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I can tell this is news to Veronika, but she doesn’t move. “You already knew Yasha was working to overthrow you. This isn’t exactly news.”
“Maybe not,” I agree. “But he was there with Sofia when Emery ‘died’ in that fire today. And she would have actually died, had I not shown up to pull her out of the house.”
Yasha shakes his head. “I didn’t lie, Adrik. The fire started accidentally. The gasoline Sofia threw around caught fire when I tried to shoot her. It all happened so fast. There wasn’t time… I didn’t think there was time to save Emery.”
“You tried to shoot Sofia?” Veronika asks in shock.
He nods aggressively. “Yes! I was going to end the partnership. She’d taken it too far, and I was cutting her loose. I—”
“Don’t play the hero, sobrat. You had just found out that Sofia was actually planning to bury you as soon as she had the chance. She was going to kill you and take the Tasarov Bratva for herself,” I interrupt. “Isn’t that right?”
“That—that’s not what happened.”
“That’s what Emery said happened. But you know, he said, she said, right?” I shrug. “These illicit affairs can get so messy, can’t they?”
At that, Veronika spins around. “What is he talking about?”
“It wasn’t an affair.” Yasha looks from me to Veronika, not sure who is the bigger threat—the person with the gun or his wife. “It was a partnership. A business arrangement.”
“Emery said the two of you seemed rather familiar,” I add. “And it’s not like it would be the first time, right?”
“What the hell is he talking about?” she demands.
Yasha glares at me over her head. “What are you doing? Trying to drag all the skeletons out of my closet before you kill me?” Then he shakes his head. “No. You’re not going to kill me. You wouldn’t. You tortured a man for ten years just for hurting me. You don’t have it in you to kill me.”
He sounds confident, but his eyes keep darting to the gun as if he can see the bullet coming from minutes and miles away, bringing his death with it.
He isn’t wrong about that.
“At one point, I would have done anything for you, Yasha. You’re my family. My little brother. I would have given my life for you,” I say. “But that was before I found out you raped my wife.”
Veronika stumbles away from Yasha like he shoved her. She doesn’t even seem to be worried about me or the gun anymore. She just needs to get away from him.
“I didn’t rape anybody!” he roars.
“It might be hard to explain how Emery’s daughter exists if you didn’t do anything.”
“Oh my God,” Veronika moans, pressing a hand to her heart. “I can’t… I can’t believe this. You have a kid. What is happening?”
I feel bad for Veronika. She didn’t ask for any of this. Doesn’t deserve it.
But Yasha does.
He takes a deep breath. “Listen, V—”
“Don’t call me that!” she snaps, jabbing a finger at him. “Don’t you fucking dare! I love—I loved you. But… now…”
“Veronika,” he says softly, “Isabella is mine, but it wasn’t rape. Emery wanted it.”
“Fucking liar,” I hiss. “Do you remember the night you met Emery, Veronika? When she took off and ran away? That’s because she recognized Yasha as the man who raped her.”
“I didn’t rape her!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’m so fucking tired of all the lies and games and secrets. I want to purge all this poison from my system, from my world.
“If you’re going to walk around being a terror, at least own up to it. This lying is pathetic. Let’s do the math on Isabella’s existence, shall we?”
Yasha’s face pales.
“Isabella just turned six. How long have the two of you been together?”
Veronika’s shoulders slump forward as she does the math. She cups her face in my hands. “Seven years. Oh my god.”
To his credit, Yasha looks genuinely sorry—for a second. Then he turns his eyes on me and his expression hardens. “You might as well have killed me. This is worse.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“Fun?” he huffs. “Is that what you think this is? Maybe you and Sofia would have made a good pairing after all. She was a psychopath, too.”
“Says the rapist, the murderer, the liar.”
Yasha shrugs. “Maybe all of that is true. But you’re the man who felt guilty for running Sofia off the road. For years, you thought you’d killed her and it ate you up inside. How much worse is killing your own brother going to be?”
Emery’s words ring in my head. I’m defending you, Adrik. I don’t want you carrying this burden with you the rest of your life.
A brother’s blood on my hands. It’s written in stone, fucking biblical, that that is an unbearable curse.
I shove the thought away for now and reach into my other pocket, pulling out a recording device.
“You can beg for your life here in a minute,” I tell him. “First, I want you to confess to killing Pietro.”
Yasha raises his eyebrows. “You’re kidding.”
“Of course I’m not. I’m not going to prison because of you.”
“Fuck you,” he spits. “I’m not doing it.”
Veronika is still hunched over in front of me, gasping and sputtering. I shift the gun slightly, aiming at her head. Yasha’s eyes flare in panic, but Veronika doesn’t even know it’s happening.
I hold up the device and hit the button. “What did you do to Pietro, Yasha?”
He is fuming. Frustration and anger roll off of him in hot waves. “Pietro molested me,” Yasha snarls.
I nod solemnly. “I know.”
“For years.”
I clench my jaw. “I know. But what did you do to him?”
Looking into Yasha’s eyes now, I see Isabella. I see her wide doe eyes and her face crinkled in a smile.
And I also see little Yasha. Innocent Yasha. The way he was so pure and untouched, before this violent world chewed him up and spit him out.
I wish things could be different. I want so badly for them to be different.
But there are some things even a don can’t change.
“I killed him,” Yasha says, lifting his chin. “I killed Pietro Volandri and left him in the foyer of your compound so it would look like someone else did it. So it would look like you did it.”
“You tried to frame me?”
“I wanted you to suffer.”
I turn off the recorder and drop it back in my pocket. “Thanks for that.” Then I shift the gun away from Veronika. Yasha unclenches, ever so slightly.
“So now you’re going to send me to prison?” Yasha asks.
“You’re assuming I’m not going to shoot you dead.”
