Dima
Nikolai’s wheezing makes my own gut burn with phantom pain. We’ve always been too close, he and I. Our lives are as intertwined as vines. The bratva has a rule—no family allowed. No wives, no children. Because we all become each other’s brothers. But since Nikolai and I were already brothers, it was allowed. Nikolai had insisted we stayed as a team, and Igor allowed it.
But that was old-world bratva. Here, in the States, Ravil runs a more relaxed cell. He and Maxim both have wives. Oleg has a girlfriend. Families are allowed. Children, even. Ravil has a five-month-old in our penthouse compound.
I haven't felt this out of control since the night Alyona told me the pancreatic cancer was untreatable. The level of adrenaline running through me has not sharpened my brain, it's only mud
