She takes a sip and her nose crinkles. “Disgusting.”
“Does the job.” I toss half of mine back.
“Your sisters are worried sick. Jasha and Feliks are too. You look awful.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“Come home.”
“No, thank you.” I sip my vodka. “Fewer memories here.”
“It’s been nine days, Maxim. You’re in pain and you’re mourning, but you’ll move on. Time truly does heal all wounds.”
“Not this one. Not this time. I’ve given up too much and I don’t think there’s any coming back.”
She sighs and sips her drink. I don’t know why she’s doing that. This vodka is awful. But she stays next to me and doesn’t move, even though she clearly hates it here.
“You really love her, don’t you?”
I grimace like she just poked hot iron into my eyes.
“Yes, I do really love her.” It’s the first time I’ve said the words out loud or really admitted it to myself, but I know it’s the truth. And that hurts even more.
“Your father isn’t happy about this.”
“He’s not my father.”
She gives me a sharp look. “Don’t be melodramatic. You’re not a teenager anymore, Maxim. You can’t go around whining about how he’s not your dad.”
“His words. Not mine.”
She rolls her eyes. “Grow up. You know who your father is. You understand our family.”
“You’re right.” I turn to her, seething. “My whole life has been spent understanding this family. I’ve worked twice as hard for half as much. Father made me heir because he couldn’t justify doing anything else. Feliks and Jasha are both strong and smart, but they’re his blood. They get to coast on that fact. I’m the adopted bastard cousin, and I have to kill, and fight, and steal, and destroy just to get an ounce of approval. My whole life’s been a test, and finally, finally, I got a taste of something good. Now she’s gone, and so am I.” I raise my glass, toss it back, gesture for another. The bartender pours. Good man.
Mother lets that sink in. She finishes her drink and motions for a refill. The bartender pours. Bastard.
“I understand how you feel,” she says slowly, looking at the vodka as it sloshes in her cloudy tumbler. “You’re right that your father’s been harder on you than your brothers. That’s only because he knew you are the strongest. He thought you could handle it.”
“Guess he was wrong.”
“He wasn’t, only he pushed at the wrong time.” She sighs and shakes her head. “You can’t go on like this.”
“I can and I will.”
She grabs my wrist suddenly. She squeezes it hard and leans in close. “Take out your gun and shoot yourself in the face then. Do it now and do it quick. Do it for me and your sisters and your brothers. Don’t make us suffer along with you. Don’t make us watch you kill yourself slowly.”
I recoil. She releases my wrist and I stare at her in horror. She stares back, the Pakhan’s wife. Dark and freezing cold. My mother is an ice witch, and I love her dearly, but god damn, she is terrifying sometimes. I laugh bitterly and sip my drink.
“You would’ve made a good Pakhan yourself, Mom.”
“I know that, dear.” She keeps watching. “You admitted you can’t go on like this forever. You’re not going to end this quickly, either. So what will you do, Maxim? Are you so weak that you’ll do nothing?”
I clench my jaw. “I am not weak.”
“Aren’t you? This is weakness. You’re wallowing in self-pity. It’s pathetic.”
“Mother.”
“What are you going to do, Maxim? You say you love Siena. What will you do about it?”
“I don’t know,” I say, my voice a sharp growl.
“Go get her, my stupid, stupid son. Stop this self-destruction. Go get her.”
My eyes go wide. My pulse races. “What are you saying?”
“You can’t live without her, so go live with her.”
“Father will kill us both. I won’t do that to her. I won’t be that selfish.”
“Maybe,” she admits. “But your father is a businessman. Give him a reason to spare your lives.”
I mull on that for a moment. Maybe I’m drunker than I realized, but I feel a strange, sharp warmth in my stomach. I don’t recognize it at first—but it’s hope.
She’s right about my father. He’s a businessman. The bratva comes first, before everything and anyone. For my father, it’s the bratva, then God, then family. He’ll do anything for the business, and that might mean making a concession to his former heir and adopted child.
But it’s a major risk. This is all assuming I can think of a way to make Father forgive what I did enough to let me and Siena live. If I can’t, he’ll hunt me down, cut Siena’s throat in front of me, and put a bullet in my head himself. He’ll kill her, and that’ll be a worse fate than death.
I can’t have her blood on my hands. But I can’t live without her by my side.