Page 87 of Unholy Tsar

“I-I don’t understand. What about your parents? Are they still alive, too?”

His laugh morphs into a menacing scowl. “No. They’re long dead. The cowards. Only Vera and I saw the future. We saw what could be, how we could make something of ourselves. But our parents didn’t want that. They were satisfied, rotting in their squalor.” His lips curl in disgust. “They died for it. Maksim should have died, too.”

He suddenly gets up from the chair and walks toward a thick duffel bag, pulling out a wicked-looking knife. My heart lurches in my chest. Keep him talking, Cece. Keep him distracted. This isn’t how your story ends. It ends with Maksim. He will save you.

Please, Maksim. Save me.

“But you didn’t kill your parents,” I say, squinting, trying to remember all that Maksim told me. “It was the Pakhan you betrayed who burned down your house, who killed your parents, who was supposed to kill you.”

“That’s what we wanted Maksim to think. Back then, we still thought he could be saved. Vera wanted all three of us to work together. But Maksim was never on the same page as us. What did that bastard do when he woke up in our burning house? He tried to save our damned parents. The fool dragged our mother’s corpse through fire and brimstone while his clothes burned on his back. He almost got himself killed for a dead woman. But I wasn’t dead. He could have tried to save me first. He should have. I’m his twin!”

He swings his knife in the air, a wild fury taking over.

Shit, shit, shit.

“So, the old Pakhan didn’t really want you dead?” I try to stall. “You plotted with him? That was so smart of you, Viktor—uhnn–uhnn—” I trail off, not knowing what else to say, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem.

“I am very smart—smarter than Maksim and Vera combined. But none of them ever saw that; they only ever saw me as the muscle. Even now, I know Vera is plotting behind my back so she can rule alone, but I have a plan, you see…”

That seems to have calmed him down a bit. I breathe a short sigh of relief as he marches back to the chair and takes a seat.

“I know. I can tell you’re really smart,” I say, playing along. “You outsmarted Maksim and got me here with you. But how did you survive that fire?”

He clicks his tongue.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would.”

He considers it for a moment before breaking.

“You see, in the Bratva, we operate with an eye for an eye rule. Vera went behind my back to cut a deal with our Bratva’s rival. Our Pakhan found out and wanted to punish us, so we offered our parents’ lives… and Maksim’s brain. We let him kill our mother and father, but we made sure he knew Maksim could never find out the truth, otherwise, he wouldn’t join us.”

He’s rambling, but slowly I’m getting the bigger picture. “You made it seem like the Pakhan wanted everyone in the family dead.”

“It was my idea! Vera has always been jealous that it worked so well—even if it meant we still had to get shot. But a bullet in the arm never killed anyone. Clever, right?”

“Very clever.”

“Of course, we made sure Maksim got it a little worse, just so he’d believe it all. It was enough to knock him out, which gave us time to set up everything else. But after we set the house on fire, things got out of control. I passed out from the smoke. When Maksim woke up, he was supposed to save me and Vera. We were closest to him, after all. But he went straight to our parents, and before he could save them and get to us, the house started to fall apart. He ran away like a coward, leaving us to burn to death.”

“He tried to save you, he—”

“Silence!” he yells, and I quickly clamp my mouth shut. “We managed to escape, but the Pakhan was furious that we had let Maksim get away. After that, the little bastard was impossible to find… until we started hearing tales about a Russian mob boss building an empire in America. The man was a legend in Russia, but no one knew who he was. And then, word came back. It was Maksim Smolov. Our brother. While we slaved away under our Pakhan’s grip for nothing in return, he was becoming a king. A tsar. How dare he?”

He’s jealous of Maksim, I realize.

Words push at my tongue, but he seems to be at the end of his wits, and I don’t want to push him.

I can’t keep this up much longer. Maksim, where are you?

“He fled Russia like a coward and somehow got lucky enough to live the life he didn’t deserve. So, Vera and I have been hollowing out his empire from here. For the past decade. Through human trafficking, through drugs, through whatever means we could manage. We’ve filled the core of his territory with corruption. Piece by piece, so he would never notice… not until we were ready to take him down for good.”

With a chilling laugh, he spreads his arms wide, the sound cutting through the air like shards of ice. And for the first time, I tear my gaze away from him to the room we’re in.

It's massive… and completely in ruin. Broken beams, shattered glass, and punctured floorboards litter the place. But underneath all the graffiti and peeling wallpaper, I recognize a certain luxury. This place used to be glorious.

My chest flutters. I’ve never been here before, yet somehow, I seem to understand where we are.