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My chest hummed at the sound of Mikhail’s name. He always made me anxious for some reason. “Oh, he was here.”
Andrei nodded. “Five minutes ago.”
“I see.” I leaned forward to read the headlines in the newspaper. “What does it say/”
“Nothing. Really,” Andrei answered as he closed the newspaper. “Just a couple of things on politics and the upcoming elections. Nothing much about the attack yesterday.”
He sounded like he was the one who’d been attacked. “What happened to those men?” I asked. I knew they were probably dead already, but I just needed to keep hearing his voice. It was soothing and I loved to have his attention.
The easiest way to get all of it was talking to him.
“They’re in a better place,” was all Andrei said. He really needed to learn how to talk more, but I guess we wouldn’t be a good match if his mouth moved as much as mine did.
At the very least, he wouldn’t have survived this long.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Andrei asked as he tossed the folded newspaper on the coffee table. “I think we should order in.”
“I’ll take an oatmeal and a large coffee. Oh, and a can of soda, please.”
Andrei nodded. He snatched his phone from the couch beside him and made our orders.
“How often do you come here?” I asked, looking around.
An enormous painting of a burning human skull hung on one of the walls while a painting of sunflowers hung at the other end.
Andrei didn’t love my mother? Liar. He probably didn’t even realize it yet. Had it been that he did, they would have probably eloped together. I knew Andrei wouldn’t have, though; he’d never leave his brothers behind.
The walls in here were all white. Synthetic green flowerpots stood on every edge of the four corner walls. The furniture was minimalistic, yet beautiful. I’d take lots of pictures in this background if I were one of those social media girls who posted everything.
Sadly, I never had the privilege of using a phone or social media when I was younger, and once I grew to decide if I loved them myself, I’d completely lost interest in them.
Who wouldn’t if their lives revolved around deadly mafia men? I wasn’t Barbie in her dollhouse. I thought I related more to Maleficent, but even she had a happily ever after loving Aurora.
“I don’t keep track of how often I visit here,” he answered, looking up from his phone. “But it isn’t a lot. I have too many things to take care of to consider hiding away in a vacation house for too long.”
“But you have Mikhail, he can handle the businesses when you’re away.”
“Mikhail is good, and I trust him the most out of all my brothers to take care of the business when I’m away, but that doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t prefer to handle my business myself.”
“That’s fair,” I inclined. “How did you take care of your brothers after you became the boss at such a young age? It mustn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t,” he confirmed. “I was eighteen, Mikhail was sixteen, Dimitri was fifteen, and Isidor was only eleven. There were times I wanted to run away and never turn back, but not because I was afraid of being the leader. I wasn’t because I’d been prepared for it even after our parents died. I was more afraid of being burdened with the task of caring for three boys.”
“Why didn’t you run away then?” I teased, knowing full well a man like Andrei would never run away from his responsibilities. He probably had to hear how it was his responsibility to take on the cartel before he could even understand what it meant.
He took my question literally though. “With our parents gone, there was no way I could abandon my brothers. They mean a lot to me, all three of them.”
“Yeah.” I knew it, and I absolutely couldn’t relate since I didn’t have any siblings. Andrei got lost in thought. His brows drew together sadly, and his eyes lowered into a dark thing.
I often saw men like him and wondered what they were like on the inside. I knew I hated being born into this world and I couldn’t help but wonder if men like Andrei hated it as well.
Would he have wanted something different from this? Could he have had the same dreams that other boys have? Would he abandon this world if he could? Although abandoning this world was impossible. Whatever enemies you made while in it will hunt you down and have your head.
Still, would he want out if he could?
“Are there things you’ve ever desperately wanted but couldn’t have?” I asked. “Did you ever wish to be something different?”
Andrei smiled sadly. “A doctor.” He chuckled. “One time when I was five, I hung a stethoscope around my neck and told my father I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to save lives.”
