Page 88 of Unspoken

"If you’re finished, then I need to get back to work, Sasha," Vlad snaps.

"Stop fucking dismissing me."

"And you need to watch your goddamned language when you speak to me,bratishka."

We're statues in a locked room, two men with the same blood, worlds apart. I brace for the storm, ready for the tempest to break over me, wash me away in its fury.

"Always pushin' me aside, aren't you?" My hands bunch into fists at my sides, knuckles whitening. "My problems are just as real as any of your bloody business deals."

"Ty ne ponimayesh'," he snaps back, the Russian slipping out as easily as the anger in his eyes. "You don't understand."

"Understand what? That you're too busy for your own brother?" My voice rises, each syllable sharp enough to cut. "Or is it that you just don't give a damn?"

"Careful, Sasha." He rounds the desk, taking a few steps in my direction and towering over me. There’s a warning etched into every line of his body.

"Did you kill him?" The question bursts from me like a gunshot, echoing off the walls. "Our father. Did you have him killed?"

Vlad freezes, the air between us is charged with electricity and not the kind of electricity I have with Logan. Time stretches, thin and taut like a wire about to snap.

"Zachem tebe eto znat'?" Vlad's tone is low, dangerous. "Why do you need to know?"

"Because I'm sick to death of secrets!" I shout, my chest heaving with emotion. "I need honesty, for once in my bloody life!"

He doesn't move, doesn't blink. Like a monument crafted from ice and silence, dressed in an expensive suit.

"Answer me, Vlad!" I roar a demand. "Tell me the truth!"

"Fine!" The confession explodes from him, a cannon blast that shatters the stillness. "Yes, I had Father eliminated. Are you happy now?"

The world tilts, reality shifting beneath my feet.

The silence clangs in my ears, a bell tolling the death of everything I thought I knew.

I'm not certain if Vlad can see what’s going on in my head right now or if it’s all just obvious on my face, but he stepsforward. His features soften for a second, his palm reaching out for my cheek as if to steady a ship rocked by storm. But we’re not little boys anymore.

I'm not having any of it. My hand lashes out, swatting his away like an unwanted fly. "Don't touch me."

"Sasha, please," he pleads, his voice strained, his usual facade crumbling like a cliff face after years of erosion.

"Why?" I hate the old wanker, hate him even now that he is gone. Hate him with all my heart but if a son could kill his father, he could kill the rest of his kin. "Why?"

Vlad’s moment of weakness is gone. He’s put himself together, his expression hardening with each second until there’s nothing but harshness left.

"Is this making you happy? Knowing this truth, Alexander?"

"Why?" I can’t seem to get my wits about me.

"You’re asking a dumb question. We both know, both saw who he was. He wasn’t going to just stop. He was going to drive us all into a goddamned grave. You, me, anyone who was around him."

"You think you’re better than him?"

"Never said I was."

"You’re just like him!"

"Don’t you ever compare us!"

"Looking in the mirror and seeing the same piece of shit you killed hurts your bloody feelings?"

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