"I completely agree."
The sentence cut through the room.
Only one man could command an entire room with a handful of syllables.
I turned and saw my Pakhan, and brother, standing in the doorway. He had changed from his blood-soaked suit into a fresh clean one, but he hadn't showered. The ichor remained in his hair and on his skin. It had the desired effect; the men in the room shuddered to themselves, suddenly reminded of who they served.
Anatoly realized the same time as his fellow Vory.
"Please," Konstantin said, smiling slowly, "don't let me interrupt." He waved a hand towards Anatoly, an almost mocking gesture to tell him to keep talking. "Come on, Anatoly. I wanted to hear what you were saying."
The Brigadier swallowed. "Sir, I–" He broke off as Konstantin's smile darkened.
I had known Konstantin for a long time. We’d been inseparable since we were children, spending every waking moment together and bonded by the fact we were both too ambitious to resign ourselves to an average life of mundanity. I had seen him at his best and at his worst, but looking at him now, seeing him now, sometimes I didn't recognize the man in front of me.
There was only one reason for this change in him.
Elena.
Her name wasn’t said out loud these days–especially not in front of Konstantin. But she remained in these halls. Her empty chair remained at breakfast, Anton slept with her pillow, and the library stayed untouched–like we were afraid she would return and be angry we had messed with her categorizing system.
Everything led back to her leaving.
At first, Konstantin had seemed withdrawn, sad even. The betrayal of Tatiana could be to blame for why I didn't catch it earlier, because, slowly, Konstantin became harder and crueler. His punishments had never been kind, but now they bordered on horrific. He preferred to deal with matters himself now, even interrogating lowly associates, and those interrogations often led to bloodshed.
When Olezka had found the FBI rat, a man who worked in our lawyer’s office and had been secretly sharing our legal information to the Feds, he had called me before delivering him. He’d been worried about Konstantin, but I’d ignored him.
Danika had interrogated him first, but once Konstantin had gotten wind of our little snitch, he’d gone right away. I don't know what he said to Danika or what she had seen in his expression, but she had left immediately.
Some part of me wished I had followed her out.
Konstantin took a seat among the men. Not at the head of the table, but in between two Brigadiers. Both of them looked downward at his arrival, prey cowering to the predator.
"Nothing to say, Anatoly?" he inquired. "If you're going to bother everyone, you must have something to say. It is good manners."
Anatoly audibly gulped.
"If you're done..." Konstantin waved a hand towards him.
The Brigadier sat instantly, the chair groaning over how fast he dropped into it.
Feodor and I shared a look.
"Does anyone else wish to volunteer themselves for my position?" Konstantin asked the room. "Does anyone think they could be a better Pakhan?"
The drop of a pin could be heard, the room was so quiet.
"No?" he mused, eyes gleaming. Not with humour...but with something much darker. On instinct, my eyes went to Roksana, assessing she was fine.
Her attention was trained on Konstantin, her face filled with nothing but worry and concern.
We are past worry, I feared. Now it is time we are wary.
“If that has been dealt with, then let me take full advantage of this meeting and let you all in on a little secret.” Konstantin straightened his cuffs. “Those who ask for power never amass it.”
I heard the gunshot before I saw the gun.
With the same precision as the strike of a snake, Konstantin had fired his weapon and sent a bullet straight into Anatoly’s head.
My boss was right. You didn’t ask for power; you took it.
My phone buzzed at the same exact moment and a discreet look let me see who had contacted me.
Only one vague message greeted me.
I’ve found her.
1
Konstantin Tarkhanov
She stood in the garden.
I glanced out the window, expecting to see nothing but overgrown bushes and wildflowers, but a lone figure caught my eye. Beneath the moonlight, still like a statue but relaxed, was my love.
It’s not really her, a voice said faraway, faint enough it could’ve been the wind.
I paid it no mind.
She looked up at me, meeting my eyes through the windowpane. Come outside, her expression seemed to beckon. Come and stand beneath the stars with me.
I was never one to deny her and accepted her summons, walking through my quiet manor and into the night-covered garden.
“Lyubimaya?” I called. “Come inside. You will get cold out here.”
She didn’t move.
I tried to approach her, but she grew further away–or maybe my legs stopped working. The distance between us suddenly seems insurmountable.
I called her name, but she didn’t respond.
“Come inside,” I repeated. “Come back into the warmth.”
Still, she did not respond.
“Come home.”
She turned to me suddenly, but it wasn’t the woman I loved who looked back at me. Tatiana’s grey-blue eyes were bright with hatred, her lips downturned into a snarl.
I yelled out in fury, a wolf protecting his pack.
“You dare–!”
“Konstantin,” she said, her voice strange and deep. “Kostya, brother, Kostya–!”
Anger thundered through me, and my arm came up and swung–
My knuckles hit flesh and bone, eliciting a loud yell from the face I had connected with.
“What the fuck, Kostya?” came the rough voice of Roman. He looked up at me, nose bloody. His brown eyes peered at me in disbelief, no longer Tatiana’s grey-blue. “You can pay for my nose job, you motherfucker. Shit, I was trying to help you–!”
I stepped back.
Sounds of the night came flooding into my senses. The wafting breeze, the music of the crickets. I could even hear the dogs pattering around and my men stalking in the trees.
Slowly, lucidness settled over me, bringing with it clear thoughts and the realization of what I had done.
“Roman.”
I had just hit the boy I had raised since he was 15 years old, the man I had trained into a warrior and considered one of my closest companions.
I didn’t respond. All I could think about was my mother.
Tarkhanova women are cursed, my father had once told me. Your mother is cursed, Natalia’s mother was cursed and so is Natalia.
Cursed with what? I remembered asking.
My father had laughed. Madness.
Some part of me wondered if perhaps it wasn’t only the women whose minds became dangerous. Perhaps my mother had given me one last gift.
Perhaps, I, too, carried the gene for madness and it was slowly growing inside of me, mutilating my cells and infecting my blood.
Would it even be worth trying to fight it?
2
Elena Falcone
Bugs died dramatically as they hit the zapper, falling to the ground as little balls of electricity.
My son watched fascinated as the insects refused to learn their family’s lesson. His green eyes lit up whenever it made a sharp zapping noise, almost like he, too, was surprised by the bugs’ failings.