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“As you correctly pointed out, I am the don now,” I say coldly. “I have business to attend to.”
“On the day of your brother’s funeral?”
“Maksim and I discussed this possibility years ago,” I answer, marveling at how easily my tone hardens into frozen iron. “He would want me to follow the protocol he set in place. So that is what I’m doing.”
My sister’s eyes are gray, like mine. But they’re more turbulent. More erratic. Like the sky before a thunderstorm. “Fuck protocol! What doyouwant to do?”
“I want to do what is expected of me.”
She looks away from me, disgust and disappointment rolling off of her like heat waves. “The Orlov men and their godforsaken rules,” she grumbles. “Don’t you wish you could just throw that rulebook out the window?”
Yes,I scream in my head.
“No,” I say out loud.
Nikita just grimaces at the answer she knew she should’ve expected. For a moment, we stew together in the tense, painful silence.
“I’ve decided that Cyrille and Ilya should move in with Mother,” I tell my sister abruptly.
She doesn’t even bother to look surprised. “Oh, how wonderful. Excellent idea. It’ll be good for Ilya to be closer to his grandmother, especially now that he’s lost his fatherandhis uncle.”
“Don’t!” I snarl at her viciously, losing my composure for a moment.
Nikita beams at my uncharacteristic outburst. “Ah-ha! So youarestill in there somewhere.”
“What do you want? You want me to get drunk and angry?” I demand. “You want me to blubber like a baby? Will you be satisfied if I fall apart, Nikita?”
Her triumphant grin sours. “What would havesatisfiedme is if my nine-year-old nephew had been allowed to cry at his own father’s funeral,” she hisses. “But he wasn’t allowed to, because of the fuckingrules—”
“Tears can be interpreted as weakness.”
“He’s nine, for God’s sake!”
“No, he’s a target,” I remind her. “We cannot appear weak. Even here, even now, we are being watched. Maksim didn’t drop dead of a heart attack, Niki—he was murdered. As we speak, Petyr Ivanov is probably plotting new ways to chip away at our family.”
She exhales. I can feel our shared grief in that sigh. “You’re right. Fuck, I hate it when you’re right.” Straightening herself up, she fixes her hair and puts her mafia princess face back on. “Very well. I will do my part.”
She places her hand on my arm again, not caring how much I hate the intimacy. It doesn’t last long. Just one fleeting millisecond of contact before she pulls back and walks to where our mother is now standing with Ilya.
I look around and spot Ilya’s mother—Cyrille, my brother’s widow—in the entrance hall.
The mourners around her disappear like mist meeting the sun when they see me coming. Cyrille gives me a shaky smile that betrays just how much today is stealing from her. “Hi, Misha.”
“The car is here to take you home.”
“To take me—” She shakes her head, realizing that can’t be right. “Nessa’s home, you mean.”
I nod. “In time, it will start to feel like yours.”
Her blue eyes are clear, but her nose is uncharacteristically red. “My home was with your brother. Now that he’s gone, I don’t have one anymore. So your mother’s house is as good as any, I guess.”
“I will take care of you, Cyrille. You and Ilya are family.”
It’s the most assurance I can give her, pitiful as it is. She takes no comfort in it. With a bleak nod, she walks down the steps toward the armored black sedan waiting in front of the building.
A second later, Mama appears at my side. “It’s funny,” she observes as she looks me up and down. “I never thought I’d see you in this position. But now that we’re here, you look like you were made for it.”
I frown. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”
