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ZASHA

Yuriy, I can explain.

YURIY:

Can’t wait to hear it. U know I can’t stand the old man. It’s bad enough I have to spend 2 weeks with him. Why the fuck do I have to be cooped up in a car with him for 2 hours?

And why the hell was my brother living in Bumfuck, Nowhere, Missouri? The flyover state. No wonder I had never been able to find him after he and his wife, Yelena, disappeared. Zasha had taken in way more of the family business than I’d thought. He’d used everything he knew to go off-grid for the past five years. No amount of digging I’d done had come up with anything useful to find him.

The only consolation was that Zhukovsky hadn’t been able to find them either.

If I weren’t so pissed he’d fallen head over heels with my rival’s daughter, I would have been impressed. But it wasn’t easy raising a kid on your own when you were only sixteen years old, and then for them to choose someone else over you and cut ties.

The betrayal cut deep, but what could I do? He was my brother. My only sibling, and more like a son, even though I was just eight years older.

ZASHA

PlZ don’t make a fuss. Yel’s not convinced u 2 have buried the hatchet like u said. U gotta make this work, Yuriy.

YURIY

Well, he’s still alive. Isn’t he? That’s enough to prove I come in peace.

ZASHA

Barely. Didn’t u have a knife pointed at his crotch?

Fuck.

My gaze drifted to the driver’s seat. Apparently, Arty knew a lot more about us than I’d thought and his job was to do more than escort me and the devil to my brother’s home. He was watching our every move and reporting to the kids. Just how much of what went on had Arty relayed?

I took a long drag from the vape, trapping the air in my lungs, then releasing it.

YURIY

We were just fucking around. His balls are safe enough that he can still get someone pregnant. If his semen’s not completely dust yet.

ZASHA

That’s the kind of thing u can’t b saying around Yel. Please don’t screw this up 4 me. I miss u, bro, and want u in our lives. I want my kids to know how cool their uncle is.

YURIY

Whose decision was it to elope, knowing I would disapprove?

ZASHA

Exactly. U didn’t leave us with a choice. Neither of u did. Now find a way to work ur shit out before u step foot in our house.

YURIY

Watch ur mouth, brother.

ZASHA

Just be the good brother I know u can be. Talk to u later. Yel’s getting off the phone with her dad right now.

YURIY