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“Which brother would that be,Balan? Vadim. Arian”—the hesitation was deliberate—“or you?”
“Ah, yes, another tale the Guzun clan eagerly swallowed, like tasting Strottarga Bianco caviar for the first time.” His eyes darkened. “Why is it that those who have everything are so quick to believe the worst?”
“What are you saying, Andrei?” Andrei cursed under his breath as Zafira’s voice cracked under the strain. She appeared paler than before.
“I think we’ll skip the walk for today. You look weaker than yesterday.” He gestured toward the bed. “I suggest you take a bedrest day.”
“Don’t you dare patronize me, young man,” she snapped angrily. “What exactly did you mean?”
“Viktor Guzun wasn’t my father.”
“Why should we believe you?” Vanya spat. “Now all of a sudden you have a different story, yet when Janos so succinctly broke the news, you stood there, claiming it all to be true.” She jammed the gun into his chin. “C’mon, you bastard! Tell the truth!”
“Put that gun away, Vanya, before it goes off and a wayward bullet does what the assassin didn’t…” He smiled wryly as his fingers traced the outer edge of the leather mask on his face. “In both instances, I might add.”
“I’ll hold on to it, fuckface. I don’t trust you,” Vanya spat but took a step back.
“Start talking, Andrei. My patience is running thin,” Zafira interjected as she sat down at the dressing table.
“Two things I learned over the years under your and Viktor’s tutelage, was to never accept anything at face value, and don’t ever let your opponent know what cards you’re holding.”
“Stop the philosophical bullshit! Just spit it out, Balan.” Vanya’s eyes flashed as she, too, became increasingly agitated.
“If you call me Balan one more time, I will teach you a lesson you won’t easily forget,” he warned darkly. “Don’t push me, Vanya. Not today.”
“Really, fuckface? I’m the one with a gun. How ‘bout I blow one of your kneecaps off?”
Zafira ignored the brinkmanship between them and prodded Andrei insistently, “Are you saying you knew Janos was lying about Viktor being your father when he told us?”
“Yes.” He sighed when her eyes turned glacial. “One thing you need to understand,Comare, is that I owed Janos my life. There was a time that I would’ve done anything for him until I found out he had been using me.”
“I’m listening.”
“Janos used Gabriel and me as a gateway into the heart of the Guzun Bratva. I never met Gabriel as a child and didn’t know he was my cousin. Janos had known, even back then, that your organization was the strongest of them all.” He grimaced. “Contrary to Gabriel being coached from the day he had walked into your sons’ lives about what his purpose was, I wasn’t.”
“That’s not what Janos said,” Vanya interjected.
“Janos knew what would upset Arian the most. Truth be told, when I was younger, I had no idea Janos wanted to use my strong bond with Arian and Vadim to serve his own dark purpose. All I was told was to learn as much as I could since Viktor Guzun was the best teacher I could ever have. Janos claimed that with his knowledge, I would one day become the kind of successor the Red Bratva would be proud to have.”
“When did you realize he was using you?” Zafira watched him intently.
He knew her well enough to realize she was looking for signs of deceit.
“Janos wanted me to spy on Viktor and steal documents from the vault. Expecting me to do that to the man I was supposed to learn from, was a red flag and I knew he had been lying to me all the years. When I refused, he changed. He started treating me like scum and claimed I wasn’t a true Smirnoff, that I deserved the name Balan even though I wasn’t born from the loins of the man who carried the name. He produced a birth certificate that stated he wasn’t my father. In a way, I was relieved. At least I knew then why the man I grew up thinking was my father hated me so much.”
“How long ago was that? If I recall correctly, Janos only told you Viktor was your father after you got shot and went back home to recover,” Zafira prodded.
“It was at a time when the Red Bratva started its drive for EU dominance, many years before that. I cut him off at that point, and refused to be associated with him. My loyalty was with the Guzun Bratva.”
“But that changed,” Vanya said bitterly.
“Yes, because I believed Arian had deceived me. That he was indirectly responsible for getting me shot, that he wanted me out of the way because Janos had been trying to force me to change my allegiance, and he didn’t trust me any longer.”
“But he didn’t,” Zafira said with conviction.
“Yeah, well, the jury is still out on that one,” Andrei said cryptically. “Anyway, when I arrived home, Janos was overjoyed and believed he had the upper hand. Thought I would be easy to control. At first, I didn’t care and let him have his way. My recovery took longer because of that. When I didn’t show interest in his scheme or taking over from him, he produced another birth certificate and DNA results claiming Viktor was my father. He did his best to convince me that Viktor had known all along who I was and that I was the rightful leader of the Guzun Bratva. I wasn’t that easy to convince, so I went to Moscow to confront my mother. Before I got there, she died in a car wreck. I knew it wasn’t an accident. It was just too convenient.
“That was the day I realized just how power-hungry Janos was. No one mattered in his life. Not his own sister, and sure as hell not her bastard son.” He shrugged. “We were all game pieces he used in his master plan to become the Bratva leader of all. He envisioned himself in a position similar to that of the Sicilian Mafia’scapo di tutti capi.”
