Page 136
“Isn’t that something you can take care of?”
A muscle in my little brother’s jaw ticks; I’ve seen that same habit in the mirror, and for once I feel a thread of connection to him… now that he’s annoyed.
“Normally, yes, but you’re actually listed as the site supervisor today.”
Shame and guilt burn through me. “Why?” I bark out.
Timur stares at me with blank eyes, his chest rising and falling with a deep breath, hand clenched around the rim of his hardhat.
“Because you picked up the opening shift here this morning, remember? You agreed to this weeks ago, Vasily. I had to go to the school with Nat and…”
He keeps talking, explaining a situation that clicks now in my mind. Yes; I did agree to this. Timur had to be there to address some behavior issues with his daughter and another kid in the summer preschool program. Fuck.
“…should be able to rely on some consistency, but for weeks now it’s been a mess.”
“What are you saying?” The words come out gritty, frustrated, with a flicker of rage.
My little brother surprises me by striding forward, gripping my forearm, and hauling me off toward a more private area of the site.
“What I’m saying is that you continue to be distracted, and now someone has gotten hurt.”
The look in his eyes tells me he knows this isn’t actually the first time someone has gotten hurt. Just the first time it’s happened outside of the shadows, on a job site, in a legitimate part of the business. Which is usually his territory; and now I’ve sullied it.
A small part of me is impressed. Timur has always shut his mouth and found ways to disappear when conflict arose.
Now he’s standing toe-to-toe with me, despite being quite a bit shorter.
“The trial started at—”
“I don’t care when it started,” he interrupts. A few of the men have noticed that we’re off to the side, they can probably sense the tension. “I don’t care how it’s going. It wasn’t your responsibility to be there today, Vas; it was your responsibility to be here overseeing things and taking care of our men. And now Rob’s leg is crushed, and he’s going to be on disability for a while. He’s been sending money back to his mom and sister in Novosibirsk and now…”
“So send the fucking money. I don’t care.”
Timur shifts from foot to foot, his knuckles white. “That’s not the point, Vasily. The point is, you should leave all the legal shit to Matilda; isn’t that why she’s here? She’s the lawyer. You can’t help anything by worrying about it from here, and now—”
“‘And now,’ what?”
“I don’t think you do. I don’t think you actually care anymore. Mikhail and everything going down with him is a mess, Vasily, and I want the business to survive this, but you’re creating an unstable foundation. If that bitch is worth the trouble—”
Rob cries out as the paramedics move him to a stretcher. I glance over Timur’s shoulder; an OSHA member is heading our way with a clipboard in hand and a grim look on his face.
Something inside me snaps.
“Don’t.”
Timur blinks, half-turning back to the site. I can tell he sees it now: the man inside me who built this empire. The one I disguise carefully in suits and button-downs, Ferragamo loafers and high-end artwork in the house, as if I haven’t killed with my bare hands.
As if I wouldn’t do it again.
I step closer, closing the gap between us.
“Don’t talk about her like she is handling some minor inconvenience while we stand around waiting for the day to end.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“I know exactly what you meant.”
I turn before he can finish. My boots strike the gravel hard as I stalk away from him, jaw clenched, hands curled into fists.
