Chapter 32 Bastian
BASTIAN
TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO
cleav·er: /?klēv?r/: noun
I’m twelve years old, sitting on an overturned milk crate in the kitchen at Tolstoy’s, waiting for Aleksei to give me the signal. My hands won’t stop shaking, so I shove them under my thighs and try to breathe the way he taught me.
In through the nose, out through the mouth. Slow and steady.
“You ready, bratishka?” Aleksei asks as he steps into the kitchen. He crouches down so we’re eye-level. He’s eighteen now, four inches taller practically overnight.
It’s his eyes that have changed the most, though. Ever since he started working for Dmitri, they look black as night.
I nod. I don’t trust my voice not to crack.
“Good.” He reaches out and musses my hair. “This is important, Semyon. The pakhan is watching. If we do this right, we move up. Both of us.”
Dmitri, the Bratva pakhan that Aleksei is talking about, owns Tolstoy’s, along with half the other businesses on this block. He’s the one who gave Aleksei and me this assignment—our first real job together.
A test, Aleksei called it. Proof that the Izotov brothers are worth investing in.
The target is some bookie who got too greedy and started skimming from the wrong people. He thinks he’s meeting Aleksei here to discuss a business opportunity. He has no idea what’s really waiting for him.
Aleksei checks his watch. “He’ll be here in ten minutes. Remember what I told you?”
“Stay quiet,” I recite. “Stay out of sight. When you give the signal, I come out and we—” I swallow hard. “We finish it together.”
“That’s right.” Aleksei stands and walks over to the stainless steel counter. Whistling, he plucks a meat cleaver from the knife stand. He hefts in one hand, switches it to the other, swishes it through the air. Then he nods, satisfied. “You’re gonna do great, Semyon. I know you are.”
But there’s something in his voice that doesn’t match his words. A strain.
“Al,” I ask, “are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He runs a finger carefully along the sharp edge of the blade.
Then he looks at me, and I see something in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’m okay.”
He’s lying. I know he’s lying. But before I can call him on it, we hear footsteps outside. Heavy boots on the tile floor of the kitchen.
“Shit!” Aleksei hisses. “He’s early. Get in the freezer. Now.”
I scramble off the crate and lunge for the walk-in. My heart is pumping so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my fingertips, everywhere.
Aleksei follows me to the door. “Remember,” he whispers, “wait for my signal.”
I nod and step inside. The cold hits me immediately, that familiar, bone-deep chill that makes my teeth ache.
Aleksei’s hand shoots out and grabs my shoulder. “Semyon,” he sighs, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for wh—?”
The door slams shut.
I hear the latch click into place.
Then I hear something else: the scrape of metal on metal. The clunk of something heavy being wedged against the door.
“Al?” I call out, my voice already climbing toward panic. “Aleksei, what are you doing?”
No answer.
I throw myself against the door, but it doesn’t budge. He’s blocked it from the outside. Locked me in.
“ALEKS!” I scream, pounding my fists against the metal. “LET ME OUT!”
Still nothing. I hear voices in the kitchen. Aleksei’s, smooth and calm, greeting the bookie.
I press my ear against the door, straining to hear.
“… appreciate you meeting me,” the man is saying. “I know it’s late, but I thought we could discuss—”
“Yeah, about that,” Aleksei interrupts. His voice has gone flat and dead. “There’s been a change of plans.”
A pause. Then: “What do you mean?”
“I mean you fucked up. You stole from people who don’t forgive that kind of thing.”
The accountant’s voice pitches higher. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never—”
“Don’t insult me by lying,” spits my brother, colder than I’ve ever heard.
“Please, I have a family, I have kids—”
“Should’ve thought of that before you took what wasn’t yours.”
I’m still pounding on the door, screaming Aleksei’s name, but he doesn’t respond.
The bookie is begging now. “Please, please, I’ll pay it back, I’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t—!”
WHUMP.
A wet, meaty thud.
Then the gurgling. It’s an awful sound, grating, frantic, not coherent enough to be words but something more than an animal’s dying screams.
Then—
WHUMP. WHUMP. WHUMP.
Three more blows.
After that, there’s only silence.
I stop pounding and I don’t bother screaming anymore. My hands are numb, my throat raw, blood trickling down my wrists from my wrecked knuckles.
Minutes pass. Maybe five. Maybe fifty. I don’t know.
Then the scraping sound again. Metal on metal. The latch clicks. The door swings open.
Aleksei stands in the doorway, backlit by the kitchen’s fluorescent lights. There’s blood on his shirt. On his hands. A fine mist of it across his cheek.
And on the tile, there’s more blood.
So much blood on the tile.
He looks at me, and I look at him. “Why?” is all I can whisper.
“Because you’re twelve years old, Semyon,” he says somberly. “You’re my little brother, and I’m not letting you become this.”
“But the pakhan said—”
“Fuck what the pakhan said.” Aleksei grabs my arm and pulls me out of the freezer. “I’ll tell him you did your part. He doesn’t need to know the truth.”
“You can’t just—”
“Yes, I can.” He steers me toward the back exit, away from the kitchen where I know the body is lying. He makes sure to position himself so I can’t see anything. “And I will. You’re going to go home, Semyon. You’re going to forget this ever happened.”
“How am I supposed to forget—”
“You just do.” We’re at the exit door now. He pushes it open, and cold night air rushes in. “You go to school. You keep your head down. You stay away from this life.”
“But you—”
“I’m already in it.” His grip on my arm tightens. “Too deep to get out. But you? You still have a chance.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” I tell him.
“You’re not leaving me,” he corrects. “I’m letting you go.” He gives me a gentle shove toward the alley. “Go home, Semyon. And don’t come back here.”
I want so badly to argue. But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
So I turn and walk away.
I make it to the end of the alley before I look back. Aleksei is still standing in the doorway, watching me. Even from this distance, I can see the slump in his shoulders.
He raises one hand in a small wave. As he does, a drop of blood falls from the tip of his pinky.
He made his choice that night—to protect me by pushing me away. To shoulder the darkness alone so I wouldn’t have to.
And I made mine, too, even if I didn’t fully understand it then.
I chose to let him.