Page 8 of Killer Love

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“Bozhe moi!”

Our mother cries out as we step inside and stands up from her place at the kitchen table.

“What the hell happened to you?” she asks.

I glance at my side, following the red splotch of blood creeping down my abdomen. “I’m fine, Ma,” I say. “It’s just a graze.”

She scans Yuri for similar wounds, but he has none. I did my job, after all. “Sit down and take off your shirt, Luka.”

“Ma, it’s fine—”

“Sit down.”

I surrender and take a seat at the table across from my father. He stares up at us with expectant eyes, no doubt just as eager as she is to hear what happened.

“Who sent them?” he asks me.

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask?”

Yuri falls into the chair beside me. “He wasn’t telling,” he says.

“Where is he now?”

“Gone,” I answer, unbuttoning my shirt. “Taken back by his men.”

My father blinks. “You let him go?”

“Niko—” Our mother returns with two items in hand: a first aid box and her sewing kit. It’s the second one that makes me cringe. My mother is adept at many things but her needlework leaves much to be desired. I don’t want her messing up my tattoos. “He’s wounded. Obviously, they put up a fight.” She slaps Yuri on the shoulder, forcing him to move down a chair, and she slides into the one beside me.

I toss the bloody shirt to the floor. “It won’t need stitches, Ma.”

“You let me be the judge of that,” she replies. “Raise your arm.”

I sigh and do as she says, ignoring the pain firing through my side. “He was calm the whole time,” I say. “He bled well, knowing that his team would come for him.”

Yuri nods. “They were organized. Like soldiers.”

Father sits back and crosses his arms, drawing his bottom lip between his teeth.

I hiss as my mother’s claws scratch along my wound. “Careful, Ma—”

“Pipe down, boy.”

She grabs a bottle of alcohol from the first aid box. I turn away from her again to avoid watching.

“These men… did they have tattoos?” my father asks, chewing on his mouth.

“They wore black,” Yuri answers, shaking his head. “Head to toe.”

I note my father’s worrisome expression. “You know something, Pops?”

He’s silent again for several moments before he tilts his head. “There was a time in Moscow… long before you boys were born,” he begins, “when your grandfather met a similar encounter.”

I furrow my brow, torn between paying attention to his story and cringing at the alcohol spread across my open flesh.

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