Page 79 of Vasily the Nail

“Yeah.”

I look around, spreading my arms to show that I see where we are, that there are a million nearly identical parking lots in Flagstaff and that there’s no way it’s a coincidence that he’s chosen the one that’s still bloodstained from this past week. “So, you wanna tell me why we’re here?”

“Oh, I was going to park right over there,” he says, gesturing to the exact spot where that prostitute’s body landed. “And I was going to remind you why you absolutely have to stay in Flagstaff. Because there’s no chance in Hell you’d be able to hide from me forever, and once I dragged you back, I’d let the cops know about all the deaths they could pin on you, starting with those two.”

“That’s cold.”

“I prefer to think of it as creative. I don’t get to be creative anymore.”

I cast him a sidelong glare. “Hate to tell you this, but you’ve never been creative.”

He tips his head up, contemplates the sky. “Maybe I won’t miss you.”

“I definitely won’t miss you,” I remind him, casting my gaze up as well. God, how long has it been since we’ve had a moment like this? Just the two of us ribbing on each other, cracking jokes at each other’s expense, teasing and poking and having a good time? Everything got so serious all of a sudden. We were just two guys enjoying our lives, Artyom knowing he’d have to lead someday but taking advantage of the freedom he had while he could, me with my big dreams of guiding the brigade into a cleaner, neater, more successful direction while stepping as far out as possible but still being Artyom’s biggest proponent.

And then it all crashed and burned, and suddenly I was Artyom’s problem and he was my keeper, and yes, we were brothers, but we were no longer friends.

“Not that I’m going anywhere,” I add with a smirk.

“What’s that song lyric? The one Americans love so much?” Artyom asks, and it’s funny, but it doesn’t click until then that we’ve spoken in English this whole time, English that’s now thickening with Artyom’s natural accent. Not for affect, though. Artyom doesn’t toss his around like I do. When his accent comes out, it’s because of emotion.

I want to ask him if he recorded his wedding, if I could listen to his vows. I want to hear him announce his love for Jana and hear the sincerity in it, just to know that he really is truly happy with her.

As happy as I am with my Ana. I’ve already decided to bury my accent forever once we leave here. It’s funny, but I think all those years of playing at an accent will protect us. We’re never going to get married, not in a courthouse or in front of our loved ones. The moment we cross the city limits out of Flagstaff, we’ll just be a wedded couple of two years. Ana will be 22, and we’llhave met at the restaurant we both worked at, I as a line cook and she as a server, but now she wants to try her hand at back of house and I’m going to be a security guard. I’ll be Dennis or Steve or Mitch, whatever Ana wants me to be. We’ll figure that all out on the road. When we land somewhere, we’ll be whole new people, and no one will ever hear anything except the most American words out of me.

But I won’t be good at things like well-known American song lyrics. That will be the sort of thing that will catch up with us if we don’t have a good back story, just like Capone getting taken down by tax evasion. We’ll figure it out.

“Ah yes,” Artyom says after a beat. “‘No one here gets out alive.’ Those are the words.”

I try to discuss with Artyom what happened last night, just to get myself up to speed, but he refuses to answer my questions. Instead, he drives us on an old circuit around our section of town. It’s work, technically. Places we need to pick stuff up from, people we need to check on, roads we need to monitor, but most people do a double-take when they see it’s Artyom himself showing up. Several people look visibly nervous about an otherwise routine visit. Johnny Martin jumps out a window at the back of his house when his wife yells for him that we’re both here.

We also have Sergey, Vlad’s little brother. He’s just turned 18, graduating high school in a couple months. There’s been talk about tapping him for the brigade, the pressure coming mostly from Vlad himself. Their dad’s a diabetic, losing bits of himself day by day as the disease ravages his body. Their mom is an alcoholic, healthy as a horse but mean as a snake most of thetime. Vlad thinks bringing him in now will be good for him, get him out of that house and making money. Artyom has resisted, as have I.

Not that my opinion matters.

Sergey is having the time of his life, thanking Artyom profusely for the bills he’s handed every time we pick up cash, spouting off about how he can’t wait to join the brigade and how good he’s gotten with guns this year. Hearing that kind of talk from a kid so young makes my teeth vibrate, but I remind myself that Ana is only a year older than him.

No, that doesn’t make it better. I don’t want Ana handling guns, either. It’s something I’ll have to teach her. As clear as Artyom has made it that he’s not going to hunt me down, I can’t say the same about Ana’s brother or even the rest of the bratva. Artyom controls but one brigade. There are men he answers to, men who will care that I’ve vanished.

Taking off will make Ana’s life harder. It will make Sergey’s harder too. It hasn’t escaped me that tonight is a crash course for him in taking over my responsibilities.

We’re in the parking lot of a deli we’ve just collected money from, Artyom pacing around to the side of the building to take a phone call while I sit in the front seat of his car, listening to Sergey carry on about what he’s going to do with the money he’s making tonight, and I watch him in the mirror. Really watch him.

He counts the money over and over again even though it’s barely more than a hundred bucks. His cheeks glow. He keeps price checking stuff on his phone. Sneakers, better headphones, a backpack. Somehow, he has enough for that. He kept a meanmug for the people who owe us, but now he can’t stop grinning. He’s happy.

Ana’s happy, too.

I won’t give either of them amazing lives, but maybe I’ll make their lives happier, at least. Maybe life is hard no matter what, and it’s all a trade-off, and Sergey will see the light fade from a dead man’s eyes too soon and Ana will have to watch her back everywhere she goes, but it’ll be worth it. Sergey will be able to get away from his parents and buy the things he wants when I leave. Ana will have control of her life by my side. She won’t have everything she wants and she’ll struggle to get everything she has, but she’ll earn it and she’ll get it on her own terms.

We’ll be happy together.

This is a good thing.

Artyom isn’t looking so pleased about things when he returns, though, and the scowl he wears has me immediately tweaking. I don’t leave without his good graces, no matter how much we banter about how he’ll hunt me down. And this is Sergey’s first day. He knows nothing— except how to fire a gun, apparently. He’ll probably have Vlad holding his hands for several months, and it will be a long time before he can fill my shoes, regardless of how little Artyom trusted me with. If Artyom needs me, I have to stay.

It settles like hot coal in my gut, burning through and smoking me out, leaving the taste of ash in my lungs. Tony is expecting Ana tomorrow, the following day if I say it’s fifteen nights. I can’t trust that the asshole will sit around forever waiting for her; I can’t trust anything over there.

I can’t trust that he’ll treat her right when I return her either.

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