Her answer is a groan and the stomp of footsteps overhead.
“You can go hide in the car if you want,” I tell Vasya as I slip the TV remote from my dad’s hand, gone slack now that he’s fallen asleep in his favorite chair with one of his true-crime shows on. I turn the volume down with one hand and crank open the living room windows with the other. It doesn’t do much for the house’s stifling summer heat, but at least it won’t smell like a burned burrito.
The way Vasya watches me, one eyebrow raised, says he can tell I’m practiced in this particular art of chaos.
But even this chaos can’t hold off the inevitable anymore. It’s time to confront the real reason I’m here. The reason I didn’t share with Evgeny, burying it among all the other people and needs pulling me back to this house.
Taking a deep breath, I yank Jordan’s hood and headphones off as I pass, his outraged “Hey!” following me into the kitchen.
“You forgot your food again,” I call back in the singsong voice I know he hates. It’s petty, but it also makes me feel better.
“Shut up, Eva.” He grabs the half-burned frozen burrito as I take it out of the old toaster oven. Tendrils of white smoke follow, and Jordan curses, dropping the pan and burrito on the counter because he doesn’t have the oven mitts. They’re on my hands.
His hood is back over his head, and he’s sucking on his burned fingers. I yank it down again.
“Eva!” My brother jerks away, glaring daggers at me.
“Is that what you used the money I sent you for?”
It’s a new, vibrant tattoo on his neck. But it’s not the colors I’m looking at, it’s the part of the design I can see above his collar. I reach forward to see more, but he smacks my hand away.
“Mind your own business, Eva.”
But my kid brother’s anger doesn’t faze me. The tattoo is what scares me.
“That tattoo, Jordan? Really?”
“Isaidmind your own fucking business, Eva.”
It isn’t a gang tattoo. Not really. But we’d both seen it on kids in our neighborhood going down a dangerous path. And now my little brother, the one who’d had a bright grin and infectious laugh, is sporting one.
“Jordan—”
“Don’t you dare, Eva.” Jordan backs up another step. There is anger in his eyes, but it’s covering hurt and fear. “Don’t you dare. You’re the one who disappeared.”
“Oh, give me a break.” I throw my hands into the air to keep from wringing his neck. “This has been going on for much longer than the last month and a half. And I swear, if you don’t stop getting into trouble, I’m going to stop saving your ass, and you’ll have to do it on your own.”
“I don’t need you to save me, Eva. I don’t need anything. I’m fine.” He turns, hurling the burned burrito into the trash.
“You’re obviously not, Jordan.” I follow him, unwilling to let it go. To lethimgo. To let this conversation go when I so desperately need him to just talk to me. “You don’t understandhow much I fucking worry about you. How much Dad worries about you, and Marco, and Katie.”
He picks up speed through the dining room and into the living room.
“I can’t keep saving you like this, Jordan. I can’t. You have to learn to save your own ass or, better yet, stop getting yourself into situations you need saving from.”
Desperate to have this talk with my brother, I follow him as he flees up the stairs. He’ll deflect and say he’s depressed or that he’s an adult now. He’ll say no one ever expected anything of him, so he just became what everyone figured he’d be.
They’re all lies, of course, but they’re the armor he uses to shield himself from accountability. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to get through his defenses and make him see how his actions affect everyone else.
And how they affect him.
“You’re too damn smart for this. You’re a good kid. Just let me help…”
Jordan’s door slams in my face before I can get my foot in to keep it open.
“Jordan, please.” I pound the door several times, then rest my hand on the old wood, willing my little brother to listen. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry. I don’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, but I want to help. Please let me help.”
I’d been afraid for Jordan before, it was the reason I kept bailing him out. But that wasbefore. Now, I’m knee-deep in bratva business. Now I’ve seen the files, the correspondence, the trailsthat show just how many illegal dealings they’re into. I’ve been among frightening men with their guns.
