The blood didn’t bother me like it should. It helped wash away the last flagging bits of the humanity that crept up in moments like these. I was here to do a job. A job I was good at. A job almost no one wanted me to show up for.

The dealer’s body flew across the table, sending his syringes and other paraphernalia flying to the floor. This place smelled like shit. I took a step closer to him as he scrambled on his hands and knees, trying to get away.

The stench of decay was ingrained in the walls. Cigarette smoke and who knows what else hung in the air. It pissed me off more than it should that we’d been sent to this shitty drug den to deal with this problem. My eye caught the newspaper spread out on the floor. Such a small thing, easy to ignore, like all the litter dotting a city street.

And in a moment, everything around me transformed. She looked up at me from the paper, the bright smile on her face jumping off the page, and it stung with accusation. It was a face I hadn’t thought about in years, other than fitful dreams, ones that left me shooting up out of bed, trying to catch my breath in the middle of the night.

“Ivan, what the hell?” Igor pushed past me and picked the dealer up off the floor. I snatched the paper up and tucked it into my jacket pocket.

“Please,” the dealer blubbered, begging for his life. Igor dropped him, and he scrambled to his knees, hands pressed together like he was praying at our feet. His face was a mottled mess of bruises and blood. We weren’t the only ones he’d pissed off. He’d already been a mess when we arrived. My stomach turned. Her picture was so close to me. It felt like the paper was burning a hole through my chest.

I stepped back so the blood from his mouth didn’t get on my slick black shoes. These were one of my favorite pairs. His bloodied mouth wasn’t my doing, at least not all my doing. Igor had been a bit overzealous during our encounter with him.

“Please, I was weak. Please,” he pleaded. “I needed it for my daughter.” He inched toward me on his knees. This was the part of the job I never enjoyed: the begging. While people like Igor relished enforcing the code we all lived by, it was something I did begrudgingly to keep chaos at bay. Doing my uncle’s bidding.

Igor’s meaty hand landed on the back of the dealer’s neck. There was a shift behind me. Alexei took a step backward, leaning against the far wall with his arms across his chest. My younger brother had gotten good at feigning indifference, but I knew it got to him. I glanced over as Alexei tugged at the cuff of his pristine white shirt under his jacket.

My brother was only here because our uncle demanded he come along. While I found this part of the job distasteful, Alexei fucking hated it.

“You should have thought about that before you took the money,” Igor said, sneering. He glanced up at me, almost giddy with carrying out the task of making sure others wouldn’t think the family had gone soft, and they could steal from us. Igor threw a punch, and the dealer’s head whipped to the side as he fell to the ground. The knots in my stomach grew.

Igor pulled his gun from his back holster. Adrenaline pounded in my veins, and my hands tingled, my blood racing. I’d done this more times than I could count. Alexei pushed himself off the far wall and stepped out of the room. The front door slammed behind him. I shook my head. He’d never wanted to be a part of this business. I wondered what he could have become if he’d ended up with a nice, normal family, not dragged into the old ways and debts of ours.

“Some people just aren’t cut out for this business, right, Ivan?” Igor glanced over at me, smiling like we were talking about a hostile takeover in a boardroom, not taking a man’s life. The folded paper felt like lead in my jacket pocket. Made me look at this situation with new eyes. With her eyes.

“That’s enough, Igor. I think he gets the point,” I said, grabbing his shoulder as he loomed over the petrified dealer. Igor took a step back.

“You stole from us. There are a lot of things we could do to you for that, but we’re not going to. You are never welcome in any of our establishments in the city. If you try to gamble with anyone we know, there will be serious consequences,” I said, keeping the angry mask on firmly, looming over the groveling man.

I glanced at the coffee table and the floor. Syringes and lighters covered it. A thief and an addict. Stealing money from us or not, soon enough he would be dead one way or another.

“Thank you,” he said, reaching out for my hand. I stepped back, nearly tripping over my own feet to get away from him. The walls were closing in, and I needed to get out of there.

“Don’t thank me. Don’t make us come back, either.” I motioned to Igor, who looked like someone had taken away his favorite toy. He loved the life. He loved the power that came with it. I fucking despised every part of it. Igor picked up the baggies of powder on the table and shoved them into his pocket. I’d talk to him about that outside. He wasn’t going to take that, and I sure as hell wasn’t getting caught with drugs in the car. That was the last thing we needed, to get arrested for some stupid shit like that.

The dealer stayed on his knees, probably too afraid to get up until we left. I turned my back to him, and Igor followed me out. We hadn’t made it more than three steps when an earsplitting pop rang out in an otherwise quiet room. Igor’s entire body weight sagged against me, and I spun around, grabbing on to his shoulders. His weight threatened to knock me over before I pushed him off.

Blood poured from his shoulder. I whipped around, and the dealer was there still on his knees, holding a gun in his hand like I hadn’t just gifted him a new lease on life. Blinding-hot rage shot through me. Sometimes people just won’t let you do the right fucking thing.

His hands trembled, and I put my hand behind my back. The hard weight of my gun tucked in my holster grazed my fingers.

“Don’t fucking move.” He spat blood on the already-dirty floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Glaring at us, he wrapped his hands around the butt of the gun. The weight of the weapon looked like it might topple him over.

“Fucking bastard shot me,” Igor said from behind me, groaning at the pain. I checked back, glancing at him. His hand was pressed to his shoulder with blood pouring out between his fingers.

“Put the gun down,” I said through clenched teeth. Igor staggered beside me with his eyes wide as I tried to reason with the dealer. It was a moronic move, but I did not want to do this. The lives I’d already taken weighed heavily on me, and I didn’t want to add another number to the count.

“Give it back.” He waved the gun at Igor and reached out his other hand like a petulant child.

“You’re doing this because of the fucking drugs? Are you seriously that stupid?” My anger boiled over, washing away every bit of sympathy I may have had for him just a few moments ago. I rested my hand on the butt of my gun. We were going to need to visit a doctor and all the hassles that would bring. Sloppy. Sergei would not be pleased.

“Just give it to me.” He held out his hand with his eyes darting down to it.

The front door crashed open, and the dealer jumped, his eyes flying to the door and then back to me. I shook my head, trying to get the dealer to use his brain, but he was too far gone.

Alexei ducked his head around the doorframe, his own gun in his hand, and the plaster in the wall behind him exploded as a bullet ripped through it. The pop was even louder this time, and the searing pain on the side of my head made my reaction instantaneous.

I whipped the gun out and squeezed the trigger, the kickback minimal in my hand as the smell of gunpowder filled my nose. And my ears rang from the close call.

A dark red spot bloomed on the dealer’s forehead before he fell forward, thudding to the floor. I ran my fingers along my ear, gritting my teeth at the burning sting. The fucker shot me. Alexei stood frozen in the doorway, possibly not comprehending what just happened. In an instant a room could change.

In an instant a life could be snuffed out. Alexei had yet to have that driven home for him. I’d always been there to make sure he didn’t have to learn that lesson.

“Fucking idiot,” I muttered, walking over and crouching beside the dealer as a pool of blood spread across the mangled hardwood floors.

My stomach turned as I glanced up at the picture frame on the table next to him. Him holding his little girl. And now he was dead. The blood pooled closer to my feet before I stood. This was not the life I thought I’d be living, not what I’d intended on happening, but here I was in the belly of the fucking beast with another black mark on my soul. Alexei was safe. At least I had that reprieve in all this.

Igor groaned, and Alexei helped him out of the house. Alexei was already on the phone calling one of the doctors we had on speed dial for nights like this.

What a fucking mess.

* * *

I stepped into my uncle’s office, glancing down at my hands. The blood had long since been washed off them, but for some reason the dirty feeling of death was still there. Getting Igor to the doctor had been a set of complications we didn’t need. The weight of everything hit me hard as the paper still tucked in my jacket pocket beat against me like a tell-tale heart. This life was not what our parents had envisioned for us.

My feet sank into the dark, thick carpet in my uncle’s office. Every wooden surface was polished to an almost unearthly shine. Being summoned to his office was never a good thing. Alexei followed in behind me, his feet dragging on the carpeted floor. He slumped into the high-backed leather chair opposite me.

“This should be fun.” He rested his head against the back of the chair and let out a deep breath. Other than that, he was composed.

He was doing well hiding the anxiety I knew coursed through him. His tell? Tugging at the cuff of his shirt. I knew everything that happened had unsettled him. It had been a long time since he’d come out of his cave of legitimacy, working away in his real businesses that he tried to keep separate from this world.

He didn’t like to get involved the way I did. I hadn’t wanted to either, but if I stepped up, it meant he didn’t have to. I did what any good big brother did. I protected my little brother as best I could. Our sister, Elena, was still almost five thousand miles away. At least she didn’t have to see the terrible things that happened here.

“This is the first time you’ve been called in here in a long time, little brother. Just let me handle it.” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my legs.

Sliding the paper out of my jacket pocket, the urge to see her overwhelmed me. It had been so long. Almost a decade. I trailed my finger along the picture. Old feelings I had long since tried to bury came rushing back to me. Dahlia.

She crept in at night when my guard was down. Staring up at the ceiling, I let myself wonder what she was doing. How things had turned out for her. And when I wanted to torture myself and twist the knife a little bit more, who she was with. Did she get married? Have kids? The life she deserved without me there to implode it.

The office door slammed open, shaking me out of my torturous thoughts, and I shoved the paper into my jacket. Leaning back in the chair, I folded my hands in my lap.

“It seems you two are not as reliable as I’d hoped,” Sergei, our uncle, said, his Russian accent even thicker when he was pissed. After more than thirty years in the States, he hadn’t been able to shake it. Not that he tried.

He strode past me, rounding his desk and putting his hands flat on top of it. Leaning over, glowering and attempting to intimidate us. I’d gotten used to this years ago, so I crossed my ankles, settled into my chair and relaxed my body. He could smell weakness.

“This one I knew about.” He jabbed an angry finger at Alexei. “But you, Ivan, my expectations of you are much higher. To let someone like that dealer get the drop on you.” He shook his head in disgust. “You are losing your touch. You know my plans for you. I would hate to think you are losing your nerve.” He rubbed his fingers across his chin, staring down at his desk.

“Uncle, it was a mistake that will not be repeated.” I kept my jaw from ticking, trying not to let him see the boiling hatred that bubbled under the surface.

“I should hope not.” The paper in my pocket crinkled as I shifted, like it was trying to remind me it was still there. Close to my heart, where so many things I hadn’t said to her lived. So many things I could never say to her. “If you ever want to take over this business, you need to learn not to be sloppy. Not to make mistakes. Not to end up like your father.”

Alexei’s fists clenched on the arms of the chair. I forced myself to keep mine relaxed. I could practically hear Alexei’s jaw tightening. The second my uncle saw any sign of caring for something, he’d never let up until he destroyed it.

Alexei might have been the quieter of the two of us and his fuse had a much slower and longer burn, but his explosions were unparalleled. The destruction he left in his path when on a rampage was impressive.

“Of course not.” I shook my head, keeping the look of disgust off my face. I’d had years of practice. Learned the hard way what happened if you tried to go against my uncle. Peter, our cousin, and his fiancée, along with her parents, floated somewhere off the coast of the Atlantic.

It had happened when I was young, but I still remember how Sergei gloated about what happened when you decided you didn’t want to be bratva anymore. To him, there was only one way out. Death. Others had paid the price for Peter’s mistakes. I wouldn’t make those same mistakes.

“I have a very nice young lady I’d like you to meet,” Sergei said, sliding his chair forward and rummaging through his desk. It took everything in me not to roll my eyes.

“I hardly think this is the time,” I said, trying to divert this conversation from dangerous territory.

Sergei shoved his hand inside his jacket and tugged out a copy of the paper. My blood froze in my veins. It was the same paper I had in my jacket. The same paper he read every day without fail, while puffing away on a cigar. Would he see Dahlia? Would he remember her? My heart thumped as I fought to keep my hands from fisting. From ripping that paper right out of his hands.

“I’m not saying you don’t still get to have your fun. We are men, of course, but there are certain expectations that must be upheld if you’re going to take over. And a wife and a family are one of them.”

“I think I can do things just fine without a wife or a family. You seem to have done okay for yourself.” I tried to keep my voice calm and level while thoughts raced through my head. What would happen if he saw her? Would he even care about her after all these years, especially after what happened with her dad?

“A wife and child back in Russia were acceptable back when I was younger. Not so much now. I’ll make some arrangements and ensure that the candidates are suitable.”

“Uncle—”

He shot me a look to let me know it was no use. No sense in arguing with him at this point. I’d been lucky in a way. He’d allowed us a certain degree of freedom until the death of his son. When it became apparent that Alexei or I would be the next in line to take over for him, things got worse for us both. But we’d at least been able to go to college, get our degrees in business. Better to run a front properly. Hell, at this point we could run many of the businesses legitimately, but he never wanted to hear any of those plans.

“Arrangements will be made. You may go.” He dismissed us with a flick of his hand before turning back to the stack of papers on his desk. Alexei shot him a glare before storming out of the room. I was sure to keep my steps steady and measured. I also could barely feel my feet as I stepped over the threshold of the office. Like a dam bursting, my fingers itched to reach inside and look at the paper again. Even worse, they itched for the real thing. It had been so long.

I wanted to see her. Scratch that. I needed to see her. Like I needed to breathe. Needed to warn her…of what, I wasn’t even sure. I had no idea if anything would even come of her being in the paper, but I couldn’t’ chance it. Every bit of restraint I’d had over the past ten years had dissolved with one look at her in newsprint.