Roman started crying. “Don’t hurt us. We’re only kids.”
I was too frightened to say anything.
The men dragged us from the room. Smacking us in the back of our heads. Hard enough to hurt but not render us unconscious.
I had visions of myself being chopped up. I’d seen one of the bratva enforcers do this. Was that what Papa did to her sons? I’d overheard Mama and Papa argue about his methods. That he was too cruel. That the universe would find balance. Papa told her to stop her cosmic bullshit. That she knew what she married into. The bratva couldn’t show weakness.
And yet, here I was. I could have pissed my pants, but at least I stayed silent. Unlike Roman, who was in tears.
More shouting and gunfire bounced around us as they hauled us to the back of what looked like a warehouse of boxes stacked twenty feet high. The older woman was leading the way,while the men were dragging Roman and me like rag dolls. I was still stumbling on my feet, and the back of my head still throbbed. In fact, my entire head felt like a balloon about to burst. My vision turned blurry. I wasn’t sure if it was my attempt not to cry or from the pain.
We were almost at the exit when a pop sounded behind me and the man holding me went down, sending us crashing to the concrete flooring. But my eyes focused on his gun. My hearing tunneled as if I were underwater. Noises were muffled except for my breathing.
A bullet tore through the man holding Roman. I saw the blood splatter out of his head.
The old woman screamed and shot behind me. Then she dragged a dazed Roman to his feet and continued to pull him to the exit.
I struggled to my feet, the gun heavy in my hands. I had a shot at the old woman’s back, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. My hands were trembling and my vision wasn’t clear. I’d never shot a person before. What if I shot my brother instead? “Stop!”
The woman spun around. The rush of footsteps and men shouting were coming closer and closer.
Hurry, so I won’t have to do this.
“Kirill,” Roman whispered, his gaze pleading.
“Let him go.” My voice trembled. What if the woman shot me first?
But she didn’t. She pointed the gun at the back of Roman’s head and fired.
“Roman!” That was when I pulled the trigger.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Kirill
“She went down.But my brother was still dead.”
The memory of that night roared back in vivid color as I retold the events to Lucy, keeping out Roman’s crying and what appeared to me now—selfishness. Roman thought only about his own survival. If he had freed himself from those ropes, I bet he would have left me there. But he was still my brother. I felt compelled to protect him and his memory.
I didn’t realize I had my eyes squeezed shut until Lucy’s fingers clasped mine. I opened them to see tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Why are you crying, Lusenka?” I asked gently. My forefinger caught a tear. “Have I earned your tears now?”
She dove into my chest and hugged me tight. My arms came around her, but I made out her muffled “yes.”
We embraced for long seconds. I inhaled her scent. It was a mix of lemon shampoo, bread, and burnt cheese. It was the smell of home. The yearning inside me to explore a future with my wife broadened. I exhaled a sigh of contentment I had neverexperienced before. In all my thirty-six years, I’d never had this feeling, and before a bitterness could set in that I had rotted in an apathetic life, I concluded it was because it was Lucy. No other woman could make me feel this way. Not Anya, nor the countless socialites and faceless women I’d fucked for the purpose of fucking.
Lucy leaned back, her eyes ferocious like a tigress protecting her cub. “Don’t ever think you were a coward, Kirill. You were only nine! You’d been drugged, terrorized. You’d seen men killed in front of you. They stole your childhood!”
“In the bratva, we don’t have childhoods. We start training early. It was Irina who attempted to change that. Ivan indulged her because he had Roman.”
“I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but Roman bullied you into going outside the security of the mansion.”
“He was typical Roman,” I said shortly.
“It was not on you to save your brother.” My wife’s voice was soothing. I’d never retold the details of the event to anyone. Not to my parents, not even to Kolya. They were able to access everything that happened on the surveillance. Ivan saw that Roman was the one crying. I didn’t want to rub it in. “Ever since that night, Ivan couldn’t look me in the eye.”
