Page 2 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

He was innocent then.

Now, he is the farthest thing from it.

In the harsh light glaring from overhead, I see the corners of his full lips quirk with a wry smile. Like this is all some sick joke. Like he might crack up any minute now.

No one else is laughing.

My brother Osip has broken the only law we have:Don’t hurt those not in the game.

A man is dead. His wife defiled. All of the Bratva men gathered around me know what the punishment for those crimes is.

Death.

No exceptions.

I rise from my seat at the head of the table and force my face to remain blank. Walking over to him, I say, “Osip Vaknin, you sit here accused of the murder of an innocent. What do you plead?”

Osip’s laugh booms. “You’re kidding.”

Behind me, Ludmil rises. “You’re going to wish we were, you sick fuck.”

The grumbling all around echoes the same sentiment.

Before, when my brother was popular within the Bratva, his screwy temper was tolerated. Not now. Osip’s legs are swinging as he cranes his head around. Looking for an ally he won’t find. “Come on. All of this—over some nobody? Some fuckin’ chump?”

His gaze has stopped on me, bores into me. I stare back. “You know what the rules are,” I tell him. “You helped make them.”

He’s already shaking his head, looking away, muttering, “You were always the anal one, big brother.”

Big brother.The words grind on my soul. My mother’s voice—barely remembered, like something out of a nightmare—echoes in my mind. My oldest memory.“Please, Gavril, you have to look after him. I won’t always be … I’m not going to … Please, Gavril. Promise me.”

I keep my voice steady. “So, you plead guilty?”

Osip lifts his chin. “Yeah, I do. I plead guilty to teaching some piece of shit a much-needed lesson in manners.”

Ludmil growls again, “You call beating a man to death in front of his wife—then forcing yourself on her—a lesson in manners?”

Osip rolls his eyes again. “Maybe I went a little overboard. But the guy deserved it. I was just walking along, minding my own business. This guy—thismudakmotherfucker—he bumped right into me. Any apology? No. And then when I asked him, real nice, ‘Do I get an apology?’ No, I did not.”

His head dips, his eyes flashing as he recounts it. “When I punched him a few times in the alley, then asked him real nice again? He spat in my face. I kept asking him, I kept …” He shakes his head, like he still can’t quite believe it before looking up, his glare drilling into me. “He never apologized. So you’re saying I should have just taken that disrespect?”

I exhale.

I’ve heard the story already, of course. Days ago, before I assembled the last-minute cleanup. It has not aged well.

All it has done is show the Bratva what I have always known to be Osip’s Achilles heel. The one I knew would screw us over, sooner or later. My brother has always obsessed over respect. Giving it, getting it. If someone crosses the line, then Osip uses that line to strangle them.

“No,” I tell him. “You’re supposed to beat him—maybe even beat him within an inch of his life—but leave him living.”

“And the wife?” Ludmil butts in. He has four older sisters he adores, so is always tetchy with how we treat women. “What did she do? Refuse to suck your cock after you had beaten her husband?”

Osip’s head is still dipped. From this angle, if you didn’t look close, you could swear he was just some smart-ass teen who’d just been caught graffitiing something. “She was screaming at me, like I was some monster, some street rat.” A muscle in his jaw tightens. “That she was going to tell the cops, tell anyone who’d listen about what I did. That I’d have to kill her too.” His hands fist, then relax. “I could’ve killed her—but I didn’t.”

“Want a medal?” Ludmil quips.

“Enough,” my lieutenant Radovan grumbles. “We’ve heard his side. Let’s get this over with.”

I twist my head his way. “That’s for me to decide.”

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