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When I see him next, I’m going to beat his ass.
I check my phone again, and there’s still nothing from him.
At a stoplight a half-mile from the campus, I scroll through his social media to see if he’s been online. He’s not one to flaunt his drunkenness on the internet, but he hangs out with people who might have caught him and posted it online for laughs.
I’d take anything at this point. An embarrassing photo, screenshots of drunken texts he sent to his ex last night, anything. His humiliation would pale in comparison to my relief.
But there’s nothing.
I’m tempted to go to his house and break the door down since I don’t have the luxury of calling in a wellness check on him. That’s the way we’ve always done things, and I’d be perfectly satisfied with beating a lesson into him if I caught him playing video games on the couch.
Heknows better.
That’s why this is messing with me so much.
The drive back to my own place feels surreal. The events of the night were so out of the ordinary, even for me, that I’m still trying to find equilibrium.
No matter what’s going on with Misha, I still have to deal with Johan to make sure that the situation doesn’t escalate even further.
I’ve been under pressure in the Bratva ever since I joined at sixteen, but the stress has been mounting in ways I thought I could manage up until now. Without my brother here to balance me out, I run the risk of burning myself out for good.
When I pull up to my house, I see a familiar vehicle in the driveway that causes my heart to jump into my throat.
It’s a white Buick, the only car that my former mentor and closest friend has ever driven.
Yan, the man who raised me into the leader that I am today, is never the type to drop in unexpectedly. He’s old fashioned, always calling ahead before he even so much as brings over the shoes you forgot at his house.
Seeing his car in my driveway isn’t the first sign that something is horribly wrong, but it is the loudest and hardest to ignore.
My first instinct is to park my car halfway up the driveway and sprint out, but I know that I have to work hard at maintaining my composure when I feel this way. I’ve only known this particular sense of dread two other times in my life, and I spent both instances almost drinking myself into a coma.
I slowly drive the rest of the way up, feeling my hands beginning to shake as the gravity of the situation sets in.
I don’t even know the details. I don’t know anything.
But Yan chose not to reach out to me over the phone for this. He’s called in the past to tell me that my men had been killed unexpectedly, and that was hard enough.
Showing up in person is something he’d reserve for absolutely horrific news, somehow worse than a murder itself.
I sit in my car for what feels like hours watching the front door, waiting for Yan to meet me halfway so that I don’t have to pursue the horrible news he’s brought me. He’s come this far already.
It’s only been around twenty minutes since I got home, but the passing time only manages to exacerbate my fear.
No amount of preparation could alleviate this sense of despair. I have to be a man and face it head-on.
I can barely feel my fingers as I pull the key out of the ignition. My whole body is vibrating with dread, and every step I take feels heavier than the last.
As soon as I walk in, I see Yan sitting at my kitchen table, sipping coffee the way he did every morning when I was growing up.
“Sit down, son. We have a lot to talk about.”
13
Vera
When I enter my apartment, I’m shaking from how unexpected and hostile Ruslan’s demeanor was when he dropped me off.
I knew that he wasn’t my number-one fan after the endless bickering last night, but I thought we’d made a rare connection while we were having sex. I felt like he was really trying to be considerate and sweet to me.
