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“Bartek, is it just you here, or what?” I ask, feeling a prickle of annoyance at the idea of him wasting my time.
“No, uh, there’s someone else who wants to see you,” he replies, visibly nervous.
Oh God, what have I gotten myself into? If I die, I just hope Kimberly is okay. She’s the only person who would even care.
“Better not be a setup,” I grumble to myself as Bartek motions for me to sit down on the couch.
But before I can sit down and consider my options, a man who is almost a mirror image of me walks out from behind a towering wall of boxes.
“So, it is you,” he says, his voice laced with the same Russian accent as me.
“Damien?” I ask, hardly believing it to be true. I haven’t seen my brother in almost thirty years, and here he is, almost a carbon copy of me despite us not being identical twins.
“Yes, your eyes aren’t fooling you,” he says, smirking at my reaction as he walks up to me. “But I would’ve had the same reaction had I not been watching you all these years. It’s been a long time.”
“You motherfucker,” I reply, shaking my head. “And you never said a word.”
“I couldn’t. Too risky, but once they let you out, I had my guys come looking for you. That meeting with Bartek wasn’t a coincidence.”
I’ve never been this stunned before. It takes a lot to throw someone like me off balance, but Damien has done it. I don’t know whether I should congratulate him or punch his lights out.
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” I finally say, and I feel like I’m talking to myself.
“Sit,” Damien says, following his instruction before I do. “I’ll explain. Care for a cigar?”
I nod, feeling a little sick to my stomach. I need something to take the edge off.
Damien snaps his fingers at Bartek, who hurries away and comes back a second later with a box full of Cubans. He lights them for us, and then leaves.
With cigars between our knuckles, Damien and I turn to each other on the couch. All I can do is look at his face and try to figure out what he’s experienced in the last thirty years that I haven’t.
“Alright, so this is probably awkward for you, but I assure you, it was necessary to meet like this,” he begins, smoke rolling from his tongue as he speaks.
“I’m sure it is, somehow, but I don’t like it. This doesn’t seem real.”
He nods slowly. “I understand. When they locked you up, I looked at you as an example of what not to do. But the void needed to be filled, and people listened to me because they knew I was your brother. The Bratva life came to me, and I was so down and out on my luck that I allowed it to consume me.”
“So, you finally turned,” I say, feeling an odd sort of sorrow knowing that my brother couldn’t avoid this lifestyle either. I thought he was the one who made the right decision when we parted ways at sixteen, but it turned out that neither of us could outrun our destinies.
“I turned and I ran down this path as far as I could. I knew you’d be out eventually, but I waited to reach out. I couldn’t draw attention to myself in the position that I’m in,” he explains.
“The boss, I hope.”
He chuckles. “Yes, the boss, which is something I’m assuming you’re going to want to be eventually.”
I shrug. “I never stopped being the boss.”
“Ah, but out on these streets people don’t know you anymore. They’ve all vanished like the dust in the wind. There was a power vacuum when you were locked up, and pretty much everyone you rolled with either left, went to prison too, or ended up dead.”
“Flattering, if you think about it,” I say, feeling a little better as the nicotine hits me.
Damien grins. “You’re as cocky as you always were, but I’m the same way. Part of me only brought you here to show off.”
“Show off what?” I ask, looking around at the poorly lit warehouse.
He scoffs. “This isn’t the main headquarters. This is just where we meet from time to time.”
“Right,” I reply with palpable sarcasm.
