The name still carries weight, even after all this time. He was bright, stubborn, full of laughter that could fill a room.
My Little, for a while.
Then one rainy night the phone rang and the world narrowed to a single sentence: car accident,instant.
I never believed the official story. Too neat. Too convenient, coming right after that border skirmish with the Petrov crew.
I wanted to tear the city apart—find whoever was responsible and make them bleed slow until I brought death upon them. My old Pakhan stopped me. “Rage is a tool,” he said. “Use it, don’t let it use you.” So I did. I channeled every ounce of fury into becoming the blade the family needed.
Ruthless. Precise. Unforgiving.
That night changed me from soldier to future Pakhan.
But it was a long time ago. So long in fact that I even have days now where I don’t think about Tommy. I’m sure I’ve almost gone a whole week once or twice. It’s not that I don’t still cherish his memory. I loved our time together. But perhaps the passage of time and my commitment to the family has hardened me in a way that makes memories—happy or sad—seem just a little perfunctory.
My life is about the here and now and plotting for the future. The second I slip up and look backward, then that’s when I’m weakest. And by extension, that’s when the family is weak too. No. I need to stay focused on the present. And only then perhaps I can ensure the future is a good one.
“Wait…” I whisper, back in the real world.
I tune my ear to the sounds in the house. The singing falters, then stops.
Silence.
I tilt my head, listening. No clack of blocks. No rustle of pages. No wooden blocks collapsing in a heap on the hardwood floor.Nothing.
“Eddie?” I call, voice carrying easily through the door.
No answer.
The quiet thickens, turns sharp. I rise slowly, chair scraping back. Suspicion coils low in my gut. He wouldn’t. Not again. Not so soon.
Or would he?
I stride out of the study and into the hall. The living room is empty. The play mat lies abandoned, one picture book open to a page of smiling animals. The window…wide open, curtains stirring in the breeze.
“Fuck,” I growl. “You have to be kidding me.”
Rage surges, hot and immediate.
Eddie is running. Again.
After the toys, after breakfast, after I let him see a sliver of softness.
Foolish boy.Reckless.
But if Eddie thinks he’s on the home straight, he needs to think again. I know these grounds better than my own heartbeat. Every path, every blind spot, every place the trees thin enough to spot movement.
He won’t make the road. Not today. Notever.
I step out the back door, boots silent on the grass. Dew clings to the lawn, footprints clear—small, hurried, veering toward the woods.
Eddie’s sharp. Smart enough to avoid open ground.
But not smart enough to know I’m already behind him.
I move fast, cutting through the underbrush, staying low. Branches snag at my sleeves but I ignore them.
“Gotcha,” I whisper, my senses heightened like a hunter stalking its prey.
