Page 27 of Cashmere Ruin

“We’ve been over this,” I interrupt. “You’d do it all again, just like I would.”

“That’s what you meant?” Yuri asks me, incredulous. “You’d… lie to April again?”

“I would.”

Even as I speak the words, something inside me howls. Something desperate to mend what’s been broken.Stop lying. Stop lying to yourself, to her, to?—

But there is no fixing this. Not after what April did.

Because, if I hadn’t found them, I never would have seen my daughter again.

Yuri shakes his head frantically. “You don’t mean that.”

“All this time, I kept thinking, ‘If only I’d told her the truth.’ But do you want to know the real truth? I choseyou, brother. And I was right. The second I crossed her, she took my child from me. Who knows what she would’ve done if I’d told her aboutyourbaby?”

“Nothing!” Yuri insists. “She would’ve done nothing. I was in the wrong for asking?—”

“Hell, maybe she would’ve gone to Vlad herself.”

“You know that’s not?—”

“Why do you keep defendingher?!” I bellow.

I rein my voice back in just in time not to wake my kid. I couldn’t give a shit about April’s beauty sleep, but I see Yuri check on her and sigh with relief.Both still out, then.

It’s that look incenses me more than anything. That look, and that pull on the blankets, and all those nights they must’ve spent plotting behind my back?—

If I didn’t have a literal newborn in my arms right now, I would’ve jumped him already.

But there’s only one way to know the truth. Only one way to find out if I can ever trust my brother again. If I could ever trust my brother in the first place.

“I guess it isthe oldest tale in the world,” I murmur. “I married your girl, so now, you’re going to fuck around with mine?”

“Matvey, what the hell are you talking about?!” he nearly screams.

“Or was it all those takeout dinners at the motel? Maybe you shared a dumpling once, and then something more?—”

“I lovePetra!” This time, he’s the one who almost shouts. “I love Petra,” Yuri repeats, out of breath. “And I couldn’t bear the thought of losing the one I loved. So I went crazy and ended up costing you the one you loved. Worse, I ended up costing April.But she was innocent, Matvey. She had nothing to do with me or you. That’s why I’ve been trying to help her. And I’m sorry, I really am, but if you keep suggesting that I’d ever cheat on Petra, I’m gonna have to ask you to put your baby down and step the fuck out with me, because I will not let you insult?—”

“Your niece.”

Yuri blinks. “What?”

“She’s not just my baby. She’s your niece, too.”

With that, I finally hold her out.

Yuri looks more confused by the minute. “By ‘putting her down,’ I didn’t mean give her to me?—”

“I know. You meant ‘put her down so I can punch you.’”

“So…?”

“So you don’t need to punch me. I believe you.” Then I add with a smirk, “Though I’d like to see you try, brother.”

At first, Yuri hesitates. “Are you sure?”

I roll my eyes. “Quit pretending you haven’t been holding her every chance you got. Besides, you need the practice.”

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