CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
VIKTOR
“We’ve got him.” Viktor leaned back in the overstuffed leather furniture of the sitting room and took a long, slurping sip of hot coffee. He glanced to the door to make sure it was closed. It wouldn’t be good if housekeeping or a visitor dropped in on this particular conversation with his brother Niko. “Are you still offering to plan this out? We need to go into this with a clear idea of how to proceed to make this go as smoothly as possible for us, and I know that you’re the best man for the job.”
Niko sat ramrod straight on the couch. His lanky body appeared even scrawnier that usual, dressed as he was in a white oxford shirt that was two sizes too big for him. Compared to his siblings, Viktor and Kostya, he looked the least like a mafioso. Niko had always been the quiet, bookish one, in fact, and tended to keep to himself, but when Viktor needed him, he was always there. For that, Viktor had always been grateful.
“Not a problem, not a problem.” Niko adjusted his position on the couch and followed Viktor’s lead, sipping at his coffee. “Sounds to me like you might need all the help you can get—not by any fault on yours, but simply because it’s such a delicate situation.” He paused with a thoughtful expression. “In this case, I would strongly advise you to begin with a polite interrogation, using the least coercive measures possible, and gradually increase coercion, by force if necessary… but only if necessary. Be nice, at first, and respect him while you ask questions. If he refuses or things go south, then slowly amp it up.” Niko’s gaze fell a bit as he stared at his distorted reflection in the surface of the coffee in thought. “I know you and Kostya tend to favor quick, direct, usually violent solutions, but—”
“No,” Viktor interrupted. “Kostya is like a rabid animal when it comes to violence. I just do what I must.”
“Kostya takes after Father, then.” Niko’s gaze slipped from the cup of coffee in his hands, down to the Persian rug at his feet.
“What are you talking about? Father was no stranger to violence, of course, but you do what you have to do when you have a mafia to run.” Viktor’s brow furrowed. What was his brother getting at?
“What does beating his son have to do with running the mafia?” Niko’s gaze shot to Viktor’s, and the pain behind his brother’s dark eyes caused the air to flee from Viktor’s lungs.
“He… he didn’t beat us.” Viktor said softly.
“No, Viktor, he didn’t beat you or Kostya because you were good little mercenaries, but he beat me.” Niko set his coffee down and wrung his hands in his lap. His posture slipped a bit, and he slouched as though trying to hide from his own memories.
“What? Why?” The father Viktor had known was a stern man, but a sensible one. Viktor had sat with him through closed-door meetings when he was of age, and he’d gleaned that his father was to be feared… but to think that he would beat his own son? Viktor thought he’d known him better than that.
“Because he said I was too feminine. He said I needed to ‘man up’ so I didn’t disgrace the family. I wasn’t strong, like you, or quick to act, like Kostya. He saw me as a failure, and intended to whip me into shape.”
“He never raised a hand against me unless I deserved the punishment.” Viktor pressed his lips together and watched Niko in disbelief, waiting to catch telltale signs of a lie in progress. But Niko didn’t twitch or fidget. He didn’t look off to the side nervously, either. There was a pained, distant look in his eyes that Viktor had always seen in glimpses, but had never connected to a broader context.
“So in the summers, when we were younger, and you always wore long sleeves even when it was boiling hot in the shade…”
Niko was silent. He’d been bold enough to meet Viktor’s eye previously, but now he looked into his coffee again. Viktor didn’t know what to say. Life hadn’t been easy for any of them—the nature of their family business had assured it—but he’d never thought that Niko had been through pain like that… or that their father, as iron-fisted as he could be, could have been capable of such an act toward his own child.
Before Viktor could react, there was a scuffling sound outside the door. He turned his head to watch as the doorknob twisted and the door pushed open.
It was Alexandra.
“Am I… interrupting? I’m sorry, this is like the tenth time I’ve done this. Either I need to learn how to knock, you need to learn how to lock the door, or both.” Alexandra’s tone was light-hearted, if not a little awkward. She offered a sheepish smile.
Viktor felt guilt strike him in the gut like a cannonball. He had just been talking about potentially injuring her father. If she hadn’t interrupted, they’d inevitably have been discussing the murder of her family now.
Guilt turned to confusion, then cemented itself into stinging frustration as Viktor struggled to weigh his burgeoning love for his wife against his duty as a mafia boss and his duty to avenge his father. He didn’t know what to say to Alexandra. Luckily, she seemed all too eager to fill the silence for him.
“If I am interrupting, I’m very sorry, but this can’t wait.” She cast a pleading glance to Viktor. “Can we please speak alone?”
Niko and Alexandra both watched Viktor for a response. His jaw clenched for a moment, his neck muscles taut and his face tightened into a momentary scowl. Rather than send Alexandra away, however, he wanted to address this; he was curious as to what could possibly be so urgent, so important, that she would barge in like this—again, knowing how upset he’d been before.
“Niko, my wife needs me. Would you mind?” Viktor looked to his brother and gestured toward the door. There were secrets kept in his brother’s heart that he wanted to discover, but the situation at hand required his attention as well.
“It’s no problem at all.” Niko’s expression was downcast, but nowhere near as plain as it had been moments before. His mask had gone back up, and he’d returned to being the same brother who Viktor was so familiar with. The transformation was jarring, and it left a mark on Viktor’s soul.
Every family had secrets, but the ones he was in the process of discovering about his own? They made him all the more aware of how much was now riding on his shoulders. He’d inherited the family business as well as its reputation, and it was up to him whether that reputation would be preserved, or whether it would change. He needed to fix his father’s mistakes. Ruling with an iron-fist was a necessity, but to go so far? To sink so low.
No.
Viktor would not allow it.
Niko made his way toward the door while Alexandra entered and stood near Viktor. Before he shut the door behind him, Niko poked his head back in and added, “Thank you for listening.”
Viktor offered a tight-lipped smile and a single, deep nod.
Niko disappeared from the doorway, and only after his footfalls grew distant did Alexandra let out a whoosh of breath. Though she seemed flustered, Viktor saw both tenderness and resolve in her big blue eyes. He patted the couch cushion next to him. “Come, tell me what’s so important.”
Alexandra plopped into the deep cushion so that they were side by side and put her hand on his thigh.
“I know how to prove my father’s innocence.”