Lies He Told Me - A Mafia Romance

Osip's head is still dipped. From this angle, if you didn't look close, you could swear he was just some smart-ass teen who'd just been caught graffitiing something. "She was screaming at me, like I was some monster, some street rat." A muscle in his jaw tightens. "That she was going to tell the cops, tell anyone who'd listen about what I did. That I'd have to kill her too." His hands fist, then relax. "I could've killed her-but I didn't."

"Want a medal?" Ludmil quips.

"Enough," my lieutenant Radovan grumbles. "We've heard his side. Let's get this over with."

I twist my head his way. "That's for me to decide."

He scowls, but stays shut the fuck up.

I pace. Down here, the air is musty with stone. A single skylight opens to the air above-right over the red chair. Wind whistles through. It should rain, but it hasn't yet.

What I should do-must do-is obvious.

He broke the rule. The price for breaking it is his life. There has never been any debate over this.

And yet ... he's my brother. The last I have left of my blood. My only family. My Osip.

We came up together, we built this together, we swore we would rule it together. How can I abandon him to suffer alone? How can I wield the executioner's ax myself?

That red chair... it always does something to the body of whoever's sitting on it. Osip, always the strutter, the lax leaner-he has his legs splayed and tapping, but he's hunched over into himself, like someone's struck him in the gut.

The chair is curved red wood, inscribed with creatures, tortured humans crawling and screaming all over each other. It is not a pretty sight.

"Does anyone else have anything to say?" I ask the room.

"I was the one who had to help clean up the mess." Maksim makes a face. On his young features, the scowl is ugly. Out of place. "That wife's in the psych ward, and we just wasted a good ten grand paying off a variety of professionals to stay quiet. That should speak for itself."

Over the answering murmurs, Osip says, "What did I tell you idiots already? She wouldn't say anything. And I'll pay back the money myself. I wipe my ass with ten thousand. What is money to me?"

Silence.

"It's not just about the money," someone else blurts out.

Osip twists around, scanning the unsympathetic faces for the one who spoke. Not finding him, he rises, then sits back down again. "Forget it. None of you are gonna listen to me. You're all hopped up with your stupid, righteous rules. Hate to break it to you, but what I did is what we do every other day. You wouldn't lose sleep over a dead Skull King pledge, would you? And Skull Kings are lower than dirt! So why lose sleep over this bastard and his whore, who were even less than that?" He rises again, spreads his arms. "But if that's enough to make you crucify me, then so be it. Be my fucking guest. I won't beg for your mercy."

"You know the rules," I say for the hundredth time since Maksim first came to me with the news of Osip's crime. I speak only to Osip, hoping beyond hope that he'll hear me. Repentance is his only chance to survive this council. "We don't kill civilians, no matter what they do. No matter who they are. You know that."

Osip's hands are together in one clench. "Not like you've never come close."

He knows the answer to that already, though I say through gritted teeth, "Not the same."

Osip's voice rises, too loud. "Come now, Gavril, tell me-you've never come close to harming even one precious civilian?"

The room is rustling with what I'm wondering and the echoes of Osip's voice. How far Osip will push me before-

"Why don't you tell us about just how close you came?"

That's it.

The next second, I'm at the chair, kicking it over. Osip splays to the ground, laughing and cursing. I press my shoe into his throat.

"I've never killed a civilian," I tell the room quietly, "And I never will. No man is above the rules. Not even the boss."

Crumpled on the ground, Osip still manages to shoot me a look of pure disdain. "You're drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, a before and after-"

"One you agreed to yourself-"

"And those who don't blindly follow just get screwed over, is that it?"

He's doing it, what Osip always does the few times we've fought: jab and jab and jab at me until I crack. Until we scrap, punch, and rip at each other, until the fight's over, the grievance forgotten or solved.

But this time, things can't be solved like that. He has gone too far for such simple redemption.

"You know what you did," I repeat in an even tone. "You knew the rules."

"What difference does it even-"

"Make?" I close my eyes. Never did I expect to see the day when I'd have to explain this to my own brother. The one who founded the Bratva Syndicate alongside me and our brothers in cities across the continent, all those years ago. "It's what keeps us human beings. What makes us different than the Skull Kings or any of the other filth on the streets. Without it, we're no better than they are."

"Who wants to be better? Who needs a code that limits and hinders more than it helps?"

More murmuring. I should have cut Osip off long before. Days, weeks, maybe even years ago-this has been simmering.

Now, it's time to stamp it out.

What I say next isn't for him. It's for my men. "The Bratva isn't just about power. That's not why we formed it, or why all you men joined it. Nor is it just about the riches. Not merely brotherhood or family. No." I look at each of them. "We joined because we believed in a better world. Not one that was limited by the outside world's morality-but one of our own choosing. A world we could shape to our very own limitlessness." I bow my head. "But if we start disregarding the very laws we ourselves formed, if we start forgetting why we're even here or in this at all, then there's no point. We might as well break up and take what we can now."

Silence, broken only by Osip's bitterly muttered, "Your own brother."

I don't even glance his way. This isn't about him anymore. I'm not going to convince him of anything; I can see that now.

No, he is lost, but the others ... I scan the crowd again. All the cracks have sealed in. My men's faces are hard with trust in me.