Page 145 of Cashmere Ruin

He goes white as a sheet. “N-No, sir, of course not!”

“Good. I didn’t think so.”

He leads us to a table with jittery steps, the menus practically vibrating in his hands. I can see the pencil crack as he takes our orders. Anyone else would probably feel bad for the poor guy.

But I’m not anyone else.

“Where are we on the interrogation?” I ask Yuri as soon as the waiter’s out of sight.

“Fine,” he sighs. “Anatoly isn’t saying a word. Doesn’t matter what I use, his answer’s the same: ‘I don’t know anything.’”

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know. He might be innocent.”

I give a bitter laugh. “No one’s innocent in the Bratva. What about Vlad?”

“I kept on his tail. Nothing suspicious yet.”

“Maybe you’re overextended, Yurochka,” Grisha suggests. “I could take over tailing Vlad. Or extracting information from the suspect.”

“Sure. You wanna kiss my ass, too?”

“Stop it,” I growl. “He’s right, Yura. I’ve been asking a lot of you.”

“No, you haven’t,” he insists, that old desperation to prove himself shining right out of his eyes.

“Yes, I have. You can’t be in two places at once.”

“I can deal with Anatoly when Vlad’s in a meeting,” he protests. “I’ve done it before. It’s not hard.”

“Yuri—”

“Please,” he murmurs. “Let me do this.”

That’s when it finally clicks.

Of course.There’s a reason he doesn’t want to give up the Vlad investigation, and a damn good one at that: Petra. He probably wants to be certain of Vlad’s guilt—wants to see it with his own two eyes.

And he’s too conflicted to tell me.

“Fine,” I concede. “But you can’t use this as an excuse to shirk your other duties. I’ll expect you to fulfill those, too.”

“I will,” Yuri promises. “Thank you.”

Conflict.I’ve been seeing a lot of that in my brother’s eyes lately. I can’t say I envy his position. He’s got blood on either side of the equation.

No, not blood—family.

I used to think those two were the same thing. But if April’s taught me anything, it’s that you can’t paint the world in black and white like that. Not when there are so many shades in between. April’s blood did nothing but stab her in the back, time and time again, with the sharpest knives it could find. Still does, if given the chance. In her family by blood, everyone but Charlie is an enemy.

Charlie and April. In a way, I see us in them—Yuri and myself. After our father’s betrayal, we were all we had. Just each other, the endless snow, and an unquenchable thirst for revenge. Those two half-siblings I left snoozing on the couch… they don’t have anyone else, either.

Wrong. They haveyou.

Yes. They have me.

And like fuck am I going to abandon them. That promise I forced April to make wasn’t just one-way; I intend to honor it, too.Never again.

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