33
Oksana
After the shower, I went to my room and dressed in the outfit I’d been wearing the first night I’d come to the house. Vasilije had instructed me to. He wanted to burn my clothes after I took care of Aleksandar.
It was him or Konstantine, I reminded myself repeatedly. If it would save my brother’s life, I would have to pull the trigger. I might be a panicked mess while I did it, but it would happen. Killing Ilia hadn’t been premeditated. It had felt right, and I had no regrets.
However, this murder felt . . . muddy.
Vasilije sat on the couch in the living room, and looked up at me when I entered. His gaze was cold and impersonal, and it stung. I’d shown him the side of myself no one had seen, and I believed he’d done the same.
I’d been so wrong.
“Alek’s on his way,” he said, setting his phone down on the coffee table. “There’s the gun in the office. You know how to use it?”
“Yes.”
“Go get it.”
It felt like a test. I strode into the darkened office, yanked open the bottom drawer, and scooped up the gun. When I came back into the living room, he eyed the weapon in my hand. I’d had plenty of opportunities to kill him, and hadn’t. Wasn’t this proof I wanted to work with him?
I sat on the oversized chair opposite him and tucked the gun under my leg, hiding it from view. Vasilije’s gaze was crushing, and the silence stretching between us was painful. My anxiety about what was going to happen made me honest.
“The only thing I lied about was my father.”
His expression was fixed. “Yeah? Well, it was a big fucking lie.”
“I’m sorry I had to tell it.” I borrowed a tactic from my stepmother, and went the passive-aggressive route. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” he snapped, but his quick answer was too revealing. The Serbian boy had feelings after all.
“Then working together shouldn’t be a problem.”
He seethed as he searched for the perfect comeback, and then he stood abruptly, as if he’d found it. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. You’re a lot like him.”
My blood slowed to a stop. “Like who?”
“Your father.”
The terrifying statement landed, and I launched to my feet as if I could get away from it. “I’m nothing like him.”
“You’re getting awfully worked up for a girl who said she doesn’t have feelings.”
I took in a deep breath. “Maybe I only have feelings around you.”
He jerked back. His surprise lasted only a moment, and then evaporated into suspicion.
“It’s not a lie,” I said softly. “God, Vasilije. I wish it was.”
His mouth dropped open to say something, but he was cut off when the security system chirped and the front door swung open. My heart climbed into my throat as Aleksandar stepped inside and dusted the snow off his jacket. He hesitated when he saw me.
“What’s up?” His guarded gaze went to Vasilije.
I sat down on the chair, concealing the gun. It was a hard, uncomfortable lump beneath me. I wasn’t supposed to use it right away. Vasilije wanted to confront him first, although I was sure he was drawing this out to torture me. The anticipation was its own kind of murder.
“I need your piece,” Vasilije said.
The statement put Aleksandar on high alert. He stiffened, his hands balled into fists, and his angry gaze snapped to me.
“Don’t look at her,” Vasilije ordered. “I’m handling it, and she’s not the one you stabbed in the back.”
Fear mixed with regret, contorting Aleksandar’s face into an ugly mess. “They got to me, Vasilije. I’m sorry—”
“I need to know how,” he said flatly. “I was good to you. I deserve a goddamn answer on what they had that got you to turn on me.”
Aleksandar’s shoulders slumped and his voice went small. “I needed money.”
That seemed to piss Vasilije off. “I’ve got lots of fucking money.”
Aleksandar shifted his weight, uneasy. “I was in deep, with a lot of different families. Some of them, you’d told me to stay away from.”
“So, that’s it? A shitload of money was all it took for you to sell me out?”
“They’ll kill me if I don’t do what they want, and besides the money . . .” His gaze flashed to me. “When it was done, Sergey told me I could have her.”
My pulse climbed as Vasilije’s voice did. “What the fuck does that mean? Have her?”
“After she did what she needed to, she’d be mine. I could fuck her, or marry her, or . . . whatever. He promised her to me.”
There wasn’t anything left of me to crush. I’d never intended to hold up my end of the deal with my father, and obviously, he hadn’t either.
But Vasilije didn’t like this at all. “She’d never be yours. Oksana’s been mine from the first moment I saw her.” Even without looking my direction, I knew he was addressing me. “Did you know about that deal?”
“No, but after burning down a house with an innocent family locked inside, nothing Sergey does surprises me anymore. I told you, he’s evil.”
“And that’s who you work for now,” Vasilije said to Aleksandar.
The guy’s face twisted with remorse. “I don’t!”
“Then give me your fucking gun, Alek.”
For a long moment, he considered not doing it, but must have realized there was no upside. Even if he outdrew and killed Vasilije, he’d have both the Russians and the Serbians after him, and they’d tear through his family until they got what they wanted.
He moved cautiously, pulling the gun from behind his back and reluctantly handing it to Vasilije. “She’s the one who works for Sergey,” he muttered.
Vasilije’s head swung toward me, and his smile was so wide and sinister, my heart stopped. “Go ahead, Oksana.”
I jammed my hand beneath my thigh and closed a fist around the 9mm. As I stood from the chair on shaky legs, I raised the gun, and Aleksandar’s beady eyes flooded with horror.
“Does she look like she works for Sergey?” Vasilije snarled.
The gun weighed a million pounds in my hand, but I kept my aim fixed, waiting for Vasilije’s final command. I was stunned he wanted me to do it right here in the entryway. It’d take hours to clean, but then again, I’d gotten lots of practice over the years, cleaning up after my father’s downsizing meetings.
“If I tell you to pull the trigger,” Vasilije said, “will you?”
My voice was so much stronger than I felt. “Yes.”
He looked pleased. “You can put that down. I’ve seen what I need to.”
My gasp of relief was internal, but Aleksandar’s was loud, and he was so overwhelmed, he nearly collapsed. I lowered the gun, grateful to have the strain gone.
Vasilije’s focus turned to Aleksandar. “Don’t look so fucking relieved. The only reason you’re still alive is because I don’t want your blood ruining my floors.”
Aleksandar froze. “What?”
Vasilije strode to the front door and yanked it open, revealing the man lurking on the front steps. Filip’s gun was out—not up—but it didn’t make him any less dangerous. His critical eyes surveyed the room. When his gaze caught mine, they widened a degree. He was probably thinking about the last time he’d seen me, when I’d been crouched down on the dirty warehouse floor, pretending to be cowering in fear. I’d watched Goran’s top enforcer kill one of my father’s men with surgical precision that night. His expression had been cold and joyless.
“Don’t make it quick,” Vasilije said. “I wouldn’t if I was doing it.”
Aleksandar stumbled backward, maybe thinking about running, but where would he go? He was the only one not armed. “Vasilije, just wait a minute.”
But he was ignored, and Vasilije kept talking directly to Filip. “When you’re done, make sure he’s somewhere the Russians will find him. It needs to send a message. I already talked with my uncle. We’ll hold off on Konstantine, and see how they react.”
Filip stepped through the door, and his swift approach seemed to paralyze Aleksandar. He peered up at the man with the shaved head like he was God himself, and didn’t move as Filip grabbed his arm.
“I have to ask a favor, though,” Vasilije said abruptly. “He’s going to say some shit about Oksana, and I need you to keep it from my uncle. Not forever. Just until I’ve got it handled, which, trust me—I will.” If Goran believed I was a spy for the Russians, my fate would be worse than Aleksandar’s, yet Vasilije’s tone was casual. “Do you mind?”
Filip considered the statement as he began to drag a blubbering Aleksandar toward the door. “How long?”
“A few weeks. If you want to tell him before then, I respect that. All I ask is a heads-up.”
“Vasilije!” Aleksandar sniffled, sucking back tears. “Please, I’m sorry. Don’t do this!”
“I’m not doing shit,” he fired back. “You tried to set me up. You made this choice for me.”
Filip put both hands on Aleksandar and wrenched him from the doorframe he’d latched onto. “If it’s only a few weeks,” Filip said, “I can sit on the info.”
“Thanks.” Vasilije smiled. “Get him out of here and . . . have fun.” He shut the door on Aleksandar’s cries for help, and they grew quieter after a thud, making me think Filip had thrown a punch to shut him up.
Vasilije’s dark eyes focused on me and the gun still clutched in my hand.
“Put that back where it was. I’m going to bed,” he announced. “If I decide not to kill you, I’ll see you in the morning.”
♪
I poured everything I felt into my music. When Vasilije came downstairs and saw me at the piano, he said nothing. He ignored me for a good portion of the day. After dinner, he demanded a blowjob, which I gave him, and then I went back to not existing for him.
The first week was hard, but every day I stayed chipped away at his anger. I had years of practice living with my father’s cold indifference, so this was almost easy. If Vasilije thought I’d give up, he was so very wrong. I’d work on his symphony until it was done, and if he didn’t let me back in by then, I’d just start on another until he did.
I’d destroyed any warmth Vasilije had toward me by revealing who I was, but it crept back in, ever so slowly, on the nights we were together. He didn’t want to like me. Sometimes he’d let his guard down too much, and then overcompensate by threatening to kill me. I didn’t believe it. I knew him too well.
The second week, I’d laughed when he said it, which pissed him off and earned me a set of beautiful red handprints across my skin, but every strike he gave me was the same as a wrecking ball against the wall he’d put between us.
Things weren’t the same, but they improved dramatically when I explained how I envisioned us killing my father. Together. The graphic detail I gave him . . . even the logistics of it . . . it turned the devil on.
Our conversations about murder became foreplay.
I hadn’t finished the final movement of his symphony before he revealed the first step in his plan for his uncle, and I was impressed. “You’ve been planning this a long time.”
A slow smile worked across his lips. “Don’t you know? Planning’s half the fun.”