Heat floods my face. “Heismy brother! He’s not some weapon or tool or enemy combatant. He’s Tony. He’s the person who used to make me laugh when Dad was drunk, who taught me how to ride a bike, who promised to always protect me.”
“That Tony is gone.” Mikhail moves closer, and I see the exhaustion etched into his features, the dark circles under his eyes. “The man who escaped tonight is Lorenzo’s creation. And because you couldn’t accept that, he’s out there right now, probably reporting everything he learned about our operations.”
“You don’t know that.” But even as I say it, doubt creeps in. Had it all been an act? Had he truly not seen how Lorenzo had influenced him?
“Don’t I?” Mikhail’s laugh is bitter. “I’ve been in this world my entire life, Sophia. I know how conditioning works. I know what it takes to break someone and rebuild them into something else. Your brother has been Lorenzo’s prisoner for six years. Six years of manipulation, of lies, of psychological torture. You think a few days of showing him evidence is enough to undo that?”
“So what was I supposed to do?” My voice rises, anger replacing the guilt. “Just give up on him? Let him stay broken? He’s my brother, Mikhail. My family. The only family I have left.”
“The Artyomovs are your family now.Iam your family now.” The words come out quiet, almost hurt, and something in my chest cracks.
“That’s not the same thing.”
The moment the words leave my mouth, I want to take them back.
I watch Mikhail’s expression shutter, retreating behind the cold mask he wears when he’s been wounded.
“I see.” He turns away from me, moving to the small kitchen. “So I’m what, exactly? A convenient protector? A warm body in your bed? The monster you’ve learned to tolerate?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I follow him, my hands shaking. “Mikhail, please. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” He spins to face me. Fury is there, hot and raw. “Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like you’re saying that the man you married, the man who’s killed for you, bled for you, would die for you, doesn’t count as family.”
“You’re twisting my words.”
“Am I? Or am I finally hearing the truth?” He slams his hand against the counter, and I flinch. “You blame me for this. For Tony’s escape. For his conditioning. For everything.”
“I blame you for shooting him!” The accusation explodes out of me, months of buried resentment finally breaking free. “He had a gun to my head, and your first instinct was to put a bullet in him. Mybrother, Mikhail. You shotmy brother.”
“To save your life!” His voice echoes off the walls. “He was going to kill you, Sophia. His finger was on the trigger. I had maybe half a second to make that shot, and if I’d hesitated, if I’d tried to talk him down or find another way, you’d be dead right now.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” He moves closer, anguish mixing with the anger. “I’ve seen that look before. The look of someone who’s made peace with what they’re about to do. Tony wasn’t bluffing. He wasn’t hesitating. He was going to pull that trigger, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
“That’s the problem.” I pull away from him, wrapping my arms around myself. “You’re so focused on protection that you don’t see how your violence destroys everything around us. You shot Tony. You tortured my father. You’ve killed so many people I’ve lost count. And you justify it all by saying it’s to Nicole safe, to keepmesafe.”
“Itisto keep you safe.” His voice drops, dangerous and low. “Every decision I make, every person I eliminate, it’s all to protect you and the family from the monsters in my world.”
“But you’re one of those monsters!” The words hang between us, brutal in their honesty. “Don’t you see that? You’ve become exactly what you swore to destroy. You’re no different from Lorenzo or Adrian or any of the other men who’ve tried to hurt us.”
Mikhail goes completely still. When he speaks, his voice is barely audible. “Is that really what you think of me?”
I want to take it back, to tell him I didn’t mean it, that I was just angry and scared and lashing out.
But the words stick in my throat because part of me, a small, terrible part, wonders if they’re true.
“I think,” I say carefully, “that you’ve been shaped by violence for so long that you don’t know how to solve problems any other way. And I think that scares me.”
“I don’t know how to be anything other than what I am.”
I move to him slowly, kneeling beside his chair. “Then maybe it’s time to learn.”
He looks at me, and the vulnerability in his eyes twisting my insides. “What if I can’t? What if this is all I am, all I’ll ever be?”
“Then we figure it out together.” I take his hands in mine, feeling the calluses, the scars, the evidence of a life lived in violence. “But Mikhail, you have to stop making decisions for me. You have to trust that I can handle the truth, that I can make my own choices, even if they’re dangerous.”
“Even if those choices get you killed?”
