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My gut twists. “This is Boris Sobakin we’re talking about, Nikolai. You and I both know that Igor is already dead.”
“What if he’s not?”
“Then it’s a trap. He’s anticipated that we’ll try to rescue Igor and he’s going to be prepared. All that will lead to is more dead bodies.”
“So your plan is to do nothing?” he asks coldly.
“My plan is to play the long game. This is not about winning the battle; it’s about winning the war. So far, Sobakin has proved himself to be cunning. Brute force isn’t going to help us here.”
“It will be a show of strength! At least he’ll think twice about moving against us.”
“Who are you kidding? He’s already decided he’s gunning for us. Returning fire with fire won’t stop him. What we need to do is lie low and wait for an opportunity to catch him off-guard.”
The silence on the other line is telling. “Is that what you’ve decided?” he asks at last.
“That’s what I’ve decided.”
“And what are you going to tell the men?”
“Exactly what I just told you.”
“Oh, perfect. I’m sure it’ll be a great comfort to them to know that, if any one of them were to be abducted carrying out our orders, you’d be sitting on your ass, ‘playing the long game.’”
I re-grip the phone in my hand. “My men will understand that sometimes, sacrifices must be made for the good of the many.”
“You are thepakhan,” he says grudgingly. “Your will, our hands.”
Even a stranger would hear the bitterness in his voice when he says those words.
I sigh as we hang up. If only Nikolai was the second brother. That one twist of fate would have solved so much about our fractured, fraught relationship.
When I go down to my bedroom, I find Lev in there, building a Lego castle three stories high.
“Where were you?” he asks, glancing towards the vintage clock on the wall.
“I had work to finish, buddy.”
“You’realwaysworking.”
The guilt pinches away at me, same as always, but I’ve learned to ignore it. I sit down next to him but I don’t touch any of the toy bricks. I know better than to push my way into a project that’s halfway complete.
“Did you eat dinner?”
“Yeah…”
“What did you eat?”
“Mac and cheese. Mirabel tried to make me eat meat but I didn’t want to.”
“You used to love it.”
He concentrates hard on his castle. “No, I didn’t.”
Suppressing a sigh, I watch as he constructs another tower. My room is a disaster area of scattered bricks, but at least he’s calm here. Maybe I can even convince him to sleep in his upstairs room tonight.
“Can I sleep with you tonight, too?”
Blyat’.Spoke too soon.
