Dragusha Revenge ✓Completed✓

VIKTOR

I STARE out at the endless farmland as Yuri drives. Morning. Aleksio and Mira in back. So much farmland. It’s no wonder Americans have so much food. I think of poor Kiro. Keith, they called him. I don’t have the bad associations with the name like Aleksio does. But if Aleksio says it’s a shit name, it’s a shit name. I want to kill old man Nikolla and Bloody Lazarus and all of the crew. I want to cut a bloody path through Chicago. Finish off every one of them with my bare hands.

I want my face to be covered in their blood. Killing does not dull the pain, but it changes the pain. When you are in pain, any change is good. Even a change to the worse seems like relief. This pain I feel for Kiro. My little brother. My bratik. I would change it to anything else. But, yes, Aleksio is right. Be smart, be deliberate. Be dangerous. But really I want to get bloody. If Aleksio were not here, I would get bloody. It is my way. You would think, after Tanechka, that I would know better.

The pain of Tanechka’s betrayal was unbearable. Like battery acid in my heart. Then I killed her. And that was worse. Tanechka was the only woman I loved. I would be dead if not for Yuri. I should be dead, but Yuri needed me. And Aleksio needs me. I stay alive for them. Aleksio remembers Kiro as a baby. I have only the old photo, and now this boy on a tricycle, looking very much like Aleksio. On the back, it says Keith Knutson, 5 years. “He is very big for a boy of five,” I say, fingering the stiff rectangle of paper.

“Our brother would have grown to be big. Strong. A good fighter.” Aleksio stares bleakly out the window. “We have to tell Konstantin ASAP.” I nod. This news will devastate Konstantin. I look back down at the photograph. I never had a tricycle, or any kind of bike. I do not know how to ride one. If not for Mira’s father, I would have known how, and maybe I would have helped this little boy ride one, too. We would have ridden together