Page 17 of Vasily the Nail

His freshly manicured nails drum on the surface of the table as he levels a clear blue glare on me. He’s silent for several long seconds, doing his best to intimidate me, but he’s my big brother. He overused that when we were children. When he gets tired of my lack of response, he fists that hand and slams it down hard enough that his gyro plate hops off the table and Alex has to grab the glass soda bottles to keep them from toppling.

“Why do you fuck everything up, Vasya?”

I shrug and take the soda that had been in front of him and guzzle it, then snag a piece of lamb right out of his pita for good measure. “I did what you asked,” I point out to him. “You said nothing about what I should do afterward.”

“I didn’t tell you to start a war with the Mafia!”

Always so dramatic. Tony the Bitch isn’t going to start a war with me. “They know where she is. She’ll be returned to them no more harmed than what’s already been done.” By me, but again I remind myself I wasn’t in control of my actions. I was Artyom’s tool.

Artyom settles back into his seat and goes silent again. He’s the smart one. The calculating one. He knows that I don’t hurt women, not in the bedroom, that I don’t have that same taste for violence some of the other men have. I don’t know why he’s doubting me, but I can see it in his face.

“You plan to return her, then?”

I frown. “I said I’d return her, and I will.”

Artyom’s eyes are unflinchingly on mine as his chest rises and falls against his favored black polo shirt. The rest of the room goes stagnant around him. The restaurant is mostly a large, open area, booths along the wall and four-top tables in the middle, but Mr. and Mrs. Chaconas long ago set up a private area for us in an annex to the kitchen to get out of a protection debt owed to us. Usually, the cooks are banging around enough to drown out our voices— not that it matters when they speak mostly Spanish and we’re speaking Russian— but I swear even they go silent.

“What else would I do?”

“You don’t keep women, Vasya.”

My eyes shift between him, Alex, and Kostya, and even though I drank that coffee hours ago, I’m wondering if there was something else in it because I must be hallucinating this.They’re agreeing with him, like I’ve got some habit of kidnapping women, forcing myself on them, then tossing them off in the desert. This is thefirsttime in my life I’ve done anything that wasn’t fully consensual, and only because Artyom forced me to.

It wasn’t exactly consensual on my end, either.

“I don’t know what rumors are going around about me, but I will fucking kill whoever started them.”

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” Artyom barks out. “I wasn’t saying anything except it’s been a long fucking time since you’ve even had a girl stay the night, so I’m really goddamn confused about what you’re doing here. What were you thinking? What are you getting out of this?”

I don’t have an answer, but my track record makes it easy for me to let my eyes glaze over as I stare at the void around us. I just have to pretend I’m too fucked up to get my words out or think my thoughts. I’ve always got stashes tucked away in my pockets, any time I’m in the restroom or around the corner from the gang is an opportunity for me to get myself fucked up again. And my eyes are eternally bloodshot. Maybe something’s just hitting hard enough that I’m on my own astral plane.

Maybe the voices are drowning Artyom’s voice out.

But then Artyom says, too plainly for me to ignore, “I need you to look me in the eye, Vasya. I need you to look me in the eye right now and promise me something.”

The only major physical difference between us is where Artyom spends his time with the books, I spend it in the gym, so I’ve got him by forty pounds. But his tone is enough for me to swallow as I meet his eyes.

“Promise me you don’t think she’s Brooke, man.”

I don’t.

But fuck me.

It’s hours before I get home. That truck was Dima’s job. I don’t know who would have done it if I hadn’t been punished, but not me. I still have to do my job checking in on the Calaveras de Oro and collecting payment from some of the places we keep our eyes on. I have to break up a turf dispute between a couple of pimps; I end up coated in glitter when I have to separate two of their girls, who’ve decided to claw each other’s eyes out.

I bring home claw marks.

When I get home, I don’t bother to turn the lights on. I can hear Ana sleeping, her breathing deep and even, from the back of the apartment. I’m glad she’s getting some rest.

I grab Ana’s pizza box from the fridge and finish it off in the dark. My eyes are still adjusting as I head into the living room, phone in hand to turn on the TV with the remote app, and slam right into the sofa, a good six feet from where it was this morning.

She rearranged.

Awesome.

I didn’t need those toes anyway.

I shouldn’t be mad at her, but it’s a stupid, petty thing to do. The place was fine. It’s not like she’s ordering new furniture or needing to make space. She hasn’t asked for anything even hinting at her hobbies.

---