigori?" I ask quietly.
