Page 94 of Crowned

“He is not fucking paying attention,” Kirill seethes.

Oh, I heard every word.

“Do you have orders for us,Pakhan?” Elyah asks. When I don’t reply, he says through his teeth, “Give us the order.”

“Get the hell out of my room. Both of you.”

That’s not the order they wanted. Both of them stay where they are. I can feel them glaring at me, but I’m not going to say what they want to hear.

Eventually, they walk out and close the door behind them.

Mother died years ago, and I thought the reason for Pyotr to hate me died with her. Now I’m faced with the realization that my brother didn’t try to kill me to please her. He wanted to do it. He wanted his own brother to die, and he still does.

Strange how someone you haven’t laid eyes on for nearly twenty years can gut you, burn you, lay waste to your soul and your will to live.

There’s so much pain whenever I open my eye that I keep it closed. Sleep is my only relief. Kirill refuses to give me any drugs stronger than what you can get over the counter, saying he doesn’t trust me with them in the state I’m in. I tell him to go fuck himself. He says it right back.

One of my other men stands guard over me for several days. Maybe longer. I start to wonder if my friends have abandoned their brokenPakhan. I might have done the same thing in their place.

Migraines hit me, one after the next, and have me groaning in agony. I was always prone to migraines, but now it feels like pain will be stabbing through my skull for all eternity. There’s no beginning and no end. No time. No space.

Just pain.

I’m awoken a thousand years later to the sound of something being dragged across the floor of my bedroom. It’s Elyah and Kirill, and they have their hands in the armpits of a bound and gagged man. His suit is torn and bloodied, and his gray eyes are gleaming with fury and fear.

They drop him to his knees at the end of my bed and Kirill pulls a hunting knife from inside his jacket. It’s large and serrated with a wickedly pointed tip.

The man makes terrified protests in the back of his throat.

My brother, Pyotr, on his knees and whimpering in fear.

“We do not have your orders,” Elyah begins.

“But we’re doing it anyway,” Kirill says. All the same, he waits, the knife flashing in his hand. I don’t say anything. I have nothing left in me to feel rage, betrayal, or mercy.

With a growl, Kirill plunges the blade into the side of Pyotr’s throat, and then tugs it out. My brother’s eyes go wide as he makes a gurgling sound. Blood spurts everywhere. All over the floor. All over Kirill’s legs.

The heavy metallic scent reaches me, and I slowly sit up.

Blood.

This is no migraine hallucination or fever dream. This is real.

I have no brother anymore.

My true brothers have avenged me.

As blood runs across the floor, I make a promise to myself. From now on, anyone who betrays me will bleed.

Without exception.

I push the blankets off me and struggle to get out of bed. My body is weak but at last my mind is determined.

“How are you feeling, Kostya?” Kirill asks as he cleans his knife on his jeans and puts it away.

“Better.”

He frowns and touches my brow, and then lifts my bandage and winces. “You shouldn’t be, you’ve got a raging fever and the edges of your wound are puffy. I’m calling a doctor before you die of blood poisoning.”

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