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“I heard they killed five guys last weekend when they caught them selling drugs on their streets. Skinned the poor fuckers alive,” Vitaly says.
The men are in suits that cost more than my mom makes in a year, and when several women walk up to them, all long legs and big tits, they grab onto them with tattooed hands and dark looks in their eyes. Everything about them screams power, and I don’t like how it makes me feel. I feel small in comparison to them, small and insignificant.
“God, can you imagine all the pussy they get?” Vitaly asks.
“They’re probably drowning in it,” Lev says, and I can hear the envy in his voice. “Just wait until I get my dick pierced, then I’ll be drowning in it too.”
“You don’t think that a dick full of metal will scare the hell out of any sane girl?” Vitaly asks.
“Hell no, girls love it, and I don’t want a sane girl,” Lev says with a laugh. “I want a wild one.”
We watch until they disappear into the restaurant in front of us. Matvey finally pulls our attention back to the money we’ve yet to spend.
“Let’s go to the beach and get some food. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
“Hell yeah,” Vitaly says, smacking Matvey on the back. “We can go to the fancy lake all the tourists go to. Maybe you can steal another computer, Danil.”
We forget about the Bratva, and as soon as we hit the crowded beach, we buy some swim trunks and spend the day gorging on food from the outdoor cafe and swimming in the lake. When the sun starts to set, I buy my little sister some pink cotton candy as we all make our way back to my apartment. My dad died when I was little, and with my mom’s latest piece-of-shit boyfriend gone, my place is the safest one to hang at.
On the way, we stop and buy several pizzas, and as soon as we walk through the door, my little sister comes running, her blue eyes lit up at the sight of all the food. I laugh and hand her a box.
“Thanks, Roman.” She smiles and waves at the guys before grabbing a stack of plates.
“Hey, Alina,” Matvey says, taking one of the plates she offers.
Her whole face heats up at his attention. It’s no secret that my eight-year-old sister has a huge crush on Matvey. It’s something he pretends he doesn’t see, but he always makes a point of saying hi to her. He has a younger sister, so he knows how it is.
My mom’s still at work, so I put some pizza in the fridge for her and then grab a slice for myself. We eat until we’re stuffed and then crash on the couch while Danil hooks us up with an illegally downloaded movie from America. We’ve been studying English in school since we were little, but I still can’t catch everything that’s said.
“I’m going to America,” Alina surprises me by saying.
“You are, huh? Were you planning on telling me about this big move, or were you just going to sneak off one day?”
She laughs and peels off more of the cotton candy before offering me some. “Yes, I was going to tell you. I would never just sneak off. A lot of rich Americans hire au pairs and stuff, that’s just a fancy way of saying babysitter, and I can babysit. I take care of Mrs. Petrova’s kids all the time. I heard that they put out ads looking for young women to come and take care of their babies, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
I share a look with Matvey, who’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking. This is right out of sex trafficking 101, but my innocent sister has no idea what that is, and I don’t want to scare the hell out of her, so I just say, “You’d be a great babysitter, but you need to be careful, Alina. Not everything you hear about is true, and sometimes things like that can be a trick.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy and laughs before popping more cotton candy in her mouth. “You’re paranoid, Roman, but don’t worry. I won’t just run off without telling you.”
I smile back at my sister, hoping she can manage to stay as innocent as this for as long as possible. We finish the movie, and then the guys head home. Vitaly and Matvey live in the apartment building a couple blocks over, but Danil and Lev live one floor below us, so they linger longer than the others, but they know being late isn’t worth the beating, so they eventually head out as well.
If I had known it would be our last carefree day, I would’ve savored it more. I would’ve clung to every second of it, refusing to let it go. Hell, I would’ve barred the damn door, refusing to let any of them leave, but they did, and everything changed.
The next time I saw Matvey, it was in a hospital. His body covered in bandages, third-degree burns on his back, arms, and hands and zero will to live. His piece-of-shit dad had passed out with a lit cigarette between his fingers, and their apartment had caught fire. Matvey had nearly died trying to save his mom and sister. If Vitaly hadn’t been woken up by the screams, then Matvey would’ve died too. Vitaly managed to get out with minor burns to his hands, but the haunted look in both their eyes made it obvious that neither one of them would ever be free of what had happened. It would haunt them both for the rest of their lives.
From that day on, Matvey took turns living with all of us, depending on who had the safest place at the time, but he never became the carefree boy he was before the fire. He put up walls, kept everyone out, but we refused to let him shut us out. The five of us became our own family, and we made a pact. We even sealed it in blood with a quick slice to our palms. We would escape our shitty homes, the constant poverty and hunger and worry, and we would rule this fucking city. The plan was to use violence to crawl our way to the top, and then we’d go legit. We’d be respectable men who were untouchable.
We were full of shit.
It turns out violence suited us. We had a knack for it, and we developed a taste for it that couldn’t be pushed aside. And then my sweet, innocent sister was taken, and we vowed to find her, to get revenge and to bring her back to us, back to her family. We rose from the streets of Moscow, and when it came time to expand into America, to form our own Bratva and rule a new country, we knew it had to be my last name that lead the way. Alina needed to be able to find me, and the Melnikov Bratva would be my beacon to her, a bright light that she’d be able to see no matter where she might be hidden. It would be our mission to make sure we were so feared and powerful that every motherfucker would know our name, no matter where they lived. The others didn’t mind ditching their last names. They hated their families anyway, and we were always brothers in every way that counts, so the Melnikov Bratva was born when we stepped foot on American soil for the first time.
Brothers in blood, in life, and in death.
It’s a tattoo we all wear, along with the scars on our palms, and it is everything. The five of us against the world.
Everything we do is paved in blood, and one day that path is going to lead us to Alina, but until then, we rule with fear and pain, and no one stands in our way. We took Russia and made it ours. Now it’s time for America to bend to our will. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many lives we have to end, this place will bow down before us. The most powerful men in this city will have our boots pressing down on their necks. It’s only a matter of time.
Chapter 1
