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“This has nothing to do with Elle,” I say, which is obviously a lie.

He scoffs. “You haven’t talked about Sofia in years. Heck, you don’t talk about her to your own daughter. And you bring this up out of nowhere? Spare me the bullshit.”

“Careful now,” I warn him. “I’ve checked my patience for years.”

“Really?” he says. “About what?”

“I think you should leave,” I say, turning to the window.

I think of the scarf he gave her for her birthday and how she wore it for three days, though she had never liked green. I think of myself noticing all of it and choosing contempt instead of curiosity because contempt was easier than fear.

“I never slept with your wife,” he finally says.

“You wanted to,” I say.

Viktor doesn’t deny it fast enough.

Then he says, “She was unhappy.”

“That was not what I said.”

“She was unhappy,” he repeats, and now there is something raw in his voice. “And you knew. You knew before anyone. You just did nothing with it because doing something would’ve required you to admit you had already lost part of her.”

I cross the space between us before he finishes.

He doesn’t step back.

“Say that again,” I tell him.

He looks at me, breathing harder now. “You heard me.”

“Yes. I did.”

“And you know I’m right.”

I want to hit him. I don’t, because if I start, I am not sure I will stop.

Instead, I say, “Did she love you?”

He looks away, and my answer is there before he speaks. “No,” he says.

“Liar.”

“She loved you,” he says, and now his voice is low and ugly with it. “God knows why, but she did. Even when she hated you. Even when she sat in that kitchen trying not to cry because you had forgotten another dinner, another promise, another ordinary thing that mattered to her and meant nothing to you. But I guess you’re just one lucky bastard. It doesn’t matter that you carry the sin of the Bratva; everybody around you loves you. It was Mother, then Sofia; you have a loving daughter and women ready to throw their entire world at your feet. I just don’t understand what it is in you that I lack?”

I’m surprised by the bitterness in his voice.

Before I can say something, he turns around and leaves. And for the first time, I feel like asking myself if I know my younger brother at all.

20

ELARA

I’m looking for Anya’s blue cardigan when I hear Viktor’s voice from Nikolai’s office.

The door is not fully closed.

I stop near the hallway table, the cardigan already in my hand.