Page 175 of Emerald Malice

He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. I suck in a sharp breath.

His skin is peppered with cigarette burns and tiny scars notched from elbow to wrist. He doesn’t explain them, but I get the feeling that some stories are better left unspoken.

“I lived on the streets more often than not. It felt safer than staying in that house with those parasites. I’d have ended up there sooner or later, anyway. My mother overdosed; my father went to jail. I became what I had to be: a street rat doing unspeakable things to survive. Sometimes, I had to let other people do unspeakable things to me to survive.”

Horror prickles at the edges of my mind, but I won’t let myself feel bad for him.

Not until I know what he’s done to the people I love.

“Until I met Elia Rostov.” He smiles, remembering it all fondly. “Elia had a gun pointed at his head when I met him. I still don’t know why I intervened. I suppose you could call it fate, though a more cynical soul might say I was just a desperate boy snooping where I didn’t belong. But I killed the mudak who was about to shoot Elia in the back of the head. Ripped his throat clean out with my bare hands, funny enough. And Elia… oh, he liked that. He liked that a lot.”

Nikolai licks his lips, as if the memory tastes good. His voice simmers.

“It was the first time in my life someone had looked at me and seen the potential there. The boy I once was died that day, and Nikolai Rostov was born. I took Elia’s name—his mark.” He touches the black tattoo on his left forearm. At first glance, I think I see a snake caught in the mouth of a bird. But as Nikolai twists his arm, I see the snake’s tail wrapped around the bird’s throat, strangling it to death from the inside out.

I swallow, my throat as dry as sandpaper. “What does Andrey have to do with this?”

“Everything!” he snarls with such ferocity that I flinch back in my seat. “Andrey and his father wanted everything Elia had built. Those Kuznetsovs are greedy, hungry leeches. But you didn’t know that, did you, dear? None of us did, at first.” Nikolai reaches out and rubs a thumb along the line of my jaw. “They say such beautiful words and offer such beautiful pictures of the future. You know exactly what I mean. I see it in your eyes.” He licks his lips again. A darting, snake’s tongue. “And that’s precisely what they did to my adopted family. They came to us offering peace. Cooperation.”

His voice is low and steady, so quiet I lean in.

“We shook hands on it!” he roars, spit flecking his lips and dotting my face. I slam back against my chair. “And then… and then… when the time came to pass the baton, Andrey went back on everything he’d sworn he would do. He overthrew his own father, exiled him out of the country, and assumed the mantle of Bratva pakhan. He went back on the agreement he made with my father and sold my parents out to the FBI.”

My heart is beating fast. Not because I believe anything he’s telling me—but because he evidently does.

“That was not Andrey,” I insist. “He wouldn’t. He didn’t—He’s not a liar.”

Nikolai’s smile is cruel, pitying. “Oh? Did he tell you that?”

“He doesn’t have to. I know him. He would never go back on his word. If anyone ratted out your parents, it was Slavik.”

I have no proof of this whatsoever, but I just know.

“Yes, that’s what I thought, too.” Nikolai sighs. “And don’t get me wrong: Slavik is as dishonorable as his unworthy son. Apples rot right next to the trees that birthed them. Slavik is far from innocent. But why would he go to the trouble of selling out my parents just to leave the country—not to mention his entire fucking legacy—behind?” His tongue clicks. “No, Andrey Kuznetsov is the only one who stood to gain. He did gain.”

“You believe what you want to believe.”

He arches a brow, sliding closer. “I could say the same about you, pretty lamb.”

“I’m no lamb,” I snap fiercely. “I don’t just follow blindly.”

“Is that so?”

Silence might be worse than anything Nikolai has to say. If I stop long enough to think, I might lose myself again. And this time, I don’t have anyone to care for me until I’m ready to come back.

I have to take care of myself.

I have to protect my baby.

“You expect me to trust a man who would sell children into sex slavery?”

“You think the drug industry is any different?” he demands. “It destroys families just as fast as the skin trade. Trust me, I know. I lost two parents to the Kuznetsov drug ring.”

My blood goes cold. “W-what?”

He smiles patronizingly. “Do you think there are any drugs sold in this city that don’t come directly from that mudak you defend? Every dime bag of weed, every last fucking line of coke, every syringe brimming with devil’s poison… Andrey touches all of it. Profits from all of it. I didn’t lose just one set of parents to him—I lost two.” Nikolai gets to his feet slowly. “You know what it’s like to lose parents, Natalia. You understand the pain.”

His face is creased with loss. For the shortest of moments, I do feel his pain.

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