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“Already called,” Marka says. He doesn’t move from the doorway. Doesn’t come closer. A man who runs toward every problem I’ve ever had, and he’s standing still.

Lavro’s hand finds my forearm. His grip is still strong, which means there’s still time, and I hold onto that.

“You would’ve done it for me,” Lavro says.

“Shut up,” I say. “Save it.”

“You would’ve.”

“I said shut up.” I put pressure on the wound with my free hand and lock my eyes on his and don’t look away. He looks back, and neither of us says anything for a moment.

“Promise me something,” he says.

“Shut up and save your strength.”

“Volkov.” His grip tightens on my arm. Just once. “Find who did this.”

“I will.”

“Promise me. Say it.”

I look at my brother. Thirty-one years old. The only person in my life who has ever said what he meant without wanting anything back for it. The only person who ever made a joke and then waited, actually waited, until I laughed.

“I promise,” I say. “I’ll find them.”

His grip loosens. Not all at once. Slowly, like something leaving that has no intention of coming back. His eyes stay open, but the focus goes out of them, and I keep the pressure on the wound even after there’s no point in keeping the pressure on the wound because I don’t know what else to do with my hands.

Marka stands in the doorway and says nothing.

I stay on the floor with my brother. The blood soaks through my pants at the knee. I don’t move. I don’t speak. Marka says something behind me, but I don’t hear it.

Then I’m on my feet.

I don’t decide to stand. My body does it without me. My fist goes through the wall beside the door before I know I’ve thrown it, plaster and drywall giving way, and the pain in my knuckles is the first thing I’ve felt since Lavro went down, and so I hit it again. And again. The wall cracks open and my hand splits open, and I keep going until Marka’s hands are on my arm, both hands, his full weight pulling me back, and I turn on him.

He lets go, steps back, and says nothing. Marka, who has pulled me out of worse situations than this, who has never once flinched at anything I’ve done, puts one hand up, takes one step back, and looks at me like he’s not sure what I am right now.

I’m not sure either.

I breathe. In. Out. My father’s voice in my head, sixteen years old, the lesson that stuck when nothing else did.

Control is the only weapon that never runs out.

I look at my hand. Split across three knuckles, blood running into my palm, mixing with Lavro’s on my sleeve.

I don’t look at Lavro again. I can’t.

I turn to Marka instead. “Who arranged the venue?”

He’s already on his phone. Four minutes pass. I stand in the room with my brother, the bodies, and the smell of gunfire. I don’t move because moving means leaving and I’m not ready to leave yet.

“Berezin,” Marka says when he comes back. “He sourced the location.”

I look at Lavro on the floor one last time. Then I walk out.

Down the stairs, out onto the street. The Brooklyn night is cold as I stand on the pavement with my brother’s blood on my shirt, my own blood on my knuckles, and I breathe.

Lavro is dead. He threw himself in front of a bullet meant for me, and now he’s dead, and I’m standing on a pavement in Brooklyn, and none of that is something I can fix or undo or shoot my way out of. That’s the part that hits hardest. There’s nothing to hit back at yet. There’s just the absence of him, sitting in the place he always stood, and me with nothing to do with my hands.