Vitaly (Las Vegas Petrov Bratva #3)

21. Vitaly

21

VITALY

A lik’s eyes widen for only a fraction of a second before he schools himself and stares at me, bored , with one hand on the door jamb.

Some people carry scars that are difficult to look away from, but for Alik, it’s impossible. I wouldn’t be a man if I looked away from the red of his eye, but it’s unsettling nonetheless.

“What do you want?” he spits, staring at me with such an ambivalent chill, I question if this was a mistake.

“To talk.” I nod past him. “Can I come in?”

“No.”

My lips tug as I huff and shove him out of the way. I stroll inside, letting my gaze roam the modern room with paintings and framed drawings lining the walls. “This is a nice place. You’ve done well for yourself.”

Alik shuts the door, not quite a slam but certainly forcefully, and breathes out a low growl.

“Is this your wife’s doing?” I ask, pointing to the pictures on the walls.

“Don’t you fucking dare talk about her.”

I turn back to Alik who’s coming toward me like he’s prepared for murder. That red eye blazes.

I pull the photo of Mila and Nikita from my back pocket, getting to the point. “Tell me,” I start, handing over the photo to him. “Did you get me released early too? Because I still had two years, eight months, and sixteen days left of my sentence when they spontaneously let me go.”

Alik’s eyes narrow as he studies the photo, then the writing on the back. He studies it so closely, it winds my chest. He studies it like someone who has never seen it.

“When did you get this?” he asks.

I look off, allowing myself a moment for the disappointment to weigh heavily inside of me. Mila tried to tell me it wasn’t Alik. I knew it was possible. Still, I had hoped …

“A week before I was released.”

Alik looks in the distance as he searches his mind then looks carefully at the handwriting only a moment before I snatch the photo back and put it in my pocket. Once again, my old best friend is the enemy.

His eyes narrow. “Did you really think I would lure you back here with a whore I knew you never wanted?”

“ Don’t call her that .”

Alik’s canines flash as he laughs. “You coming back was a nightmare for me. If I thought I could’ve stood to see your spoiled fucking face before, I would’ve gone to Russia to kill you myself. And now I wish I had.”

He’s a grown man standing before me, but his words are one of a child. The equivalent of a teenager screaming that they hate their parents. If he wanted to kill me, he’s had plenty of chances.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he has bigger things planned, more pain.

Either way, his words piss me off.

Spoiled .

I am getting sick of people calling me that.

“I bet you’re a big man here, Alik,” I say in a mocking tone. “A real assassin. But you are adorable believing you could kill me.”

Alik laughs, bending to hike up the cuff of his pants to reveal a knife sheath. He slides the blade out before tossing it behind him, making it clatter on his kitchen floor.

“Two hands,” he says, showing me his palms. “That’s all I need.” He tips his head to the side. “Probably one.”

“One hand, wow.” I nod, my brows raised like I’m impressed. Like I haven’t been sleeping with one eye open for the last decade. “All right… Well, I don’t have any weapons to dramatically toss to the side, but let’s do it.” I raise my arms at my sides in a ‘come and get it’ gesture. “Give it your best shot.”

He turns his head to the side and lets out a little laugh, like this school-yard beef is ridiculous, and if I didn’t feel the intensity he brings to the room, I might believe it. But when he snaps toward me, fist-raised, I’m not remotely surprised.

I jerk my head to the side and pull my knee up, connecting with his gut, then send an uppercut to his jaw. He stumbles backward while I lift my fists, bending my knees into a fighting stance while I wait for him to recover.

He touches his jaw while shooting daggers with his eyes, but when he drops his hand, he lunges again, this time with much less predictability.

I dodge his first two swings and land a blow to his kidneys, but he manages to land a punch to my diaphragm and follow it up with an elbow up my jaw. The wind sweeps from my lungs, my body instinctually pausing, and I barely move in time to avoid the punch to my face.

I grab behind his neck and knee his gut three times before he forces me off with a shove that propels us both to the floor. Our bodies thump against a side table and knocks over a lamp that shatters on the hardwood while we race to see who can gain the upper hand first.

He’s fast and scrappy, but I have more muscle and am able to hold his arm back while I ram my fist into his nose, painting my knuckles with his blood. He responds by slamming his skull against mine. White light flashes, but when he goes to get on top of me, I roll us, pinning him to the floor with a hard thud as my hands wrap around his neck.

My breathing is heavy and wild while his stops altogether, but he isn’t done fighting. His thumb finds my eye socket, despite my efforts to pull away, and I growl as he digs hard enough that my hands release his neck.

He punches my throat, once again stopping my lungs and shoves me off, but I still don’t let him get the upper hand by climbing on top of me. Once someone is on top and they start punching, it can be over. There’s little you can do.

I would never do that to Alik. I don’t hold that kind of anger inside me.

I can’t say the same for him.

When he goes to land a blow to my face, I jerk to the side and let his knuckles connect with the floor. He groans while I take his arm and flip us to put him in a hold that strains his shoulder socket. If I move it any farther back, it’ll dislocate.

He struggles and grunts with frustration as he tries to break free from my hold, but this time, it’s useless. He’s on his stomach, I’m over his back, out of sight, my vulnerabilities out of reach. I’ve got him.

I lower to talk close, keeping my voice low and calm. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but I did not leave you voluntarily when I was sent to Russia. I would never have left you behind… I convinced you to take a job that got you tortured and then outcasted, and for that, I will never expect your forgiveness. But you were my brother then, and you are my brother now. Don’t think, for one moment, I would have walked out of that building without you. I would have died for you. I would still die for you.”

He says nothing as he continues to fight, but his struggle doesn’t have the same intensity to it as before. I let go of his arm and stand, turning to leave but freezing when I spot the two women in the hall gaping at me.

Olive stands with her arms crossed, her eyes moving between me and Alik with concern. Mila’s are latched onto me, wide and stricken.

What is she doing here?

I don’t know what to say to either woman, so I head for the door, Mila at my heels as I make my way down the hall.

“Vitaly, wait,” she calls, grabbing onto my arm.

I turn to her but glance at the other apartment door. She seems to read my thoughts and waits to speak until we’re in the parking garage.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her hands finding my bloodied knuckles. Most of it is from Alik’s nose. I wipe the blood onto my pants and keep walking to my Jeep. I don’t answer. I don’t know why, but I’m bothered that she’s here. I’m bothered by last night.

She keeps leaving me, shutting herself off only to decide later to turn herself back on. I can’t keep up with what she wants. Is it me? Or is it my uncle?

“Did you drive here?” I ask her, hoping she did so I don’t have to give her a ride.

If she didn’t … then Alik did.

What was she doing with him?

Mila slides in front of me and presses her hands against my chest. “Could you slow down, please ? What happened back there?”

I look over my shoulder as if the answer is behind me. “Kind of seemed like you were watching, Mila. It was a fight.”

She lets out an exasperated breath. “Why did you come here?”

“Why did you come here?” I ask, the accusation clear in my tone.

Her hands leave me like my temperature is rising and she doesn’t want to burn herself. She glares. “What the fuck does that mean?”

I don’t respond. She knows what it means.

“Alik picked me up from the bar when I went to meet my father. He brought me here to show me the security footage he has of your bedroom and to warn me that Nikita will know about everything that happened last night soon. Now, what is it you’re suggesting I might be here for, ass-hole ?”

Again, I stay silent, but my face relaxes as my anger falls.

“Olive is right in there.” She stabs a finger behind me. “Do you seriously think so low of me that?—”

“I don’t know what to think of you,” I spit, my shoulders pulling back with a jerk. “Last night you came to me , and then you left without a word. I can’t tell from one day to the next whether or not you’re still interested in my uncle or if it’s me you want. Some clarity would be really nice, Mila.”

Her face starts to redden as she looks away. “I’m not interested in Nikita anymore.”

“Are you interested in me ?”

“Yes,” she says, her head swinging back to me. “Of course.” She holds up her hands as she shifts closer. “Vitaly, please understand. There is more at stake here than my heart.”

I want to protest. My mouth opens to counter like a child, demanding her devotion.

But she’s right.

I close my mouth, my chest loosening as she takes my hands and comes in close. “I’m sorry for leaving last night,” she says, her voice low and apologetic. “I needed to wrap my head around things. It was selfish of me not to take into consideration how that must’ve made you feel.”

“No.” I shake my head. “It was good that you did, now that we know there’s footage. If Nikita had heard your answer…”

“What if my answer had been no?” she asks, her eyebrows knitted even as she smiles. “Are you assuming it would’ve been yes?”

I want to smile back, but too much unease has been swimming in my gut all day. “The only way you would’ve told me no is if you were still holding out for Nikita.”

Her face falls. “Vitaly…”

“I would’ve understood,” I lie. “You’ve been with him for a long time.”

“He’s been stringing me along for a long time,” she deadpans. “That isn’t the same thing as being with somebody.” She swallows as her eyes lower for just a moment. “I didn’t know that … until recently.”

My lips twitch as I take her jaw and slowly press my lips to hers, sighing as she unwinds all the stress she caused by leaving last night with one kiss.

The fight with Alik…

The disappointment from knowing he didn’t send the photo…

It all melts away against Mila’s lips. They’re an anchor that steadies me. A calm within a storm.

If I was to lead, I’d need these lips every day.

When Mila pulls away, I keep my eyes closed a moment, holding the back of her neck.

“Do you trust me?” she whispers, her soft hand against my cheek.

I nod.

“I trust you too… But I would trust you more if you were open with me.”

My face pinches, but I don’t pull away. “Aren’t I?”

She lowers her eyes and lets out a long breath against my lips. “Before I ask you to become Pakhan, I need to know what made you who you are.” She lifts her eyes to me. “I need to understand the decisions you make, like coming here. That’s the only way I’ll be able to follow you blindly.”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand what you want to know.”

But it’s a lie. I do understand.

She wants to know the things I’m ashamed to admit. To know the things she’ll hate me for. To know the things I want so desperately to lie to her about.

She wants to know why I do what I do, and the answer is simple. I’m trying to be the opposite of everything inside of me.

“I’ve heard the stories, but… What happened that day when you stole the Armenians’ money? They captured you, Alik, Roman’s little brother, and two other guys, right? And they tortured you all? I know that when your father went to rescue you, he wound up killed in the crossfire… I know people blame you, but, Vitaly, your father chose to do it, and frankly, so did Alik and the others. You didn’t literally force them, right?”

“They were my responsibility,” I say with perhaps a bit too much heat.

She frowns and shakes her head. “Not your father.”

I recoil at the statement. She thinks she’s on my side, but she might as well be spitting on the man’s grave. “Don’t talk about my father.”

“You need to hear this… You hate yourself because you believe you’re responsible for his death, but you aren’t . You were a kid who made a mistake, and if anyone is to blame for your father’s death, it’s your grandfather. I remember, your grandfather forbade anyone from going to get you. If he hadn’t, there would’ve been far more men for backup.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She rears back. “What? Vitaly, of course it?—”

“Backup or not, my father was a smart man. If it wasn’t for me, he would have made it out alive.”

She tilts her head as she tries to make sense of that. She can’t. No one can. I’m the only person who knows what really happened that day. What really caused the great Vlad Petrov’s death.

My chest aches at the memory. My eyes burn.

Mila is right only about one thing. I hate myself. And the thing perhaps I hate most about myself is that if I had to go back to that day, to that hour, as I’ve relived it thousands of times, I would do it the exact same way. My father would still die the noble, strong, wise man that he was, and he would leave me, the weak, spoiled, arrogant son that I am.

“What do you mean by that?” Mila asks, her voice soft.

She waits for my answer like I’ll actually give her one. If she was any other person, I wouldn’t. If I thought she would let me get away with it, I wouldn’t. If I didn’t know, with absolute certainty, that my father was right to choose her for me, I wouldn’t.

As it stands, I sigh and close my eyes, letting the memory wrap its hand around my throat as I open my mouth to speak.

Nine years ago

Sweat drips from the tip of my nose, but it’s blood that I smell. It runs down my back in patterns I don’t understand, patterns for their amusement.

The two Armenian men cackled and howled as they carved into my back with a device that melted my skin, sending smoke along with the stench of burning flesh up to the ceiling as I shouted in agony. I’ve never felt pain like that before. Never knew it existed.

But it’s over for now. The men left a while ago to move onto Alik’s cell next to mine. I could only tell by the sounds of his yells, and then Gavriil’s shrieks after that.

I don’t think they’re doing us one by one because there’s only two of them. Plenty more men showed up at the drop when we snuck in to take the money. It was like they were waiting for us.

I think they’re torturing us one by one so we can listen to each other scream.

Hours seem to pass with me in the little cell, my head hanging while I listen to the screams of my brothers. They take a photo of me at one point, and I don’t even ask why. I know why.

They want a ransom. A big one.

And all at once, I know why there were so many of them at the drop off point the Polish left their money. I know why they laughed at us when we lowered our weapons, surrendering like we could somehow work this out. Laughed at me when I believed I could fix this.

They knew we would be there.

I was set up. Given bad intel. Well, given bait .

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to Gavriil as he goes through his third round of screams. He can’t hear me. He probably never will again.

Tears leak from my eyes as I sob like a bitch, my back sizzling from their device. They must’ve written something on me, maybe in their language. A stamp that will forever exist even if Gavriil’s screams could somehow get out of my head.

But then his screams stop.

So do the others.

More hours pass.

“Alik!” I yell, looking to my right as I thrash in the chair. “Alik, are you there?”

No answer.

“Alik!”

Snickering sounds outside my cell before the door slides open. The Armenian man who wielded the torture device has his lips pulled into a Cheshire grin as he tosses a fleshy, round object in my lap.

I look down at it, my eyes first locking onto the dark hair mopped with blood on the pale corpse. The face is turned away from me, but I see the stud Gavriil has his ear pierced with sparking, still in his earlobe.

I scream, jerking my knees to roll his head off me, and it lands on the floor with a splat, rolling so my friend’s dead eyes can stare at me. I throw up in my lap while the man watching from the doorway roars with laughter.

More hours pass. No matter how much I tell myself it’s my blood and destroyed flesh I’m smelling, my mind thinks it’s Gavriil. I start to beg. I insist that my father will pay whatever they want, but the more time that passes, the less convinced I am.

He should’ve been here by now.

They should’ve paid by now.

More time.

More hours.

Somehow, I find sleep. Then more of it, drifting in and out while secured to the metal chair. Somehow, even with the stench, my stomach pangs with hunger.

How long have I been here?

When will they give up on their money?

I fall asleep again and don’t wake up until gunshots snap my head upright, giving me more energy than it feels I’ve had in days. Has it been days?

Papa?

I jerk against the rope and breathe heavily while listening to footsteps running this way. When the door slides open, my father appears, and I let out a boyish cry I don’t even care to be ashamed of.

A gunshot sounds behind him as he steps into the room, pulling out his knife and immediately going for the ropes.

“I’m sorry,” is all I say while he cuts me free. Tears slide down my face, and my chest shakes with relief. “I’m so sorry.”

“We don’t have time for that now,” he says, looking me in the eyes. “We have thirty seconds before their backup arrives.”

Roman steps into the cell, his eyes wide as he hisses. “Where’s Gavriil?”

My eyes instinctually move to the head on the ground, and when Roman sees, an avalanche of guilt topples over me, but my father pulls me from it and drags me from the cell while leaving Roman standing there, struck by the sight of his little brother. Part of him.

My father pulls me down the hall, and for a few moments, I’m numb to it, blindly trusting him.

But then I remember Alik.

I whip my head around, searching for the rescue team, but all I see is Roman’s back visible in my cell.

“Alik!” I say, pulling hard to stop my father’s powerful steps.

He looks at me with authority that answers any questions I might’ve had. “ We don’t have time .”

I look forward to where my father tries to pull me as gunshots sound. It’s the exit. They must’ve killed the guards there, and the backup he’s talking about must be coming from behind.

There aren't enough men to kill all of the Armenians.

There aren’t enough to get all of us out.

“Let’s go!” my father yells, yanking me forward. I can hear shuffling behind us. They’re coming. I wonder if Roman plans to let them kill him. They’ve probably already killed my other friends. Probably already killed Alik.

But what if they didn’t?

What if he’s alive?

If I walk out of this building, he’ll never stand a chance.

I walk faster so my father will loosen his hold, and as soon as he does, I whip around and sprint for the cell I heard Alik’s screams.

“Vitaly!” my father yells, chasing after me, his gun drawn. I make it to Alik’s cell and slip inside as the Armenians appear and my father slips into my old cell with Roman, his gun firing.

I slam the cell shut and rush to Alik. If he’s alive, I wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but I don’t even check for a pulse. There’s a band strapped around his head and a contraption holding his eye open while his other is closed. I don’t look long at the opened eye, but they’ve done something to it.

I pull off the contraption and undo the rope tying his wrists while bullets whiz from both directions outside. Once Alik is free, I slap him across the face, and when he still doesn’t wake up, I press my fingers to his pulse, holding my breath.

It’s there. It’s light, but it’s there.

Letting out a shaky breath, I pull his dead weight up and lift him over my shoulders, my face twisted as I strain.

The gunfire outside has stopped, and the door to the cell opens by itself, but it isn’t my father who appears. It’s Roman.

His face is a blank mask, his eyes distant. I wonder for a moment if he’s here to kill me, but he steps to the side so I can pass.

I rush into the hall with Alik on my back, searching for my father, but don’t see him until I find my cell.

I nearly drop Alik.

I don’t see his face. I see his gun. His arm outstretched on the ground. His hair.

“You should stay,” Roman says, his voice ice. “You deserve to die.”

Then he leaves, his gun at his side as he stalks toward the exit not appearing to care if he lives or dies.

I walk to the cell and lower Alik before falling to my knees, tears filling my eyes. My father’s eyes are still open, and with a shaky hand, I close them.

I let out a sob while grief snakes inside my body and makes itself a home. Guilt swallows me. I’m drowning in it.

Roman is right. I deserve to die.

When I open my eyes, I slowly turn to Alik, hearing foreign voices heading this way.

I deserve to die. But Alik doesn’t.

With all the strength and the last resolve I have, I grip him beneath his arms and haul him down the hall as quickly as I can.

“Wow,” Mila says when I finish, her eyes watery.

Wow. I don’t know what that means.

When I look away, Mila brings my face back to her. She smiles at me, but it’s sad. Kind. Pitiful, maybe. I hate to be pitied, but I love her touch and find my chest loosening the longer she caresses my cheek.

She isn’t disgusted. Not at this.

“There’s more,” I say, as if I need to convince her I’m nothing. “When I was in prison, I wasn’t a good man. I did a lot of bad things. Hurt a lot of people who didn’t deserve it. Everything I touch?—”

“Shhh,” Mila says, pressing her finger to my lips. “Don’t ruin this.”

When she removes her finger, I tilt my head at her. “Don’t ruin what?”

She gives me that smile again, and this time I realize there’s no pity. Something else I don’t recognize.

“I kept wondering what happened to turn you from the boy you were into the strong, worthy man that you are,” she says, running her hand over my jaw. “I just realized nothing happened. This is who you’ve been the entire time.” She sighs and lowers her hand. When she nods, it’s almost like she’s doing it for herself, like she’s giving herself the okay to say this.

“It’s time for you to become Pakhan.”