17. Matvey

17

MATVEY

Yuri's text only has four words: Up for round two?

Good. I need to fucking vent.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm back at the warehouse. Gloves on, tools spread out in front of me. Last time, I played nice with the foreigner. This time, I pick a different toy.

"Please," the Russian mudak goes as I give him the spa treatment. Specifically, to his right shoulder. "Please, please, stop ?—"

Crack.

"Man," I sigh, rolling my own shoulders with satisfaction. "You're so tense, my friend. When's the last time you had a massage?"

The guy answers with a wail.

Despite being the worst piss-baby I've ever interrogated—and yes, I mean that literally—somehow, he still hasn't cracked. Talk about miracles, huh?

Maybe he's one of my people after all.

"This can all be over in minutes, you know. It's up to you."

I can see he's tempted. The light in a man's eyes when he's struck with sudden hope—nothing shines as bright as that. But then his face shutters with dread. "I c-can't."

"Really?" I drawl, letting my glove snap against my wrist. "I don't get it. What's this guy gonna do to you that I won't?"

I already know the answer to that, of course. If his colleague's intel is genuine, this mudak 's got plenty to be scared of. It's still fucking annoying, though.

I far prefer it when they're scared of me.

"My…" the piss-baby splutters, whining between words. "My f-family. He'll kill them all."

As expected. I'm the most cold-blooded motherfucker on earth, but even I wouldn't stoop to going after innocents. That's the difference between me and him— I draw the line at family.

Not that he even knows the meaning of the word.

However, this guy doesn't need to know that. It doesn't matter what I would or wouldn't do: all that matters is what he believes. And I've always been good at playing the monster.

"What makes you think I won't?"

My hostage's eyes go wide. "No."

"Yes." I walk slowly around the chair. Each step echoes in the cold, damp air of the warehouse. "And you know what? I won't just put a bullet in their heads. I'll make it hurt. "

"You w-wouldn't!"

"Why don't we ask Lefty?"

Snap. Crackle. Pop goes another shoulder.

It's so satisfying—the crunch of bone and resolve. I haven't been here even half an hour, and already, my mood has improved. I can feel my stress melt with every moan of pain.

But every game must be ended at its highest point. So I peel off my gloves, put away my toolbox, and make my way out the door.

"Wait!" the man calls, terrified. "Wait, you can't?—"

Clang.

"Actually," I call through the shut metal door, "I can."

I go outside. The crisp morning air hits my face, coaxing me back into the world. On the sunny side of it, where the shadows stick close to the things that cast them.

My world is different. In my world, shadows stretch on forever.

With Yuri still indoors tending to our other houseguest, I'm bored. My hands itch for a cigarette. I quit smoking years ago, but it's a tough habit to break. Especially at times like these.

I fish something else out of my jacket instead. An old, battered pocket watch stares back at me from my palm, its hands long dead. They've been still for decades, a crack in the glass snaking from one side to the other.

I don't know why I keep carrying this. It's a waste of space, really.

You do know , a part of me whispers, the same part that's always hungry. For cracked bone, spilled blood, anything. It keeps the fire alive.

It keeps revenge alive.

"What was he like?"

Yuri's voice snaps me out of my thoughts. I didn't even hear him approach—that's how off I am today. "He wasn't." I can practically hear my brother's frown. So, sighing, I elaborate. "Absence was his gift to us. Every night, my mother would wait up for him, the dinner table laid out until the midnight toll. Sometimes, way past that."

I don't know what's made me so talkative. Usually, I wouldn't answer a question like this. But then, at the back of my mind, I can hear the echo of April's words: What about your dad?

Family dinner. What a stupid expectation to have of a man like him . Back then, it always turned into a family wake. Waiting, as the night grew colder, for someone who might not return.

Until, one night, he didn't.

That's why I keep this, I remind myself, turning over the watch in my hands. Because of every second he took from me. When the sickness came—when we needed him—he was nowhere to be found.

And Mama's time ran out.

Are you still up for this? Us?

Of fucking course I am. I won't give up on my revenge. Not for a baby bump in the road. Not for anything.

"Sounds like I didn't miss much," Yuri remarks at last, kicking a piece of debris down the alley.

I feel a nasty smirk pulling at the corner of my lips. "You didn't."

Yuri. He was so small when I found him. Small and scrawny, one gust of wind away from blowing into the Volga River.

"Do you remember when we first met?"

I don't need to ask. The answer's the same every time. "Like it was yesterday," Yuri whispers.

"You were gathering firewood outside," I recall, smiling fondly. "Snow up to your waist. You were practically swimming."

Yuri snorts. "Always calling me short, aren't you?"

At six foot two, no one in their right mind would say that to him anymore. But back then, I felt like he could fit in the palm of my hand.

My little brother. The only family I had left.

It's the one good thing that that monster of man did: gave us each other. And he didn't even do that on purpose.

"You helped," Yuri murmurs after a while. "With my mom."

Of course I did. Who else was going to?

Back then, in rural Russia, the most commonplace illnesses were enough to take a life away. Especially if you didn't have a coin to your name. It's another thing we have in common—watching the ice take everything from us. Our mothers, our homes, our future.

But I refused to bow to that last part. I picked up my grandfather's name, chased after the remnants of his Bratva, and made it anew. Made it mine. No one would dare take our futures after that.

"Ready for round three?"

And no one , I think as visions of hazel eyes pass through my mind, will ever take it again.

"Lead the way, brother."