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“Stop! Yuriy! I’m married now! I’m about to be a father. You gonna make me piss my pants. I have dignity—stop!”

“Liar. You’re the same crybaby I raised.”

He folded in half, trying to escape, cackling, gasping, prying my hands off. One of his boots slipped on the frosted pavement, and we both lurched sideways, still tangled, still laughing.

For a moment, it felt like the old days before bloodshed, before betrayal, before all the years between us. Just brothers being stupid and alive.

“I swear to god—” he wheezed.

“Say it, and I’ll stop.”

“Fine! Fine!” he burst out, half-choked, red-faced and breathless. “I love you, you fucking psycho!”

I loosened the chokehold triumphantly. “There. Was that so hard?”

“Yes, because you’re insufferable.”

I grinned, finally releasing him. He shoved me lightly in the chest, affection disguised as annoyance. We were still laughing when a sound broke the moment. A shift of weight on snow.

Every instinct I’d honed since I was teen, who suddenly became the guardian of my brother, snapped taut. Zasha froze beside me, our breaths steaming in the cold night. We turned at the same time.

Two silhouettes appeared from behind a parked van. Hands buried in their jackets, they moved like men who had a job to finish.

Our laughter dried up.

The Christmas lights still blinked above us. Music drifted faintly from a distant window. Snowflakes drifted lazily in the air. A perfect holiday postcard. Except for the killers stepping out of the shadows and the way Zasha straightened beside me, the softness gone, and an old fire burning in his eyes I hadn’t seen in a long time.

I exhaled once, steady.

“Stay out of this, Zasha.” I shoved him behind me just like when we were little, and I took our father’s fists so he didn’t have to. “You have to go back home to Yelena.”

“Fuck that. I’m not going to run. I’m an Orlov and will always be an Orlov.”

“Well,” I murmured, rolling my shoulders loose. “Just don’t get killed on my watch.”

Zasha cracked his knuckles. “I won’t,” he said, voice low, dangerous. “I was starting to get rusty anyway.”

The men advanced, and the wolves in us woke up.

The nearest one lunged. I met him halfway, catching his wrist before the knife even cleared his sleeve. I twisted, bone cracking under my grip, and he yelped. His other hand swung up with a second blade. Zasha crashed into him from the side like a linebacker, slamming him into the brick wall. Something sharp fell in the snow.

The second attacker charged me, fast, trained, predictable. I ducked the first swing, drove my elbow into his ribs, then cranked my fist into his jaw. He staggered, spat blood, and swung again. Behind me, I heard Zasha grunt, heard the crunch of fist on bone, heard the thud of a body hitting the pavement.

I grabbed my guy by the collar and threw him onto the frozen sidewalk. He scrambled up, but Zasha was already behind him, panting, cheeks flushed from adrenaline, eyes burning with something cold and familiar.

He was still Orlov blood.

“Enough!” I barked, removing my gun from the inside of my jacket and aiming at first one, then the other.

Both men froze.

Zasha stood tall, chest heaving. I stood beside him, blood on my knuckles, breath fogging the night.

The attackers looked between us, calculating, confused, terrified.

“There’s only one reason I’m letting you live,” I snapped. “To tell whoever is behind this that it’s not too late to fuck off and leave us alone. There’s still time to back off, or I’ll have all your heads swinging from the Broadway Bridge.”

They didn’t just run. They fled. Vanishing down the street like ghosts chased by wolves.