Gavriil (Stepanov Mafia)

I followed the men up the stairs, still wondering in the back of my mind whether they weren’t lying. Maybe they were telling me they were Stepanovs just so I would go quietly, and really they were working for Devin. As soon as we got upstairs, however, that thought flew out of my head. There was blood everywhere.

“Don’t look at that,” the dark-haired man said.

He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me towards the door, but I broke away from him and strained to see through the door that led into the dining room. That was when I saw it. Him. The man with the neck tattoo was laying on the floor of his dining room, the snake around his throat split open by a blade. Blood burbled out of him, puddling on the floor, and while I looked at his pale face, he blinked.

The man pulled me gently towards the door, and this time I followed.

The car waiting out front was black and chrome, nothing like the rusted car I’d been abducted in. If it hadn’t been clear before that these men were operating on another level to Devin’s henchmen, it was clear now. I crawled onto the back seat, and the dark-haired man sat in the driver’s seat. He grabbed a water bottle from the console and handed it to me over his shoulder.

“Thirsty?”

“Thank you,” I said, snatching it from his hand and practically chewing the cap off with my teeth. My mouth felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton, and even though my bladder was so full it was about to burst, I couldn’t resist the water.

As soon as I felt satisfied, I leaned back in the seat and repeated the question I’d asked inside. “Where’s Gavril?”

The blond man turned around – it felt strange that I didn’t know their names, but they didn’t offer them, and I wasn’t in a state of mind to remember them anyway. “First of all, he’s fine.”

My stomach dropped. If he had to start his answer that way, it meant things were not fine. Not fine at all.

“Is he hurt?”

The man bit his lower lip, making himself look much younger than he probably was. “He got shot.”

I jolted forward, my hands resting on the back of their seats. “By who? Where is he? Is he okay?”

“He’s okay,” the man repeated. “He’s at his house, and the doctor is there now looking him over. It’s okay.”

I took a deep breath and nodded, trying to settle myself down. I was tired, and my emotions were bubbling just under the surface. It didn’t take much at all to set me off.

“Who shot him?” I asked even though I already knew the answer. Who else could it have been?

“Your brother.”

I took another deep breath, knowing I’d need it. “Where is he?”

The man turned away, and I knew. I’d expected it from the beginning. Gavril killed people for far less. But still, somehow, I’d thought everything could be worked out without him dying. I’d spent most of my life saving him from sticky situations. But this was more than a sticky situation. Devin had dug himself into a hole so deep no one could pull him out.

“Did Gavril kill him?”

The driver coughed. It was a warning. “Maybe you’d like to have this conversation with Gavril?”

It was a question and a statement.

“Yeah, okay,” I said quietly.

I watched the houses and buildings pass by in a dark blur, and reminded myself that my brother was gone. I expected the world to change. For the image in front of me to shift and alter around my new reality, but it stayed put. Devin wasn’t important enough to alter the fabric of the world. Very few people would need to adjust around his absence. He had spent his life involved in petty crime, doing very little to benefit himself or anyone else. And still, I missed him.

The first tears came silently, slipping down my cheeks before I realized they were there. But the longer I stared out the window, watching the same world I’d always known race past the window, the harder the tears came.

I wasn’t crying for the Devin who had kidnapped me and threatened my baby. For the Devin who had screamed at me and allowed me to be tied up and left in a basement for hours. I was crying for the Devin who would get a stomach ache from too much ice cream after dinner and lay on the couch next to me watching cartoons. I was crying for the brother who always knew how to make my mom smile when I couldn’t. I was crying for the brother I wanted, the brother I should have had. I was crying for the reality that had never been and now never would.

I didn’t blame Gavril. Devin was a threat. He’d proven himself to be deranged and violent, and it was better for the world that he was gone. I just had to convince myself that it was better for me that he was gone. And I knew I’d get there eventually.