5. Alek
5
ALEK
I don’t recognize the reflection in the mirror in front of me.
Even before, I didn’t like wearing suits. I reluctantly put one on a couple times a year when absolutely necessary, for weddings and funerals, and dodged every gala and party that I could. Dimitri was the eldest, anyway, so he was the face of the family. I was the fists. The younger brother. The one who got blood on his knuckles and dirt under his nails so that Dimtri and our father could keep their hands clean.
I wonder how dirty his hands have gotten in the last five years. I wonder how dirty either of them were willing to get, in order to try to find me.
I wonder if they tried at all. If they did, they failed. And I haven’t been able to let go of the cold anger that writhes in my gut every time I think about it.
It’s unfair, because I don’t know for sure that they didn’t try. For all I know, Dimitri might still be trying to find out what happened to me. But I don’t think that’s true, because if he was, he would have found me not long after I made it back to the States.
He would have known that I was back in New York, that’s for sure. Even if he hadn’t managed to ping me before then, he has eyes all over this goddamned city, especially now that our father is dead and he’s the pakhan . He stopped looking for me at some point. I feel sure of that. And I don’t know if he tried at all.
He’s my brother. I should give him the benefit of the doubt. But I lost that ability years ago. It was stripped away from me with my dignity, with pieces of my skin, with the chunks of my soul that I lost, too. Drained out of me with my blood, that I watched swirling down a drain in a tiled room over and over again.
My body survived, but I’m not sure how much of me is left. I felt dead, even after I escaped. Hollow. I haven’t felt alive since, not until?—
The other night .
My entire body prickles as if I’ve neared a live wire, my cock twitching instantly to life at the memory of the woman I spent Friday evening with. Dahlia . A mistake, because I was right about one thing.
I haven’t been able to forget her.
She’s been on my mind constantly since I stormed out of her apartment. Her sweet, smoky vanilla scent. The softness of her hair wrapped around my fist. The taste of her, slick like honey and just as delicious. The shape of her body in my hands, and that tight, wet fucking pussy. I’ve come innumerable times in the last few days, jerking off to the memory of her, her black lace panties wrapped around my cock. I used them until they were stiff with my cum, laundered them with my clothes, and jerked off with them again.
It was a mistake to fuck someone again at all. Like tasting a steak after years of surviving on scraps, my body is starving for more. I’ve been relentlessly hard, aroused to the point of pain more than I’ve been in years, my body demanding what it’s been denied for so long. And yet—I haven’t sought out anyone else.
The memory of her is still too close. Too good to replace with another woman. Everything about her felt like the first hit of a drug you’ve never taken before. Intoxicating, a high that I’ll never be able to replicate—not least of all because of the way she reacted. Like she’d never been fucked properly before, just like I suspected. Like she was experiencing that kind of pleasure for the first time. She wasn’t a virgin, but I taught her something new all the same.
It’s taken everything in me not to go back to her apartment and fuck her again. But if there’s one lesson I’ve taken with me from everything that’s happened, it’s that repeating a mistake is the stupidest fucking thing I could do. And I know if I went back to her again, I’d end up keeping her in bed for days. I’d tie her to her fucking headboard, blindfold her, and leave her there to use her when I pleased. I’d find out how many times in a row we could both come.
Instead, it’s better to get her out of my system—exactly like a drug that I shouldn’t use again. I reach down, adjusting my now stiff cock, and let out a heavy sigh, running one tattooed hand through my hair. It flops to one side, and I sigh again.
There’s hair pomade in the bathroom. I walk across my hotel room, my fingers flicking open my belt as I go. If I’m going to take another five minutes to fix my hair, I might as well make it ten, and lessen the chance that I’m going to be at my father’s funeral with a stiff cock, thinking about the first woman I’ve come with in five years.
Fifteen minutes later, I head down in the hotel’s elevator, my hair fixed and my head slightly clearer. I need a clear head to be on my guard. Five years is a long time, and I don’t know who Dimitri is any longer. Loss changes men. Power changes them. I’m prepared for my brother to be someone I don’t recognize, any more than I recognize myself in this suit. And I tell myself that it won’t hurt, if he is.
Nothing can hurt me, any longer. The men who carved out my heart long ago.
There’s no town car waiting for me. I haven’t contacted Dimitri. Maybe it’s a shit thing to do, showing up at our father’s funeral without a warning, but I want the shock value. I want to see his face when his long-lost brother walks into that gathering of people, without giving him time to decide what expression he’ll have. That single moment when he sees me will tell me more about the truth of things than anything else. If he’s shocked, if he’s angry, if he’s emotional—whatever he feels, it will reveal something. Even if he feels nothing at all.
I hail a cab, giving the driver the address of the cemetery before leaning back in the seat. Dahlia has even ruined cabs for me—all I can think about when I slide into one now is her kneeling between my feet, looking up at me with her mascara running as I slammed my cock into her throat and came in her mouth. And fuck if I hadn’t forgotten how good that particular pleasure was until I rediscovered it with her.
Forcing the thought away, I look out at the snowy New York cityscape instead. This part of town, the glamorous part, was never my scene. I liked the grittier areas—Hell’s Kitchen, the Bronx, even Chelsea before it started getting gentrified. I liked the dirt and the blood and the smoke. The truth of people, no matter how much it hurts.
Or at least I thought I did, until I got slapped in the face with a painful truth of my own. One that I never saw coming until it was far, far too late.
My fingers dig into my thighs, and I curl my hands into fists, banishing all of the memories. None of them will do me any good today. I need to focus on seeing my brother again. On whether or not I think I can go back to being part of this family that I lost, and whether or not there’s even a place for me here any longer.
If I want there to be. Or if I just want to put all this behind me, and go somewhere else. Disappear as much as a man who’s been marked by this life in more ways than one ever can. If I want to try to start over, even though I can’t shed the memories of what happened.
The cab pulls up near a stand of barren trees at the edge of the cemetery, and I hand the driver two folded, hundred-dollar bills. “Keep the meter running,” I tell him, because I have no actual idea what will happen when Dimitri sees me. If I’ll want to stay, or if my brother’s reaction will make me want to walk away and leave all of this behind for good.
The cemetery looks colder than anywhere else in New York, a tableau of dark branches stretching out against the grey sky, earth with the grass dead and gone for the season, and the endless grey of gravestones, most of them barren of any flowers or gifts left behind. In this season, most of all, it’s easy to forget the dead. To not come out and leave something for them, when it means being cold yourself, braving the frigid air and chilly wind for those who no longer feel it.
I tug my suit jacket down, the black wool coat that I threw over it billowing out around me as I walk. I see Dimitri before he sees me, standing next to a black-garbed minister, a beautiful woman with inky dark hair and pale skin standing next to him in a black dress, heels, and black peacoat. I see two other men who I recognize—an older man with a craggy face and the buttery hair of a redhead gone white, the leader of the Irish mafia here in New York, Padraig Gallagher. And next to him, Antony Gallo, an olive-skinned man with a paunch and thinning black hair, the don of New York’s Italian mafia. My father had an alliance with them, I know, and he must have maintained it over the years. They must be here to pay their respects, as well.
The others standing a bit further back are men who worked for my father—and who now work for Dimitri, I suppose. I see Vik, Gus, Pyotr, and a few other, younger men who I don’t recognize. For a moment, my steps slow, and I have a strange urge to turn and walk back to the cab before Dimitri or anyone else sees me. To disappear again, and stay gone, since none of them right now know that I’m alive.
I’m late, I can see that—the grave is dug, and there’s no coffin sitting above it. I hesitate, stepping back behind one of the large trees, unsure if I want Padraig and Antony to know I’m alive. Once upon a time, I would have had no suspicions of them, but I’m suspicious of everyone now. There’s no one left in my life that I feel certain I can trust, not even my own blood. Not until I know more about what came after.
I stand there, coat tucked behind my legs against the sharp wind, listening to the drone of the minister, most of his words lost to me in that same wind. I don’t much care about what he’s saying over my father’s body, anyway. Dimitri and our father got along well enough, but I often clashed with the old man. I was good enough to knock heads and torture men for him, but the rest of the time, my hotheadedness and rougher edges made me an embarrassment. As if those weren’t the very things that made me good at doing the Yashkov family dirty work.
I wait until Padraig and Antony have said their piece, watching them walk across the cemetery towards their waiting cars. When they’re gone, leaving only Dimitri, his men, and the woman next to him at the gravesite, I step away from the tree and stride towards them.
Dimitri is saying something quietly to the woman next to him. His wife—I know that from the research I did. A woman named Evelyn Ashburn, with no connection to any crime family. I can’t help but wonder how that happened. My brother has always been the kind to do his duty, and I always imagined he’d marry someone who benefited the family, through either money or connections.
The woman nods, and leans up, kissing him lightly on the mouth before walking away with Gus. I see my brother watch her as she strides back towards one of the waiting cars, Gus just behind her like a menacing shadow, and the look on his face only deepens my curiosity about how my brother ended up with a wife. I know what a man looks like when he’s deeply in love—after all, I was once—and Dimitri watches Evelyn go like he can’t quite breathe as well now that she’s not next to him.
He watches her until the car pulls away, and when he turns back towards the gravesite, that’s when he sees me walking up.
For a second, my brother looks as if he’s seen a ghost. The blood drains from his face, and his shoulders stiffen, a look of utter disbelief etched across his features. His mouth drops open, and for a long moment, neither of us speak.
“Alek.” Dimitri’s voice croaks when he says my name. “Is it really you?”
“It’s me.” I don’t know what else to say, either. There’s no fear on my brother’s face, no indication that he’s worried some dark secret might come to light now that I’ve made it home. Nothing to make me believe that he ever had a hand in it, at least, or made sure I wasn’t rescued. But I never really believed that, anyway.
What I do want to know are the answers to all the questions that stick in my throat. Did you try to find me? How long? What were you willing to do? And why couldn’t you? What fucking happened?
But none of those questions come out, maybe because deep down, I’m too afraid of the answer. The possibility that it might be that they didn’t try anything at all. That it was my fucking fault, and so it made sense I paid the price.
“What the hell happened to otets ?” I ask instead, and Dimitri’s mouth drops into a frown.
“It’s a long story.”
“Is it? Because word on the street is he was sick.” I pause, looking down at the open grave, waiting for the cemetery workers to come and fill it in. What I see makes anything else die on my lips for a moment—I didn’t see a coffin because there isn’t one. There’s only a black ceramic urn at the bottom of the grave. Our father was cremated—and yet he’s being buried in the family plot all the same. “What the fuck is this?”
“A burial.” Dimitri’s face is expressionless, but I catch something in his eyes, a shifting glint that tells me he’s hiding something. “Alek?—”
“You’re burying an urn? Why no coffin? What happened to our father?” The questions come out like gunshots, sharp and abrupt, and I see Dimtri flinch with each one.
“Brother.” He starts to step forward, reaching out to put a hand on my arm, but I retreat a few steps back quickly. “Come back home with me. We’ll sit, talk things out. You can meet my wife?—”
“Evelyn? I don’t need to meet her. But I am curious how that marriage happened.”
There’s a flash of fear in Dimitri’s eyes when I say his wife’s name before he does, and his shoulders go stiff, his eyes narrowing in an instant. “You’ve done your research,” he says coolly, and several paces away, I see Vik and Pyotr’s hands stray towards their guns. A faint echo of something tugs in my chest, like the remembrance of what it feels like to be hurt. My brother doesn’t trust me any more than I trust him, right now.
But then again, didn’t I just go out of my way to get that reaction?
“I wanted to know what I was walking into.”
“Walking into?” Dimitri looks at me with disbelief. “How long have you been back, Alek? How are you back? And why didn’t you come home the moment…” He trails off, as if he doesn’t know how to describe the circumstances. “I don’t know. We thought you were dead. Every sign pointed to you being dead. This is like seeing a fucking ghost, brother.”
“I’m no ghost.” Although I feel like one, still.
“How long?” Dimitri repeats, and I let out a heavy breath, shoving my gloved hands deeply into the pockets of my overcoat. There’s a gun beneath it, but I don’t think I’ll need to go for it. And even if I do, I’m willing to bet I can still outshoot any of these lokhi .
“Six months that I’ve been back in the States. I came back to New York a few days ago. After I found out otets was dead.” My gaze drifts back to the urn, sitting in the too-big grave. “Tell me what happened, Dimitri.”
“Tell me what happened to you.” Dimitri’s blue eyes meet mine. Seeing them brings back memories I thought I’d forgotten, lost in a haze of pain. Memories of the fractious relationship between our parents, of our father accusing our mother of stepping out on him, all because my eyes were hazel instead of the typical Russian blue or green. As if our father hadn’t cheated on her a thousand times over.
I stare at him, unspeaking. I have no desire to retread the past. No desire to unpack five years of pain, when I don’t even know yet if my family tried to spare me it. Dimitri says they thought I was dead, but how should I believe that? What reason do I have to think that he’s telling the truth?
There was a time when I would have trusted him above anyone else in the world. But I no longer believe that love is a barrier to betrayal.
Dimitri lets out a heavy sigh when he sees that I won’t give in. “It’s a story better told behind familiar walls,” he says quietly, his voice low, and I shrug.
“There’s no one else out here.”
It’s just the two of us, and Dimitri’s men. The gravediggers haven’t come back yet to fill it in, and there’s no one else visiting. The wind howls past us, and I can tell Dimitri is cold, but the sight of his discomfort warms something in my chest.
I shouldn’t take pleasure in it. But Dimitri is my big brother. By rights, he should be the one protecting me . But instead, he was the heir, and I was the enforcer. And when I needed him, he wasn’t there.
It was my own fucking fault.
I quiet the nagging voice, and focus on Dimitri once again. His face looks older, suddenly, lines at the corners of his eyes, though he’s only a few years older than me.
“ Otets was ill,” he says finally. “But not in the way I let the rumor spread. A fast-moving cancer, was what I told others. One that ravaged him so completely he asked to be cremated instead of given an open coffin, so he’d have some dignity in death. Though he still asked to be buried in the family plot—thus what you see here.” He gestures at the urn sitting at the bottom of the grave.
“So what illness did he really have?” I ask impatiently, shoving my hands deeper into my pockets. I’m not interested in whatever lie Dimitri told others. I’m interested in the truth. What’s causing the flicker of guilt I now see haunting the back of my brother’s eyes.
“He was paranoid.” Dimitri lets out another heavy breath. “He stopped letting me handle things. It was only through my diplomacy that we managed to keep our alliances with the Irish and the Italians. He started looking outside the families for business opportunities. Expansion , he called it. A barrier against their inevitable betrayals, though neither Padraig nor Antony gave us any reason to doubt them. Padraig wanted me to marry his daughter. Our father said no. Antony suggested the same, and our father turned him down, too.”
“So what? How did he die ?” I grit my teeth, frustrated. “I don’t care about your marriage alliances, brother. Clearly you didn’t do what our father wanted, either. That woman you married is no one.”
“Evelyn is my wife ,” Dimitri snaps, his tone rising slightly. “So you’ll speak of her with respect, Alek. But no, she wasn’t an arrangement. At least not one that our father made.” He rubs a hand over his chin. “It’s a long story, and I can see you’re losing patience. But I married her to get out of the marriage our father did arrange for me. And he took it poorly.”
A dark suspicion worms its way through me. “Poorly?”
Dimitri’s jaw tightens. “He tried to have Evelyn murdered. The Crows wanted some of our territory. They had her marked from the start, and our father encouraged it. Promised them a bit of what they wanted if they would kill her, so I’d be widowed and able to marry who my father wanted me to.”
A sound like a bark erupts from my mouth, the closest thing to a laugh I’ve heard from myself in over five years, but darker. “You can’t expect me to fucking believe that.” My hands slide from my pockets as I see Vik and Pyotr’s hands shift again. “The fucking Crows , brother? They’re nothing. A street gang?—”
“You’ve been gone a long time.” Dimtri lets out another sharp breath through his nose. “Barca Valenti took over. One of the sons of Gallo’s former capo , the one he executed. Although you weren’t here for that, either.”
“No.” The word comes out hard. “I wasn’t.”
Dimitri swallows, looking away, and I can see raw pain in his eyes. For me? Or because he’s guilty over leaving me to die? When he looks back at me, that same heavy look is still on his face. “The Crows grew after Barca took over. Without our father’s backing, they were still nothing. But with his help, they came close to getting Evelyn. They nearly killed her and our—” He breaks off, his jaw working, and my stomach clenches as I fill in the gaps.
So Dimitri is going to be a father, too.
“I killed Barca,” Dimitri says flatly. His gaze rises, meeting mine. “And I killed our father, for his betrayal. He died in his own bedroom, in private. As much honor as I felt like I could give him, considering what he did. But I wouldn’t bury him in the family plot. He tried to kill my wife, to turn half our men against me. He betrayed us, Alek.”
There’s a plea in his voice, begging me to understand. To not blame him for our father’s death, to understand why he did what he did. And there’s a part of me, buried somewhere beneath layers of scar tissue and remembered pain, that does. That can remember when I would have killed anyone to protect the woman I loved most in the world. Even my own father.
But all I feel is a hollow emptiness inside, the wind whistling past my ears echoing through me. “How?” I ask, and Dimitri’s face shutters for a moment, as if he’s trying to reconcile my disinterest.
“A bullet to the head,” Dimitri says finally. “It was quick.”
“What’s in the urn, then?”
Dimitri shrugs. “I told Vik to go to the shelter’s crematorium. I didn’t care what went in there as long as it wasn’t a person.”
I look back down at the grave. A dog’s ashes in my father’s final resting place. I understand the insult, and the depths of Dimitri’s fury, then. I try to feel something . Some grief for our father, some anger with my brother, or some sympathy for him. Some anger for what our father tried to do to the woman who is now my sister-in-law. A sense of betrayal that he tried to tear our family apart further.
There’s nothing. I’ve been hollowed out too thoroughly.
I felt something with her.
I shove the thought of Dahlia away before it can take root. Now, of all times, I don’t need to think of the woman I fucked the night before last. And I don’t need to think of her at all. I’ll never see her again. I need to be finished with her, and my fantasies of her, so I can focus on what I’m going to do next.
“Alek.” Dimitri’s voice is calm, weighted with grief, with emotion, with the disbelief of still seeing me standing here, but calm all the same. “Come home. Meet Evelyn. Come stay with us. We’re living at the mansion now. If you don’t want to be so close, I can put you up in my old penthouse. Give you security to make sure you’re safe, while you work things out. Whatever you need?—”
He trails off again, and I can see so many emotions working across his face. Grief and guilt and longing, all at once. Jealousy writhes in my gut, wishing I could still remember what those felt like. What it was like to not be so empty.
“I have a hotel room,” I say abruptly. “I’ll be in touch, if I want to speak with you again.”
“Alek. You’re my heir, for now, until the baby is born. And even then, you’re my brother. You have a place in the family still?—”
“I don’t want any part of it.” I cut my brother off, taking one last look at him. “I’ll call you if I want to speak.”
I turn on my heel, stalking towards the waiting cab. Dimitri calls after me, but the wind tears his words away, and I’m glad. I don’t want to hear them.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I need time to think.
Time to be alone.