I keep my gun trained on him. “I’m a little curious, Dmitri. Why would you do this? Wasn’t what I gave you good enough for you?”
He lets out a bitter laugh and shakes his head.
“All these years, Maxim, and you still don’t get it.” His eyes flash with resentment. “You really thought I was happy playing second fiddle? Standing behind you while everyone treated you like you were something special?”
His jaw tightens.
“You act like you earned everything you have, but you didn’t. Orlov picked you. He pulled you out of the gutter, gave you a name, gave you a future.”
His gaze turns hard, almost venomous.
“What about me? What about Viktor? We aged out of that orphanage and got tossed onto the streets like trash. I was just as hungry as you. Just as smart. Just as capable.”
He jabs a finger toward me.
“But they chose you.”
The words crack through the air.
“It should have been me! Not you!” he roars.“I was smarter. Hell, I was always smarter than you. Every time I saw you sitting in a position that should have been mine, every time I heard people speak your name with respect, every time I watched you enjoy a life that was meant for me, it ate me alive. And I was bidding time until I took it all back.”
I stare at him, struggling to reconcile the man standing in front of me with the one I've known for years.
Or maybe I never knew him at all.
All this time, I thought we were brothers. And all the while, this was what he thought of me.
Beside me, Viktor goes rigid. I can practically feel the fury rolling off him. Without taking my eyes off Dmitri, I give a slight shake of my hand. The gesture is subtle, but Viktor catches it immediately.
“So when I found a way to take you out, I took it.” Dmitri’s voice rises, filled with resentment.
“Adrian promised me a share. A real share. Not scraps from your table. I helped him because I wanted what should have been mine from the beginning. The empire. The respect. Everything you took from me.”
The betrayal hits like a knife in the gut. “I took nothing from you Dmitri. Everything I got, I got as a result of proving myself to Orlov! You have no idea what it cost me.”
“I would’ve proven myself too,” he says coldly. “If I’d been given the chance.”
“Fuck Dmitri, you’re a fucking ingrate. You almost had my wife killed.”
Dmitri shrugs, no trace of remorse in his eyes. “She was a means to an end. If she died, you’d have been easier to break.”
That’s all it takes, I lunge at him.
We collide hard, fists flying. He’s strong, we trained together for years, but he’s no match for me. I taught him all he knows.
I slam my fist into his jaw, feeling the satisfying crack. He retaliates with a punch to my ribs that knocks the breath out of me. We crash into an old table, wood splintering as we grapple on the ground.
“I treated you like a brother!” I snarl, kneeing him in the stomach.
He laughs through the blood on his lips. “Brothers don’t get everything while the rest of us get nothing.”
Viktor is there in seconds, but I wave him off. This is mine.
I pin Dmitri down, my forearm pressed against his throat. “You betrayed me. You tried to take her from me. For that alone, you die slowly.”
His eyes widen with real fear for the first time.
A gunshot rings out, the sound slicing through the air and jolting both me and Dmitri. In the split second of distraction, he wrenches free from my grip.
