by Nicole Fox
Mikhail has never suffered under the same burden, even though he should feel it more keenly than even I do. Born two minutes before me, he is the heir to the family legacy. We were conceived in the same moment, but because he took his first breaths one hundred and twenty seconds before me, he has to inherit the business and command the small army my father has gathered. I don’t envy his position, even though it doesn’t seem to stress him the way I think it should.
“Crime isn’t as easy as people make it out to be,” I say breezily, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms. I tip my head towards him. “Why were you looking for me?”
The fake smile falls away immediately, and Mikhail runs a hand through his hair. I’m not surprised. I could tell from the moment he walked in that something was wrong. Not to mention, he rarely visits me at the office. Though Mikhail and I are two halves of the same being, we couldn’t be more different.
He may be the first born, but he likes to keep a safe distance from anything that resembles hard work. Usually, the only time I see him is when I finally head home after a late night in the office to find him passed out on my sofa. It is how he knows better than anyone the hours I devote to the family business. I’ve tripped over him in the dark enough times that he knows my schedule.
He reaches beneath his wrinkled shirt and pulls something from the waistband of his jeans. He looks like he could do with a shave and a shower, but I long ago gave up pestering him to take care of himself. That is our mother’s job.
He pulls out an envelope, crumpled and damp from where it was pressed against his hip. “Father left me a message.”
My brows pulled together as I took the letter from his hand. “He sent you this?”
“Left it for me,” Mikhail corrects. “I found it pinned to my front door.”
My heart sputters in my chest. In our business, finding things taped to your front door is never a good sign. It is a threat. It means the sender knew where you lived, and they want you to know they could access you at any time. Of course, Father knows where Mikhail and I live—he even has a spare key to my apartment—but the ominous undertones remain. He could’ve sent a text or left a voicemail. Instead, he chose this.
“Have you read it?”
“Of course I read it,” Mikhail says, flinging himself back in his chair so it rocks backwards on the rear legs. “It was nailed to my fucking door. I couldn’t exactly ignore it.”
“Nailed?” I lift the flap, noticing the jagged tear where Mikhail had torn it open and, for the first time, the hole in the center. It really had been hammered in. Mikhail says nothing as I read the familiar, spiky scrawl.
Mikhail,
My grace is running out. I will not allow you to be an embarrassment to this family. Fail me again, and you will be out of our business for good.
-Vlad
“Signed ‘Vlad’,” Mikhail says hollowly, his top lip pulled back in a snarl. “Like he doesn’t want to consider himself my father anymore. Can you believe it?”
Truthfully, I can. Though I won’t tell Mikhail that.
Our father has always preferred Mikhail. He has a soft spot in his hard heart for his eldest son, for the man who will one day take over his business. However, that spot has been firming up with each new indiscretion. For years, Mikhail’s vices were relegated to his personal life. He spent his free time in clubs and bars and drug dens, having his fill of whatever sin was offered to him, but it didn’t affect his day-to-day duties as the second-in-line to the Levushka crime family crown.
That has changed in the last few years, though. His nights out have turned into weekend benders that leave him unconscious and impossible to reach. No one can find him, and when they do, he is too sick to be of any use. Father has done his best to impress upon Mikhail the importance of his role in our family, but Mikhail can’t see beyond the haze of drugs and women long enough to get a clear picture of his future. It appears that, now, Father has finally had enough of his games.
“I mean…” Mikhail says, standing up and fisting his hands at his sides. His fingers are trembling, and I wonder how long it has been since he’s taken something. His blue eyes are the clearest I’ve seen them in the last few months. It won’t be long before he’ll give in again to the pull of the drugs, though. It never takes long. “It is bullshit. He can’t kick me out of the family. We are blood. Flesh and blood. Doesn’t that mean anything to him?”
“You know it does,” I say gently, knowing my brother well enough to recognize that he isn’t ready for a harsh reality yet. If he feels backed into a corner, he’ll crawl into some hole, shoot up, and disappear for a week. “Father loves you, but he is worried. That’s all this is. Just him trying to let you know he is worried.”
“Worried about what? I’m fine.” He reaches out to run a finger along a book on my shelf, but when he realizes how badly it is shaking, he tucks the finger back against his palm and lowers his hand.
“Your hands are shaking,” I say. “And this is the first time I’ve seen you in four days. I’m not sure I’d classify that as being fine.”
He spins around, and his face is red. I can’t tell whether it is heated with shame or anger. “You are in your office past midnight. Again. Are you fine, Aleksandr?”
“If you’re trying to prove you are better than me, I’d suggest you find a higher bar to jump over,” I say. “Just because I’m fucked up doesn’t mean you have free license to be, too.”
“Sure it does,” Mikhail says, his shoulders relaxing. Exhaustion seems to come over him all at once, and he moves back to the chair and flops down, the legs groaning under his sudden weight. “We’re twins, after all.”
“But you’re older.” He shouldn’t need the reminder. God knows he hears it enough. And yet, the reality still doesn’t seem to have sunk in. “You are the one who will inherit everything, Mikhail. That is why Father sent that letter.”
He nods and runs a nervous hand through his blonde hair. It is cropped close to his head, a couple inches shorter than mine now, but his fingers still grab at his head like he expects to find hair there. “What if he does kick me out?”
I want to tell Mikhail that won’t happen. Not only for his sake, but for mine. I’ve always had a desire to please my father and be a dutiful son, but I have no interest in Mikhail’s inheritance. I don’t want to be second-in-command. My entire life has been spent in the background of my family, and I’ve come to enjoy the shadows. If our father follows through on his threat, I’ll be the new recipient of all of his attention. The hopes and dreams and expectations he had for Mikhail will be transferred to me, and I don’t want them. Not one bit. Especially if that comes with Mikhail’s banishment.
I hold up the letter. “Then it means you fucked up again. The threat isn’t a mystery. There is a clear action and consequence. If you don’t want the consequence, don’t mess up.”
My twin shakes his head and looks down at the floor. “You say that like it is easy.”
“It can be,” I say. “You have to want it, Mikhail. You have to fight for it.”
“You think I’m not fighting?” The chair he was sitting in is across the room and on its side before I can even jerk back in surprise. He leaned forward, his palms flat on my desk, and I met him head on, refusing to turn away. “You think I like being this way?”
“Yeah, I do.” I stand up so we are the same height, my eyes looking straight into his. To anyone walking by, it would look like I was looking in a mirror. “Because if you didn’t like it, you’d change it.”
Mikhail’s eyes go hard, and he leans forward until his nose is only an inch from mine.
“Fuck. You.”
I sigh and sit back down, too tired to deal with him right now. It feels like I’ve been too tired for years. Mikhail wants my sympathy. He wants me to feel bad for him, but he doesn’t want the truth. He doesn’t want to hear how he is failing. Because honestly, I think he already knows.
Mikhail knows that he has a problem. He knows he needs
to get off the drugs and get away from his lowlife friends and the women who cling to him because he pays for them to get high. He knows this life will kill him if he doesn’t get away, but it is easier not to think about it and drown his worries in the bottom of a bottle or the end of a line.
“And fuck Dad, too,” he adds, pushing off my desk and stumbling backwards. When I don’t say anything, he moves to sit down, but remembers he threw his chair. He looks sheepish as he picks it up and sits it upright across from my desk. “Neither of you know what it’s like to be me.”
My brother is like a small child. Selfish and self-absorbed. He can’t think beyond his own needs and wants. Even if he does get clean, he won’t be the kind of boss our father is. People won’t respect him. Still, I’d rather it be him than me.
“Maybe we don’t,” I say. “But we seem to be the only people who know what you could become.”
Mikhail rolls his eyes, but I can see that my words are breaking through his wall. He is softening.
“You seem to think this is all you’ll ever be,” I say, waving a hand at his stained clothes and bloodshot eyes. “But Dad has always seen a leader in you.”
He presses his lips together until they are white. Then, he looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
He folds his hands together in front of him, elbows resting on his knees. “What do you see?”
I stand up and walk around the desk until I’m standing in front of him. I rest on the edge, legs crossed at the ankles. “I’ve always seen my brother. My twin. And I have every bit of faith that he is in there somewhere, and he’ll return one day.”
He stares at the wall for a long time, his eyes flicking up towards the ceiling, and I know he is fighting back tears. “The ultimatum won’t do shit for me,” he says finally.
“Losing your family isn’t enough motivation?”
Before Mikhail walked in, I hadn’t realized how tired I was. Now, exhaustion seeps into my bones. I feel like I could fall over at any second.
Mikhail points a shaking finger at me. “That’s why you don’t get it, Alek. I already feel like I’ve lost my family.”
“How?” I don’t mean to raise my voice, but I can’t take his victim act anymore. How he can think he has been alone when I’ve been covering for him with Dad for years is absurd.
“Because I’m in this alone,” he says, gesturing down to himself. “No one knows how it feels to need what I need. No one gets the pull. And because they don’t get it, they don’t get me.”
I think his logic is bullshit, but this is the closest we’ve ever been to a real conversation about his issues. And I can see that Mikhail wants me to get it. He wants someone to understand. For the first time, he is reaching out for help.
“I’m not going to shoot up so I can understand you,” I say firmly. “But I will always have your back. Always.”
He nods. “That is all I need. I need you to help me. Support me.”
I run a hand through my hair. It is greasy; I desperately need a shower. I check the watch at my wrist and realize, suddenly, I need to be on a plane to St. Petersburg in eight hours, and I haven’t packed yet.
“You need rehab,” I say, pushing myself to standing and walking back around my desk. I grab my jacket from the back of my chair and shrug it on.
He snorts. “Rehab doesn’t do shit.”
“Doing nothing doesn’t do shit,” I say. “Rehab at least shows you are trying. It shows that you care. Go and get clean. Then, we start from square one. Together.”
He has been to rehab before. Never consistently. Never long enough to clean himself up properly, and I can tell he doesn’t like the idea even now. But I don’t care.
“Is that your condition?” he asks.
I nod. “My own ultimatum. Go to rehab and prove to me you’re serious. Then, I’ll stand by your side. If not, you are on your own.”
He sighs, and I can already tell he is going to give in. We have the same face, which makes him incredibly easy to read. “Will you at least go with me to check in?”
I shove my wallet in my back pocket and shake my head. “I can’t. I’m leaving first thing in the morning to oversee a weapons shipment. You have to take this first step on your own, big brother.”
I walk to the door and flip the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. When Mikhail turns around, I can see his blue eyes shining in the light from the hallway. He looks at me for a second before looking down at the floor and shuffling past me.
“Are you going to go?” I ask when he reaches the end of the hallway.
He gives me a thumbs up over his shoulder, but he doesn’t turn around. I shut the door to my office and follow him out, hoping he’s telling the truth.
Zoya
My mother sits silently in the seat next to me, her gaze fixed on the blurry scenery passing outside the window. She hasn’t looked at me since we pulled out of the parking lot. She hasn’t really looked at me since I delivered the news a month ago.
Getting pregnant was not part of the plan. Eventually, sure. But not now. Not when we’d only lost my father a few months before, when my mother was mired in a dark pit of grief. And certainly not when I would have to do it all on my own. No, the pregnancy had been an accident, but my mother didn’t see it that way.
“The baby seemed big,” I say, my voice expanding in the tight space of the car, filling every crevice. I’d spoken softly, but it still felt too loud.
My mother hums in agreement.
“I think the image was blown up, though,” I say, tapping the black and white sonogram image sitting in the cup holder. “I’m not showing enough to have a baby that big inside of me.”
“They magnify it.” She turns to look forward, her face pulled back in an expressionless mask. Her lips, which only a few months ago were constantly turned upwards in a smile, sag towards her jaw. She looks older.
“Did you have sonograms with me?” I ask. “When you were pregnant, I mean? Did they have the machines back then?”
“I’m not that old,” she says, her voice filled with a playfulness I haven’t heard in too long.
“If you say so,” I tease back, but when I elbow her arm across the console, her mouth tightens and she pulls her arms closer to her sides.
I swallow back my disappointment and turn down the long road that leads to the estate where we both work and live. The Levushkas hired my parents as caretakers to the sprawling estate when they were freshly married and my mother was pregnant with me. They were young and didn’t have any skills, but the mafia family found a rare bit of pity for their situation.
My parents were forever grateful to the Levushkas and dutifully held their position for the last twenty years. And now that my father has recently passed, my mother is even more committed to her employer, Boris Levushka. Our employer, really. As soon as I was old enough to work, I started alongside my mother as a maid in Boris’ home. Now that my father is gone, however, my mother has been taking on his duties, as well, leaving more of the cleaning to me.
“We are running late,” she says, glancing towards the clock on the dash and then back out the window.
“We said we would be back at ten,” I remind her.
“Yes,” she says with a frustrated tip of her head. “And it is five after.”
“Boris knows how doctor’s appointments can go, mother. He won’t—”
“Mr. Levushka,” she says. “You should call him Mr. Levushka.”
My brows pull together. “I’ve always called him Boris.”
Growing up on the estate, I had free run of the grounds. My parents kept me inside our cottage when important guests were staying in the main house or when a deal was being worked out, but otherwise, I ran between our cottage and the estate’s kitchens as though it was an extension of my own house. And Boris was always kind to me.
He is a broad man with a thick neck and arms, and his shiny bald head makes his smile look
menacing, but he always had a smile for me as a child. I’d seen him raise his voice to other household staff, berating them for simple mistakes, but even once I began working for him, he had a special fondness for me that I attributed to the fact he had watched me grow up.
“That was before,” my mother says.
“Before what?” Before I began working for him? That had been four years ago, so if he minded me calling him by his first name, certainly he would have said by now. Or did she mean…?
Finally, my mother acknowledged the sonogram picture sitting in the cup holder between us. She pointed to it with a stiff finger. “Before this.”
Before the pregnancy. Yes, many things were different before the pregnancy. For one, my mother would look at me. She would smile and laugh. She would pull me into a hug at the end of the day and kiss me on the forehead. Now, I’m trapped in the after. When my own mother is so consumed by disappointment that she can’t even say my name.
“Why did you come today?” I ask, finally voicing the question that had been burning inside of me since she told me she asked Boris—Mr. Levushka—for the morning off. “Why did you come with me if you can’t even bring yourself to look at a picture of my baby?”
She stiffened at the words. My baby. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m alone all day,” I argue. “I spend hours cleaning rooms in silence. Not to mention coming back to the cottage at the end of the day to find you are already in your room. You don’t mind that I’m alone then.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. She is thinner than she was a few months ago, and I want to ask if she is eating. She hasn’t had dinner with me for the last week, but I’d assumed she was eating before I came home. Now, I’m not so sure. “The doctor is different.”
“How?” I want her to look at me. Being silent and waiting for her anger to pass clearly hasn’t worked, so perhaps I should try asking her all the questions I’ve kept pent inside. Maybe I should force her to voice the thoughts and feelings she has been silently stewing over for the last month. Maybe it will help.