Dragusha Revenge ✓Completed✓

ALEKSIO

ALDO NIKOLLA HAS FINISHED his raki, and a new one arrives without him having to ask for it. He lowers his head, voice gravelly. "You want to kill me so bad it hurts," he says. "You could, you know. You have everything I have on Kiro. You might get out alive. I'm guessing you have guys in here, right?" he looks around and then back at me with curiosity. "Why don't you go ahead and try it?"

Because I promised Mira. Not like I'll say that. I turn my tumbler of vodka on the napkin. Something feels wrong. This is all going too easy. "Is it Lazarus? You don't want Lazarus in charge?" He picks up his newly arrived raki, cloudy liquid in a slim glass. "A lot of men are scared of Lazarus running the show. But you're not scared, are you? You don't scare. Konstantin would've beat that right out of you." "Say his name again and I'll take one of your fingers." "There it is. Loyalty. Sentimentality. Just like your father."

I know what he's doing-trying to unbalance me. We're in a standoff, here in this booth. Neither of us can move on the other. I give him a cool stare. "You don't know shit about me, old man." A kid comes by with a tray of cigarettes, and Nikolla takes one. Chicago has laws about smoking indoors, but Agronika is another world. "You have a CEO strategy, but inside you're volatile and emotional, just like him. He played the hard guy, but emotions made him a puppet. Emotions made him my puppet." He lights up. My face burns. "You're calling my father sentimental for trusting his supposed best friend and partner? You are I pa besa, old man." Without loyalty, without honor. It's the worst thing you can say to a man like Aldo. And in his case, it's true.

He gives no sign of caring. He barely seems to have heard. Suspicious movement to my side. I don't like it. "Your father never saw me coming. Never imagined. That's how I got the drop on him. He didn't think strategy; he ruled by his heart. He let his emotions cloud his mind." Stay cool, don't take the bait, I think through the surge of heat that moves through me. I could make him mad, too. I could tell him how Mira's lips felt, wrapped around my cock. But, sentimental fucker that I am, I don't. I protect her. The motherfucker's right. He looks up, cold dark eyes under bushy brows. "You really think you will find Kiro alive?" My heart pounds.

I feel him. I know he's still alive. "The foolishness of you moving on me before you have Kiro. The three brothers together would have given you credibility. I have a little saying: 'You only have to shoot when your threats don't work.' With Kiro, your threats would have been enough. But you couldn't wait. Had to ride out to find your brother. Konstantin wouldn't have allowed it, but he's old now, isn't he?

You're running the show now." "I will be." "Pah. You Dragushas. You're easy. Your father was easy. Your mom was even easier." I power through the surge of rage. "She lay there after with her mouth open. Eyes open. Nobody to close them-that's what she was worth." "I closed them," I say. This surprises him. "You didn't know? I was there the whole time. Konstantin pulled me into a nook by the window. We saw what you and Lazarus did. We waited until the house was clear.

You were searching the grounds for us. So stupid of you not to take a little extra time. I went to her, and I closed her eyes and her mouth. And my father's. And I vowed to destroy you. You're already gone, old man." I say it calmly, and I make it sound as if the vow was the huge thing, and not creeping around the blood and touching their eyelids like that.

I trembled when I closed my mother's eyes, wanting to throw myself down next to her. And then pushing their lips back together, as is the custom. Konstantin made me do it. My father's lips wouldn't stay together, and I nearly lost it-it's always the little things that put you over. Maybe Konstantin sensed it. He forced my father's jaw closed for me and we got out. "Why not kill me? You're so white hot, you can't even think straight right now, can you, Aleksio? Why not go for me?"

"You think I won't?" He tips his head like he's just getting something. "Did she make you promise not to off me?" Shit. He smiles. "And you fucking went for it? You can't let her take advantage like that." "Advantage? Jesus, you're her father, and you let us cut her finger off. Why not just tell me about Vega on the lawn? You wait until we start with body parts? Don't you give a fuck about your daughter?" "What do I have right now?"