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Has it always felt like this with Andrei? Or is something different this time?
The dinner ends, and everyone pitches in to help with cleanup. Andrei rolls his black sleeves past his elbows, giving me a fresh look at his forearms. Tattoos crawl up both arms, some of them looking similar to Ezra’s.
Celia raises an eyebrow as Andrei fills the sink with soap and hot water. “I have a dishwasher,” she reminds everyone. “No need to do them by hand.”
Andrei pays her little mind. “I find that the best jobs are done with your hands. Dishes included.” He plops silverware into the water. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to clean them myself.”
She looks to her brother for help, but Mikhail shrugs a shoulder. “Can’t tell him what to do. Just let him scrub the dishes, Cel.”
As Andrei dips his hands into sudsy water and starts scrubbing plates, I join him to towel off the clean ones. Nodding toward his ink, I ask him about them.
“Tattoos tell stories.” He hands me a plate to dry. “In our line of work, they show others your accomplishments. If someone doesn’t know you by name or reputation, they can read all they need to know on your skin.”
“But there aren’t any words.”
He chuckles. “Each picture is worth at least a hundred words, zhena, if not more.”
“Ezra’s got a lot of tattoos.” I start counting them up in my head. “All over his arms. His neck. His back.” Delicious ink sprawled across almost every square inch of his skin.
Mikhail catches wind of the conversation and appears at the island in front of us to join in. “Spent a lot of time watching Ezra, malyshka? I’m jealous.”
I stick my tongue out at him, and he laughs that rich, full-bodied tone that I love. Not his sinister, mocking chuckle, but a real, genuine laugh. I laugh with him, and Andrei shakes his head. He’s smiling all the same.
“Remember when I told you that Ezra was born in Russia?” Mikhail removes his suit jacket and drapes it over the back of one of the bar chairs. “They start training earlier than we do here. He was enlisted by the time he was twelve.”
“Ten,” Andrei corrects, handing me another plate to dry. “Ezra showed promise, so they inducted him even earlier. That’s why he has so many tattoos. He’s accomplished more than we have.”
“Not by much,” Mikhail feints with a wink.
“By a lot.”
“I don’t understand.” I hand Mikhail our stack of plates to put away. “If Ezra is so accomplished, why isn’t he pakhan?”
“Different kinds of accomplishments, malyshka.”
“What do you mean?”
Andrei dries his hands on a dishrag and eyes me carefully. “Ezra’s good at what he does, and he’s well-known for it. People recognize him from a distance.”
“They’re scared of him.” Mikhail snickers from across the room.
I catch Celia leaning on a door jamb, listening to the conversation just as raptly as I am, and I don’t feel as bad for not knowing all of this already.
I think back to everything I know about Ezra to put all the pieces together. When we met, I was still a teenager, and he was in his mid-twenties. He didn’t have as many tattoos back then, but he was still a muscled guy. The scar over his upper lip was already there, and he always carried a massive gun slung over his back. An AK-something.
The blood on the morgue floor flashes violently in my mind, and I try not to be sick as the smell of iron fills my nose.
I don’t think I want to know, but I owe it to Ezra to know enough.
I swallow any hesitation that remains. “So, he’s not pakhan because he’s got...special talents.”
Mikhail’s mouth pops open to say something no doubt cheeky, but his sister jabs him in the ribs with her elbow.
Andrei crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the counter. The black dress shirt hugs his shoulders, and one of the buttons over his pecs struggles to hold. “Yes. He has skills that even I don’t possess. Not many do. The Russian sects will teach you everything there is to know about the human body...and how to break it.”
“Into tiny little pieces,” Mikhail supplies helpfully. “While someone’s still alive.”
Ezra’s confession in the shower suddenly makes more sense.
