Page 150 of Filthy Lies

Blood on white linoleum glows like scattered rubies under fluorescent lights.

It’s everywhere, smeared by the rushing boots of paramedics, security, doctors. Vince’s fingerprints are all over it—quite literally—as he tried to hold his best friend’s life inside his chest. By the time we reach the hospital, Vince’s clothes look like he’s been butchered, but it’s not his blood.

It should have been.

The bullet was meant for him. I know it as surely as I know my own name. I know who ordered it fired, too. I don’t even have to ask.

The waiting room of the private hospital wing feels like purgatory. Sanitized misery encased in taupe walls and uncomfortable chairs. Vince hasn’t moved from his rigid position at the window for over an hour. Nor have his hands relaxed. Still bloodstained, they’re clenched into fists so tight I can see the tendons straining beneath his skin from where I sit.

If rage had a scent, the room would be suffocating with it.

“You can’t go after your father,” I say, finally breaking the silence. “Not now. We still have the FBI circling.”

Vince doesn’t turn around. “Watch me.”

“That’s exactly what he wants.” I stand and go to him. “He knows you’ll come charging after him. He’s counting on it.”

His laugh is hollow, gutted. “And what would you have me do, Rowan? Send him a fucking fruit basket and a note that says, ‘Let’s take a rain check, please’as Arkady bleeds out on an operating table?”

My teeth grind together so hard I’m surprised enamel doesn’t dust the floor. “I would have you think like the smart man I know you are instead of the weapon your father forged you to be.”

That gets his attention. He whips around, eyes glittering like broken glass. “You have no idea what I am.”

“I have every idea,” I counter. “I’m the only person who sees all of you, Vince. That’s why I’m still standing here, despite everything.”

We stare at each other across the chasm of our fundamental differences. The air between us vibrates with grief and fury and whatever you call the thing that makes me want to slap him and kiss him in the same breath.

A doctor pushes through the double doors, clipboard in hand. “Mr. Akopov? Your friend is out of surgery.”

Vince’s entire body coils tight. “And?”

“He survived, but it’s…” A weary sigh goes whistling out of the man. “It’s complicated. The bullet damaged his lung and nickedhis heart. He’s stable for now, but the next twenty-four hours are critical.”

I watch the information sink in. Each word is another boulder loaded up on shoulders that are already carrying too much.

“Can I see him?” Vince asks.

“Briefly, if you’d like. But I’ll warn you, he’s heavily sedated.”

I follow behind as the doctor leads us to the ICU. My throat constricts when I see Arkady—this mountain of a man, Vince’s shadow and shield for fifteen years—reduced to a pale, fragile figure drowning in tubes and wires.

Vince approaches the bed silently. He doesn’t touch Arkady. Doesn’t speak. Just stands there, absorbing the damage done by a bullet meant for him.

“I need coffee,” I murmur, leaving him to his silent vigil.

In the hallway, I lean against the wall and exhale for what feels like the first time in hours. The linoleum floor beneath my feet wavers as exhaustion hits me in crashing waves. I slide down until I’m sitting, knees pulled to my chest like a pouting child.

Arkady took a bullet for Vince. Without hesitation, without thought—just pure, instinctive loyalty.

Hours earlier, he’d held a gun to Vince’s head.

Now, he might die for him.

The contradiction of the Bratva brotherhood remains a fucking enigma to me. These men—violent, dangerous men—forge bonds in blood that transcend betrayal, that demand sacrifice. For all its brutality, there’s something almost beautiful in their unwavering loyalty.

I’ve spent so long seeing only the darkness, only the cruelty. But there’s this part, too: a brotherhood willing to die for each other.

When Vince emerges from the ICU thirty minutes later, his face is carved from stone. He looks down at me, crumpled against the wall, and silently offers his hand.

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