I step onto the gangway.
Oleg doesn’t move.
“You sold me out,” I say.
He lets out a rough breath. “I sold information.”
“You betrayed me,” I say. “And your double cross left my half-brother dead.”
Oleg laughs. “That’s what you wanted, didn’t you? You wanted them dead. Don’t tell me you have remorse now.”
“I only wanted Andrei Morozov dead,” I say quietly.
“They were there to kill your father,” he says again. “Lev just got there first.”
“You let them pin it on me,” I say.
He gives me a strange look then. Tired. A little pathetic. A little scared.
“I didn’t have to do much,” he says. “People were already ready to believe it.”
I go still. “What does that mean?”
He hesitates.
I drag him closer. “Be careful.”
His breathing is rough now. “You were already at war with him,” he says. “Everyone knew it. Your father didn’t trust you. You hated him. You were angry enough to burn half the city down and people knew that too. Once the house got hit, once Lev died, once everything went bad…” He shrugs badly, one shoulder barely moving in my grip. “You were the easy answer.”
I stare at him. And then it finally clicks. The weasel doesn’t move on its own, and neither did Oleg. He’s a coward. Someone else did this. Someone else attacked the Morozov house that night.
“Who made sure of that?”
He looks away.
I hit him again, not hard enough to knock him out, just hard enough to bring his eyes back to me.
“Who?”
He laughs once, but there’s panic under it now. “You still think I was the important one. You’ve been blaming the wrong man.”
The dock seems to go quiet under that.
“Who?”
His throat moves against the barrel. He’s sweating now.
“Who?”
He swallows. “You’ll never get it out of me.” I almost respect him for it, almost.
I push the gun harder under his chin. “Name.”
His face changes.
That’s the moment he decides he’s dead either way.
He shoves at my wrist and throws himself backward over the rail.
