Page 90 of The Killer Card

“You look like him, you know?” She whispers, her eyes taking in every one of my aged features. “ Like your father. So handsome.”

I offer her the best smile I can manage given the circumstances, but it has always been something I’m proud of. My father loved our mother. Properly loved her. Treated her well. Cared about Sonya and me. I wish I could have known him longer. I wish I could have known him better, properly. Maybe if she’d been allowed to marry him things could have been different.

The front door opens and before either of us can even turn around, the deep twang of a male voice fills the space. “Who the hell is this?”

Sonya immediately drops her hand, and I turn to see a well- dressed man standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips. He wears a suit with cowboy boots- the real fine leather kind that have never seen dirt a day in their life- and is glaring between us with evident suspicion.

There’s a wedding band on his left hand.

Her husband.

My vision fills in red as my eyes fall from him to the bruise around the wrist that still grips my arm.

“Sean,” she says in broken English. “You remember I said I had brother. This is Grigory. He stopped by for visit.” She looks up at me with a wary smile that I don’t really see because my gaze is locked on the bluish skin along her cheek. “Grigory, this is Sean. My husband.”

Sean steps forward, holding out a hand, polite in mixed company the way most pieces of shit like him learn to act. “Nice to meet you, Gregory,” he butchers the pronunciation of my former name. “Can’t say I’ve heard much about you. Sonya rarely talks about her family. Said you were dead, as a matter of fact.”

Bet you liked that, asshole. Knowing there was no one around to protect her from you. Knowing you could swoop in, offer to take care of her kids, and do whatever you wanted.

“Grigory,” Sonya whispers, not a correction to him, but a warning to me.

My jaw tightens. “Very much alive,” I supply with gritted teeth.

“I see that.” He looks me over one more time. Takes in my fine suit, my build, the way my hands clench. Then he looks at Sonya. “You make dinner, honey?”

She nods demurely, just the way she was taught growing up in a family like ours. “Yes, dear. I will warm up plate.” Sonya squeezes my arm, a warning. “Grigory, would you like to eat—”

“English, Sonya—”

“She can speak whatever language she wants with me,” I snap before I can think better of it. His cold, brown eyes narrow as I tell her in quiet Russian, “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

She nods and then goes to pass her husband into the kitchen. His hand snaps out, fingers wrapping around her bicep as he leans in, first to kiss her cheek then to whisper in her ear something I couldn’t hear if I tried because suddenly there is nothing but a violent cacophony of buzzing inside my head. He’s grabbing her and to anyone else it might look like he’s being gentle because her face remains perfectly neutral, but I see how white his knuckles get. He’s squeezing, warning, bruising her through the sleeve of her blouse.

Presumptuous of you to think he didn’t beat me too, she’d said. Not a denial of what is happening to her in this house, only confirmation of the kind of men she keeps getting stuck with. Men I should have been protecting her from all these years. Especially back then. I should never have let Sebastian Rossi leave after what he did to me. I should have killed him too. I should have hunted him down and put a bullet in his head for every scar he left on my soul.

My vision is blurry. My ears are humming. I don’t even know I’ve moved until my fist hurts and there’s blood streaming down Sean’s nose when he stumbles into the stairwell.

Sonya tries to stop me from going for him again. “Grigory! No! Stop, he’s—”

But I don’t hear a word. My fist goes for him again and I get two more good punches in before his collides with the right side of my face. Then the left. Then he’s wrapping an arm around my throat, spinning me around and pinning me to the opposite wall.

“Sean, stop!” Sonya begs in a way I never once heard in our grandfather’s house. “Leave him alone! He didn’t mean it! He is hot head—”

“Back off, Sonya!” He snaps and I struggle in his grip.

“Mom?” The voice of a teenage boy I’ve only seen in pictures calls down from the loft. “What’s going on? Who is that—”

“Go back to bed, Jamie!” Sean shouts and that’s when I feel the cool metal of handcuffs come down on my wrists. “You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say can and will be held against you.”

“Coño…” I bang my head against the wall.

“Oh no is right. You just assaulted a detective, Senyor Gregory.” The way this racist piece of shit butchers both my native languages makes me snarl like an actual animal. The crackle of a radio comes alive as I assume he pulls it from his belt. “This is Detective Palermo, anyone in the area near Sunset Hills.”

“Sean, please,” Sonya begs but he shoves her away before she can get a hand between us.

A voice over the radio reports in. “This is Officer Daniels. I’m two minutes away.”

“I have a domestic and assault on an officer,” Sean tells the cop on the other end.