as if releasing the words helped remove at least a bit of the stress she’d been carrying for the past week all by herself.
“I don’t care what happens to me, but I won’t let anything happen to Baba or Yuri, or you,” she said softly, turning to look up at me.
“Well, I care what happens to you,” I said, “and so does Yuri.”
“Yeah,” he said though he appeared to be lost in thought for a moment.
Finally, he looked from Clara to the wall. I followed his gaze to see the painting of our mother, and suddenly something Clara had said exploded in my consciousness.
“Wait, tell me again. Exactly what did Nikolai say about the man on the road,” I said and saw Yuri nodding as if he’d wondered the same thing.
Clara looked between us, her eyes filling with pain, and I knew I’d touched on something she’d attempted to gloss over.
“Tell us,” I repeated softly.
“He admitted to beating up a man who had overheard something about the bratva planning on moving a shipment of cocaine. He didn’t mean to… to kill him. At least not at first. But when his cousin jeered at him for being a… a pizda, Nikolai shot him and then ran over…”
Her eyes followed Yuri’s gaze just as mine had.
“Alek… Yuri, I’m so sorry,” she said as tears she’d kept at bay began to spill. “Nikolai… he… he called the man Maxim…”
“Our father,” Yuri said between clenched teeth. “That bastard murdered our father after beating him because some asshole called him a pussy? And then he fucking laughs about it? I’ll kill the son of a bitch!”
I practically dumped Clara off my lap in my haste to stand and grab at Yuri as he attempted to storm past me. “Wait!”
“No fucking way,” Yuri said, wrenching free of my hold.
“Please, Yuri,” Clara added, reaching out to put her hand on his arm. “You’ll never get to him. He’s surrounded by his goons, and you can’t get to the penthouse without going up in the elevator, and, I promise you, no one at The Drake is going to simply let you storm in and take out one of their best-paying customers.”
“Not to mention the fact you’ll be charged with murder,” I added, holding my hand up when he glared at me. If looks alone could kill, I’d be dead where I stood. “I know, I know,” I said. “I want him as dead as you do, but I don’t want to lose you in the process, and I’m not a huge fan of looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life if by some miracle we manage to kill the bastard.”
“So what? We tuck our tails between our legs and take it?” Yuri snarled. “Talk about being a pussy. Our father would be ashamed—”
“Fuck you!” I said, cutting him off as fury ran through me. Forcing myself to calm, I shook my head. “Listen, shame I can handle. But your death? That is something I’m not willing to witness.” Releasing his arm, I took Clara’s hand and pried it from Yuri’s sleeve as well. Pulling her against me, noticing her slight wince as I did so, I wondered at what other bruises she was hiding beneath that sweatshirt. Looking back at my brother, I made him a promise I planned to keep. “I’m not saying we let Nikolai off. Believe me, we’re going to make him pay, but we’re going to do it in a way no one besides those who deserve it are hurt.”
Yuri looked unconvinced, his fists still clenched at his sides.
“Mother would want us to take a moment and think this through,” I said.
It wasn’t a lie. Our mother had constantly drilled into us the value of not going off the handle on a whim. She’d never admitted that perhaps my father had done that very thing, and it had cost him his life. Another memory surfaced, and I sat down again, turning Clara to face me.
“Tell us again what he said about his cousin.”
“Nikolai said his name was Luka and he shot him because he made some comment about Nikolai being a… you know. I think that was the first time Nikolai had ever been tested, and when his cousin made fun of him, suggesting he wasn’t a real man—”
“Nikolai shot him and made it look like his cousin had committed suicide after being involved in a hit-and-run accident,” I completed for her. “He couldn’t exactly kill the son of Grigori Petrov