I shake my head. “Nope. And I’ve never lost a single one.” I have to pause. I don’t know how many of my former brothers I’ve killed for trying to run. I’ve been doing this job for so long that they all kind of blur together. I can’t stop thinking about them, though… or Nicki.
I can’t shake the feeling that if he had come to me, I wouldn’t have honored his wishes. It makes me sick to think about it. He was my brother and it would have torn me up to know that he didn’t want to be by my side anymore.
But… he was my brother. Was I so deeply corrupt that I wouldn’t have hesitated? Before falling for Tati, before everything in my worldview changed, would I have gone to Nikolai? Andwhen Nikolai inevitably brought down the order, would I have followed it?
One of the girls milling around the clubhouse appears at Teddy’s shoulder with a fresh beer. She looks like a carbon copy of all the women who hang around them, young and thin with tight jeans and T-shirts with the Red Devil logo on it. She brushes her long, ratted hair over one shoulder and asks me, “You want another one, honey?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Thank you.”
She nods and walks away. Once she’s sitting at the bar next to one of the other guys, Teddy says, his voice a little lower, “You still don’t remember anything from back then, do you?”
“No,” I say. “I wish to God that I did. Especially if what that journal said was true.”
“What if it is? What do you think you would have done if he told you that he was thinking of skipping out?”
I shrug. “I’ve been thinking about that. You gotta understand something, Teddy. I’ve been loyal to the brotherhood since I was eleven years old. Nikolai raised me. If Nicki had come to me talking about leaving…”
I take a breath, trying to be honest with myself and at the same time trying to see myself the way I was before all this happened. “I don’t think I would have believed him. At least, not at first. Nicki was good at the job. Almost as good as me. And just like me, he grew up in it. There was nobody in the Bratva who knew the consequences better than we did. He knew damned well if he told me he wanted out, it would put me in a position where I might have to enforce company policy.”
“Yeah, well… maybe he thought that being the Pakhan’s son would grant him a pass.”
“Clearly, he thought wrong,” I say with a hard sigh. “Nikolai made sure of that. I’m certain of it now. There’s no way he’d sanction Yanov trying to kill me over that journal otherwise.”
“Well, friend,” he says, “I gotta say, this is quite a situation you’ve got here… but if you want to run, I’ll do whatever I can to get you and Tati out of town. We got friends in the south, a few in the west. We can make you disappear, I think. And really, if there’s anybody who could stay gone and stay off the Brava radar, I believe you could do it.”
I shrug. “Yeah,” I say, “but for how long? I think I could pull it off if we keep moving. Maybe for a few years until we can settle somewhere remote for a time. But then after that…” I sigh and shake my head. “I’m forty now, Teddy. Let’s say I manage to hold them off for ten or twenty years. What happens after that? I don’t want to be in my seventies and eighties watching out for them from my hospital bed.”
We drink our beers in silence for a few moments until I finally say, “My choices are a little limited. Run or stay here and die.” He doesn’t answer, and I’m not expecting him to. He’s right. Tati and I will never really be able to settle. Never be able to stop running. The arm of the Bratva is long. Long enough to find us wherever we go.
And Teddy’s not wrong. Being that I’ve been on the other side of this, I’ve always known what to look for and how to run if I’ve ever needed to. But that doesn’t negate the fact that I will always be running. If it were just me, that’d be one thing, but what about Tati? What kind of life would that be for her?
“Your choices might be limited, but not erased,” Teddy says. “You got more options than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way I see, friend, running or dying ain’t your only choices.” He puts up a finger. “You can run. Sure, it means you’ll be doing it forever, but at least you and Tati will be in charge of your own destiny. Least ‘til they find you.” He puts up another finger. “You can rat. Get all of Marla’s evidence, find a lawyer, and trust that they’ll be able to hide you in the Witness Protection program.”
I scoff. “Yeah, those are just the same choices with extra steps. Plus, we’d have to testify against him. If I don’t know anything about running, I know the first rule is never let them know where you are. I wouldn’t be the first Bratva to be gunned down in front of a courthouse.”
“Okay,” Teddy says. “So, that just leaves you with a third option.” He holds up three fingers as if putting on display. “Face the sonofabitch and put him down yourself.”
I look up from my beer at him. “Kill Nikolai? Seriously. That’s what you’re suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting you excel in the one thing you Bratva enforcers know how to do better than anyone I know,” he says. “Vengeance. Only this time, you do it for yourself. If Nicki was killed, Vik, and his father is the guy responsible, you can’t let that shit lie. Especially if the bastard’s got you and his other kid in his sights next. You want to be with her and live a life outside of having to spend it looking over your shoulder? Then you already know that he’s gotta go.” He taps the table for emphasis as he adds, “Claim the life you want with Tati and avenge your brother’s death.”
It’s an insane idea. Nikolai could wipe me out with just a word. Standing against him sounds like a death sentence.
And yet, it might be the only real option available to me. It’s at least the only one that leaves me and Tati to move freely again.
“The rest of the brotherhood won’t follow me blindly,” I say.
“Maybe not. But they might think twice about defying you if they know your predecessor put his own children on the chopping block.”
He has a point… and I’ve got to be real with myself. I don’t like the idea of spending my life running. “All right,” I say. “But if I’m going after Nikolai, I’m going to need an army. Can I count on you?”
“Always.”
“Good.” I take a swig of my beer. “First thing, I need to go to the bank when it opens. Get into that safety deposit box. Whatever Marla’s gathered, I’m gonna need it after I take him down.”
