Page 69 of Silent Ties

“Olga?” Roma pauses his cooking. “Why the fuck would you hire that bitch?”

Elijah’s pants of laughter hit my face. “Mommy dearest of course.”

I punch him again.

“Enough.” Uncle Dima looms over my shoulder. I don’t know when he came in, but he sighs, his face creasing with worry. And it’s all directed at me. “Maxie enough.”

I hesitate. This isn’t some schoolyard tussle. My brother went behind my back and tried to mess with my marriage.

“We Zimin men break things.”

Elijah’s tone of voice startles me. I’ve had a lifetime of his acting. The characters he clings to. There’s the bored drawl while he pretends to pick lint from his tweed suit. The sarcastic quips, the outrageous theatrics. The deadly, cold calculations behind every play he makes.

Through it all, a handful of times, I’ve caught a glimpse of the man he tucks behind the strange masks.

Desperate to hear the voice—his true voice—that Elijah never uses, I lower my fist.

“We break things, Maxie.” Is that actual sadness in his gray eyes?

Childishly, I retort with, “You break things.”

Cold, cruel laughter explodes from him. His chest shakes and I roll off him. We remain on the floor,Roma in front of the stove while Dima stands over us, not trusting we’re done with the punching.

Elijah looks up at the ceiling, blood smeared across his face. He continues to laugh, the sound causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand.

“I most certainly do break things,” he wheezes, an unnerving smile on his face. Lifting himself up, the ghostly smile widens. “But so does Roma.”

My twin drops a knife on the counter, irritated.

It doesn’t stop Elijah. “What you think you didn’t break Ren?”

I open my mouth ready to defend my little brother, but nothing comes out. It’s not my fight.

“We were all there. You took her soul and shattered it, Roma.” Elijah pauses, catching his breath. “But she picked herself back up. Shit, she took us all by surprise, putting a bullet in the back of Cliff’s head.”

I stand up on shaky legs, sitting on a barstool. Roma leans over the kitchen island, his shoulders tense. The eggs are going to burn, but he doesn’t care. Dima walks around, patting his shoulder. Our uncle will never appear sympathetic, but he takes care of us.

“Come on,” he says quietly, prompting him to focus on the stove. “We need some bacon with that.” Dima opens the fridge. All little movements, intended to break up the awkwardness.

Why is Elijah being a dick to Roma? They came here to talk about me.

Elijah pulls himself from the floor and his face looks even worse in the light. Avoiding his eye, I hand him a towel.

He takes it, stalking to the sink to soak it in water. Dima pulls out a bag of frozen peas, handing it over.

After cleaning off the blood, he presses the peas to his eye. “I didn’t want you to make the same mistakes as we did.”

“By going behind my back to spend time with my wife?”

“I offered her a lifeline.”

The strong vehemence lining his words stuns me.

He switches the bag of frozen peas to his nose. “Christ, you’re a fucking idiot. She’s withering away and you didn’t notice shit.”

My mouth hangs open but he doesn’t let me talk.

“You’re supposed to be in your honeymoon phase, you asshole. Instead it’s like a funeral every time I step foot into your house.”

---