Alexi
“You knew,” Pietr accused me from my bedroom’s open door.
I flipped the lighter closed and looked at him. “Da. Of course I knew. I have played this game far longer than you have.” I studied him, noting the bruises healing on his face.
I hardened my heart. If their initial rejection could change his mind I would know I had at least gone as far—pushed as hard—as I could.
It would be Pietr who stopped the insanity.
“You were not welcomed,” I said coolly, touching a finger to my cheek so he knew I saw his battered one.
“Of course I was not welcomed,” he snapped. “You knew that, too, though, didn’t you?”
“Da.”
“Why, Alexi? Why waste my time?”
“In hopes it is enough to save your soul. This is no game these men play. If they want you, they will want to keep you until you’re no longer of use. Or until you betray them. And then they’ll still want you—but dead.”
“My soul? What about our mother’s life?”
I winced. Our mother’s. It was odd how different he and Max could be. Same bloodline, same genetic code and upbringing, and yet—there were things science could not account for.
“What if we can still save her?”
“What if. What if!” I stood, anger straightening my spine. “We don’t know the cure will do her any good. And we don’t have any more blood to make the cure. What if she finds out what you’re thinking? What then, little brother? You saw what she thought of me—the Rusakova outcast—taking a bullet for her. It turned her stomach! What would she think of a plan including her youngest son and the Mafia?”
“I don’t know,” Pietr barked. “But at least we’d have time to ask her and find out!”
“Damn it, Pietr.”
“I need a proper introduction, don’t I?”
“Da.”
“Then arrrange it,” he commanded, rolling the words into a seamless growl.
The little black book struck me in the chest as he strode out the door.
Jessie
I did laundry detail and returned to my room to read until it was time for my session. Then I returned and read some more. Reading Bisclavret I gained a better understanding of Pietr’s desperation to be understood, to be accepted although he struggled to accept himself.
Bisclavret was every bit the tragedy Pietr hoped to avoid. And whereas the hero in Bisclavret had years to win his wife’s trust and love, it took moments for her to decide to betray him.
Pietr’d never had the luxury of such a lengthy time line to find someone to understand him. His life was destined to be cut short if he continued to refuse the cure.
And he would continue to refuse until his mother was free.
So to feel so deeply for me so quickly and risk his heart by showing himself—a move that might have made most girls agree he was nothing but a monster—took real guts.
That night, with only a few chapters left to read in Bisclavret, I chose to try and be as brave as Pietr. I set aside the novel, picked up my journal, and wrote about losing my mom.
About the last time I’d seen her before the accident.
The fight we’d had.
And the fact I really believed obeying her the very last time I’d seen her had been the biggest mistake of my life.
When I finished, my eyes stung. Exhausted, I crawled into bed and checked the phone. No message. But I was certain that whatever Pietr was doing, wherever he was, he was okay.
He had to be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alexi
I had consumed so much vodka between Pietr’s rejection, my request of an introduction, and the actual event I was amazed I was not yet blind. My head ached and even the scent of food sent me into heaves. I patted the cigarettes again in my pocket. So sleek, small, and potentially deadly. What was better when choosing one’s death, I wondered, the hacking and wheezing of ruined lungs or the hardening of a vodka-soaked liver?
Peering through the windshield into the dark I realized at the rate things were going, I wouldn’t live to see either choice take its final toll.
Riding shotgun was Pietr, the sole reason I was here, sober and sickened—by my own willingness to sacrifice him at least as much as by any drink.
I turned the steering wheel and we headed down a pockmarked dirt road. Our destination loomed ahead—an old dumping ground for far more than the wrecks of cars that towered haphazardly throughout the dump.
“Any advice?” Pietr asked me.
“Da. Tell me to turn the car around.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I do not think you know what you’re getting into, little brother,” I whispered, reaching across to open the glove box.
Pietr barely twitched when I pulled out the gun. “If they find that on you—”
“I guess we’re both taking some risks.” I popped out the gun’s clip, slid my finger along the slot windowing the rounds, spinning each a quarter turn, reassuring myself. This was all about things going smoothly. I chambered the first round. “They’ll want a show. Things will get bloody.”
From the corners of my eyes I noticed the way his Adam’s apple slid in his throat as he swallowed, taking in my words. Nervous. If I noticed, they might notice, too.
It would be like blood in the water.
“Tell me to turn the car around.”
But we both knew what his answer was going to be—what it had to be. And I was enough of a bastard I was ready to sacrifice my youngest brother to gain even a thin chance at freeing my mother.
“Nyet.” His eyes closed.
He was thinking. Of what? Or whom? Jessie? “There are some things—some alliances and choices, you may not ever be forgiven for. Regardless of how forgiving the girl seems.”
“I’ll deal with the fallout after Mother’s out. I have to … prioritize. There are always other girls, aren’t there?” he asked, his lips twisting in a cynical smile that mirrored the one I turned so often on the world.
A car pulled into the area ahead of us from a different entrance. It stopped, still a distance off, and faced us. Its headlights blinked twice. Then three more cars joined it.
I kept my voice steady. “Nyet,” I confided. “Sometimes there is only one girl.”
He glanced at me. But only briefly. “I thought this was to be a small meeting.” He motioned with his chin to the waiting cars.