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“No, your priorities are pretty damn clear. Dima, Dima, Dima, and then whatever afterthought you have for that day. Don’t bullshit me. You have what you want. You’re the boss now.”
“Someone tried to kill me. They killed Dad. Whoever did it may have something to do with Val disappearing,” he rasps, clutching a hand to his heart. “Do you think I wanted any of that to happen?”
An alarm bell blares in the depths of my mind. Watching my brother struggle for breath has guilt swirling in my gut.
“You’ve made enough decisions that probably warrant attempted murder,” I say with a forced smile.
“You never turn your back on the family, Luka. You always do what’s expected of you.”
“I don’t do it out of obligation. I do it because I love my family and want to keep them safe. There’s a big fucking difference.”
“A little bit of ego goes into that, too. You know it as well as I do.”
I shrug. “I do what I need to do because I want to.”
“You have to find Val. And you need to find the people who did this to us.” He lets out a shuddering sigh. “I know you won’t turn your back on the family now. You always pick up the pieces.”
“Why are you talking like this?” I furrow my brow. “They’re gonna fix you up. The doctors said the procedure is nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah…” he says. His pained gaze reaches mine. “You gave Natasha your Guns N’ Roses T-shirt. She didn’t take it off until I forced her to put on the dress for the wedding this morning.”
“It’s a cool shirt.”
“Maybe there was another reason why she wouldn’t take it off.”
“It has enough holes to make it breathable,” I say with a smirk.
“That’s a load of crap and you know it.”
“I had to give her something to wear. You pretty much dumped her on me with only the pajamas on her back.”
“Interesting choice, though.” His eyes narrow and he picks at the edge of the bedsheet covering him. “I hate that fucking shirt.”
“I know you do.” My lips twist into a grimace. “But the night of that concert positioned you to take over the family. You should love that shirt.”
“It didn’t happen the way I wanted,” he grumbles. “That shirt is a reminder.”
“Yeah, a reminder of how I saved your ass, and then how you used it against me with Dad to show him how dangerous it would be to the family if I was in charge. You knew he’d planned on making me his number one, and you saw a way to blow shit up for me, so you took it. Even though it was because of me that you made it out alive.”
Dima nods. “You’re right. And I’ve been punishing you ever since for your short-sighted stupidity.”
“If this is supposed to be some twisted apology, then save it. I don’t want anything from you.”
Except your fiancée.
But I leave out that part.
I’d never give him the satisfaction of telling him how I feel. He already knows the truth and has used it against me more than once.
“Dad never wanted you to go out on your own,” Dima says, his voice fading. His eyes are heavy and sunken, his skin growing paler as the seconds tick by. I guess they gave him drugs as part of the surgery prep because I’m definitely losing him to sleep.
“He wanted you in Miami, but I knew if you’d stayed, I’d lose to you.”
“Lose what? You had his ear for every deal, every idea, every plan. He saw me exactly the way you painted me — as a rogue driven by bloodlust who only cares about revenge.”
“I was wrong.”
“Maybe you weren’t.” I massage the stress knot at the base of my skull. “It’s the reason you came up with the idea to marry Natasha, isn’t it? You watched me watch her and realized you could get the revenge you wanted on Resnov by using business as your weapon, as opposed to a Glock. That’s the big difference between us, Dima. We want the same thing, we just have different ways of getting it. And Dad knew that. He liked that you were a more civilized gangster than me. Less liability.” I lift an eyebrow. “Or at least that’s the crap you always fed me.”
