Page 105 of Shattered Altar (Makarova Bratva Duet)

I shake my head, trying to pull together a scrapbook of my life in a matter of seconds. Not because he told me to—because fuck him, after all—but because if I don’t take the time to remember it, it’ll start to feel less and less real, more and more distant, until New York is nothing but a fever dream and all that’s left is the cold, hard reality of this nightmare.

The words fall from my lips like snowflakes. “Walks through Central Park beneath the trees. Sketching on my balcony while the sun set behind the skyscrapers. Strolling through museums that never seemed to end, in a city full of people who looked at beautiful art and felt the same way I did about it. Awed by the genius. Proud to be artists in their own right.”

“Sounds lonely.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Just because I was alone doesn’t mean I was lonely.”

“I think you’re lying about that, Olivia. That’s all I saw when I first set eyes on you. How badly you wanted someone to make you feel seen.”

I flinch, thinking about my father’s words. Words he repeated to me countless times in the last year of his life.

Living is for the brave,he said again and again. I’m starting to think he was wrong.

“Living boldly didn’t bring me anything but heartache,” I say aloud. “So now, I live carefully.”

“What is your definition of living boldly?” he asks.

I frown. “It’s not important.”

He smirks. “That’s what I thought.”

That rankles me. “You know what? Spare me your judgment, okay? You’re a freaking Bratva don. Our definitions of ‘bold’ are probably very different. Our perspectives on life are different, too. You live only for yourself. But when you live together as a family, things change.”

“I live for my Bratva,” he corrects.

“That’s not a person,” I counter. “It’s a lifeless fucking thing. I’m not talking about a legacy, Aleks. I’m talking about family. But I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about that.”

He exhales quietly. “You’ve been talking to my mother.”

“You don’t treat her with respect.”

“I don’t tolerate being questioned. Especially not by her.”

“Why? She can’t have opinions, or you just don’t want to have to hear them? Women can know things, too, Aleks. Your mother can know what’s best for you. What’s best for the Bratva. After all, she ran this thing for four years while you were off doing who-the-fuck-knows-what in Russia.”

He goes silent for a moment, his eyes scouring my face. “What else did she tell you?”

Instantly, I know I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have let on that Yulia opened up to me so much. If he starts limiting her visits to me, then I won’t have a single soul in this house left to vent to.

“Nothing,” I mumble. “That’s all.”

“She wasn’t the leader she claims to be,” Aleks says. “She made mistakes.”

“She was learning on the job. Mistakes are part of that.”

“Well, isn’t someone Mommy’s little champion?”

I hate his condescending tone. “She’s the only one here who is kind to me.”

He glances towards the window. “I’ve been hard on her, but it’s because that’s the only way to make her listen. She’s… stubborn.”

“So that’s where you get it from.”

He smiles. “Not every parent-child relationship can be a love story like yours.”

“Mine is a love story without a happy ending,” I tell him. “An ending that I could have prevented.”

He raises an eyebrow curiously. Despite my reservations, I find myself speaking. Saying things I haven’t said since my father died.

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