Page 140 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

I’m almost there—and then my older brother rises up like a ghoul in front of me.

His hands are wet with the gasoline he must’ve used to set the fires and he has a scrap of fabric tied like a bandana around his face. All I can see are his eyes. They still have that shark’s violence in them. That inhuman cunning.

“You should have stayed dead,” he growls.

“You should have killed me ten years ago.”

He nods. “You’re right about that, Dima. You’re very fucking right about that.”

With a fierce lurch forward, he steps forward and seizes my shirt in both hands. Then he starts to drag me towards the pit.

I can see his plan unfolding: throw me in. Let the fires rage.

And I’m fucking helpless to resist.

We’re a yard or two away from the lip of the burning crater. Ilyasov’s hands are clenching my shirt.

And then I trip.

It’s a pure accident. Nothing but dumb luck. My foot catches a jagged hardwood plank and it pitches all my dead weight forwards. With my shirt being as soaked in my blood as it is, Ilyasov can’t maintain his grip.

So I fall from his grasp. And as my weight descends towards the floor, I reach out for something. Anything.

My fingers close on the gold chain around Ilyasov’s throat.

If it were cheaper, it would’ve just broken. But my brother has never settled for less than the best. So the strength of the chain is enough to act as a yoke.

Enough that I drag him down with me.

We both land right on the edge of the crater, him collapsing hard on top of me. My head is dangling over empty space. The acrid smell of burning hair and skin makes me want to vomit.

Ilyasov rears back. The collar of his shirt is on fire, but he barely seems to notice. He raises his hand above his head and I see that at some point in the scrabble, he managed to grab a burning spar of hardwood. It’s as good as a knife at this close range.

He cocks it back. And as he does, past and future melt together.

I didn’t think you could go through with it.

He starts to bring it down towards me.

You let your love for one another blind you from what matters most.

In the last moment before he pierces me through the face, I shift my weight to the side and buck my hips upward.

It’s all part of the game.

It’s just enough force to send Ilyasov somersaulting over my head—and into the depths of the raging fires below.

I turn in time to watch. The motion of falling is slow. Ilyasov seems to pause in mid-air for a second, burnt arms flailing, eyes wide and panicked.

Then, almost in slow motion, he descends down into the flames and smoke coming from the floor below.

He disappears, but I think I hear him scream for a second. Just a moment of wailing. Then the rest of the sound is lost in the crackling of the fire.

It’s all part of the game, brother. All a part of the game.

51

Arya

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