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“Nothing.”
“Liar.” Stalking to my side, she reaches for the vodka. I wrench it out of her reach—an easy task, especially when I stand to my full height. But the second I’m on my feet, I begin to stumble. Ulyana watches with her hands on her hips. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not,” I say before lurching sideways into the wall. My shoulder connects hard enough to send the glass horse bookends on a shelf toppling to the floor. They shatter loudly, pieces covering the wooden slats in every direction.
“Arsen …”
Balancing my hand on the wall, I tip the vodka to my lips for a swig. “I’m fine.”
She considers the broken horses before lifting her eyebrows at me. “You can barely stand.”
“What do you want?” I scoff, swaying uneasily toward the couch by the window. I sit—or fall, rather—onto the cushions. “I don’t need to fight you too.”
“Fight?” she repeats softly. Putting her palm to her forehead, she sighs in exasperation. “I see. This is about Galina.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What did you do, Arsen?”
Ignoring her, I begin to gulp the vodka again. To my utter shock, Ulyana rushes me, ripping the bottle from my grasp. I swipe for it, but I’m too far gone and she dodges away easily. “Give it back!”
“Look at you!” she barks, gesturing broadly. “I thought you were a man who respected himself! A proud, strong pakhan who never showed weakness! But here you are, wallowing in drunken misery!”
“I am strong!” I roar , launching myself upward from the couch. Ulyana doesn’t shy away from me. She waits there, looking into my eyes without a hint of fear on her placid face. I’m breathing hard. My fingers curl in the air, eager to steal the vodka, to lash out at something.
“Only the weak have to remind others that they are strong,” she says.
Shaking my head, I face away from her. “Don’t you dare judge me. You have no damn right.”
“Is that what Galina did? Judge you?”
Hearing her name creates a bear trap in my chest. It latches onto my lungs, my heart, until breathing is a struggle. “Stop it, Ulyana.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Give me back the bottle.”
“If you want it,” she puts the bottle behind her back, “then come take it.”
Snarling, I march toward my bar cart. Glass crunches underfoot. I dig through the bottles, but all I have is mixers and whiskey, which I can’t stand—I keep them around for guests. “Fuck!”
“If you want to drink yourself into a stupor, fine,” she says. Ulyana offers me the bottle. “But the problems will still be there when you’re sober.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I seethe.
She pushes the bottle into my chest. I start to take it, but her expression halts me. Ulyana is staring at me like I’m the saddest thing she’s ever seen. Suddenly I see myself from her point of view, like I’m outside of my own body. She’s right. Only the weak have to remind others that they are strong.
Sinking onto the couch again, I cover my eyes with my hands. “How did I get here?” I wonder out loud.
The cushions shift as Ulyana sits down beside me, and her hand touches my shoulder—the same one that Galina bit. “Did she do something to you?”
“No. I did something to her.”
Ulyana’s hand slips away. She’s next to me, but I feel nothing but isolation in the silence. Finally, she speaks again.
“I warned you that you held her heart.”
“Your warning was useless!” I retort. Shaking my head in frustration, I glare at her. “How was I supposed to protect her from me?”
