Page 91 of Violent Pawn

He’s right. I feel broken. Shattered like her heart was that day.

“I need answers, man. What the hell happened?”

There isn’t enough alcohol in the world to get me through this conversation, but the fact I’m even thinking about it is laughable. I did all this to assuage myself of fault and instead destroyed the trust of someone I care for. I ruined what could be. I hurt her in ways I didn’t know possible to harm another. Ways I can’t live with myself over. No apology will be enough to bandage my actions.

“Eleven years ago, your father sent me on a job in Poland.”

Surprise flickers in his expression, his head straightening off the wall at the mention of his father. “You texted me about this one.”

“Anastasia was performing a show there. My task was to kidnap her, so your padre could use her as a bargaining tool. Your father had others tail me to ensure the job got done. Once I met her, I couldn’t do it. Not without knowing what would happen when she was brought back here. We both know what he would have done.”

His flinch confirms his agreement. Anastasia would have been a captive, and then probably dead. My feisty ballerina wouldn’t be alive for me to be falling for.

“I helped her escape. She ran back to her father, and we never got a hold of her. When I…” Inhale. “When I returned here, Elio told me your padre was killed.”

He inhales sharply, curses lightly, and gets to his feet.

This is it. This is where I lose my best friend. How much pain can one heart go through this week?

“Nero, that wasn’t your fault.”

That wasn’t what I expected him to say.

“It was a coincidence. His murder already happened by the time you returned, with or without her.”

I push to my feet, more sober than I’ve been in a week…apparently. “If I took her, maybe your father wouldn’t have been at that bar. Maybe he would have been waiting for her delivery. Maybe⁠—”

“We don’t know any of that for certain.”

“It doesn’t change the way I feel—then or now. The feelings that have been eating me alive all these years.”

Zeno drops his eyes to the nearest smashed bottle. “That’s when you started drinking.” Fingers drag through his hair, and he turns his back on me. “That’s when you—fuck, Nero. This whole time, you’ve been drinking yourself to death for him.” He whirls back around, dropping his hands to his side. “You’ve spent years mistakenly hating yourself for something the Volkovs did. Hearing this now… All these years, you never told me.”

“How could I? How could I admit to my best friend I was behind his father’s death?”

Zeno exhales loudly. “No. We’ve talked about this—you’re not behind it. I’m talking about your drinking. All these years, I never put it together. The timing. I’m a shitty friend.”

“You’re not. I controlled it back then. Considering you’ve been the Bratva’s enemy since, it was productive to swallow my guilt and move on. But with you and Vanessa’s truce”—my gaze flicks to his left hand, sans ring for now—“it’s different. You stopped blaming them, which means I had to as well, and my brain couldn’t contend with moving on entirely, with doing nothing in his name.”

“When I asked you months ago if you had a problem with her⁠—”

“Not her,” I interrupt. “It wasn’t any of them. It was the fact that you moved on from your hatred, but I couldn’t—wouldn’t be able to. I had no one to direct it to, other than myself. Suddenly, I was hanging out with the new generation of those who were behind his death, and I couldn’t even hate them. Didn’t want to hate them.”

“Fuck.” He rubs a hand down his face, scans the mess, and then stares out the window. “There’s more to it.”

“Sì. I thought if I could get rid of the people who were the Elite, I’d be able to look you in the face and admit what happened. That I’d be able to explain my fuck-up, while my actions be some measure of forgiveness. So I started hunting them.”

Zeno turns, his shoulders lowering beneath the weight. “That could have begun something bigger. It’s why I asked you months ago to leave this alone. You disobeyed an order.” Rather than the anger that would be expected from anyone else not following a command, Zeno’s voice is weighed down by exhaustion.

“I’m aware. Anastasia and Lev’s padre was hidden well, which doesn’t surprise me. I once asked her about him, but she wouldn’t give anything away. The night of your party, her phone was there. It was the ideal situation. That’s why I disappeared for a few days.”

And why she now hates me.

For a few minutes, Zeno’s completely silent, staring from me to the floor, and sometimes out the window, shaking his head. “This is a mess. Answer me one fucking thing. Did you sleep with her only to get her father’s contact information?”

“No. It started that way, months ago, but I do genuinely care for her now.”

“Alright.” He nods once, then again. “Alright, you might be able to fix this.”