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“Haveyou really seen the light, Jas, or are you just telling me what I want to hear?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“You’ve done it before.”
“Let me rephrase: I wouldn’t lie to you while I’m sober.” He drops down to the edge of his bed and runs a hand over his shorn scalp, eyes downcast. “I know I let you down. I know I fucked up. And I know it’s not for the first time.”
I lean against the doorframe and say nothing.
“How is Dominik?” he asks, fidgeting in the awkward silence.
“Recovering. I can’t say the same for his opinion of you.”
Jasper sighs. “I can’t blame him. This is the second time I’ve put him in the hospital.”
“Glad to see you’re keeping count.”
“And it’s going to be the last time, Arsen,” he grits. “I swear. I’m done mixing with the wrong people. I’m done being stupid.”
“I’ve heard it all before, Jas. Why should I believe you this time around?”
He chews on his fingernails, though they’ve already been nibbled down to the quick. “Sobriety has been a bitch, but it’s given me some clarity. I can see how pathetic I was. How weak. I went through a bad time when you were released from prison before I was. And I blamed you for it.”
I arch an eyebrow.
“It doesn’t make sense, I know,” he adds quickly. “But at the time, it felt like I was being, like, abandoned. And when I was finally released and I came to you—” He clears his throat awkwardly. “—we were in two different places. I felt so far beneath you. It was like I was being abandoned again.”
“And now?”
He stops his pacing and stands at attention before me, the picture of a loyal soldier. “Now, I’m willing to do whatever you need from me. Send me into the trenches, make me work my way up from the bottom, set me on whatever demeaning job you can think of. I’ll dig ditches, for fuck’s sake. I’ll shovel shit. It won’t break me this time.”
I hear Dominik’s voice in my head.An addict’s loyalties will always be to his addiction first.
As he stands tall again, I notice the angry red scar on the underside of his wrist from his first suicide attempt. I can make out the perpendicular lines of Matvei’s haphazard stitching job.
“Alessandro Calcagno is dead, Jasper,” I tell him bluntly. “Enzo is in charge now.”
“That’s—” His eyes narrow like he suspects a trap. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because my men should know what is happening,” I say evenly.
His eyes shimmer as the meaning settles over him. “I see.”
“You still have a lot of work to do,” I remind him. “A lot of trust to build.”
He nods eagerly. “I’m aware.”
“You’re gonna have to start from the bottom and follow orders.”
“Goes without saying.”
I take a step towards him and clasp his shoulder. “Stay out of trouble, Jasper, and you could find a place here. You’re on your last life.”
Something flashes across his eyes. “I won’t let you down, sir.”
“Don’t slam the door in my face! I come in peace.”
Polina’s eyes thin until they almost disappear behind her reading glasses. “Arsen.”
