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“I’m sorry about your friend,” Luka pipes up after a few minutes. “Her name is Charlotte, right?”
“Yeah.” I gulp. “Nicolai said they think she’ll recover.”
“Well, that’s good to hear.”
I nod in agreement “Luka, can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“What’s your opinion about all this? This Bratva business. Avenging your father.”
Luka shrugs. “I’m… a little more removed than my brothers are. They’d already fled to America by the time I was born. I didn’t grow up surrounded by this nonsense. Unlike them, I didn’t get a chance to know my father. Even though they were little, they still have memories of him. It’s hard for me to want to avenge someone I never knew.”
I nod solemnly, thinking about my own father. It surprises me how little I’ve thought about him lately. Finding him used to be the only thing on my mind, my greatest goal in life. But with everything going on, my priorities have shifted. I need to be here for Mikhail, present and working hard to protect our future. While I don’t want my father to remain in the past, right now, he needs to remain there.
“They tell me Mikhail is just like him, though,” Luka continues. “Dimitri and Pyotr sometimes tell me Misha acts exactly like Lev. So I guess in a way, I do know him? It’s weird.”
“Then he must have been a good man,” I comment, entering another line of code before pressingENTER.
“Yeah, must be.”
“Mikhail says he wants to stay after this. To take over. Keep things from spiraling out of control.”
Luka’s expression hardens, his eyes dark and unreadable. I almost find it amusing how similar the Antonov brothers are. At this moment, he reminds me exactly of Mikhail.
“It’s his decision to make,” he says diplomatically.
“You’d support him?”
He sighs. “We all have our own lives to live. I’m not going to tell him what to do. All I can do is hope he’ll be safe.”
“Do you think you’d stay if he asked? I’m sure Mikhail would love it if his brothers could be near.”
Luka glances up from his laptop for a moment, appearing to genuinely consider my question. “No,” he finally says. “Dimitri and Pyotr might be convinced if he asked them, but I don’t think I will.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t speak the language.”
“You can always learn.”
“I’m more interested in programming than being a mobster.”
“Hm,” I hum. “I guess that’s fair.”
“I’ll always be here for him, but my life is in New York. Unless something drastic happens, that’s never going to change. But regardless, I’ll always come running if he needs me to.”
“You really mean it, huh?”
“Of course. I’d do that for any of my brothers. We all would.”
I smile at him, moved by his words. Manipulative mother and murderous uncle aside, Mikhail really does have a wonderful family. There’s a bond between them I can’t even begin to describe. It warms my heart to know that come what may, Mikhail will always have someone to rely on.
My computer dings. My program has finished uploading. Goosebumps break out across my arms and down the nape of my neck. I give everything a quick test run, paying specific attention to any errors or performance issues that might hinder our plans. I run it again and again and again.
Nothing happens.
It’s perfect.
