Page 184 of Tarnished Tyrant (Zhukova Bratva 1)

He shakes his head. “No. But I kept up with you. What the papers say, anyway. You’re a businessman.”

“Just like Grandfather,” I add.

He smirks, and for a second, I’m ten years old again, staring up at my dad while he leans against the kitchen door with a beer in his hands.

He seemed so big to me then. Now, I’m taller than he is.

“I figured you’d picked up the family trade. I’m not surprised.”

“After you were done with our family, there was nothing left to pick up. Grandfather died, Mom died, and you disappeared,” I growl. “I didn’t ‘pick up’ anything. I swept up the shattered pieces you left behind and glued it all back together. One, by one, by one.”

“I wasn’t in charge when the Battiatos attacked,” he says defensively.

“No. And you refused to step up after the fact.”

“If I’d fought back, they would have killed me just like they did your grandpa.”

“Maybe it would have been better that way. At least you could have died with honor instead of rotting away from the inside out in this fucking dump.”

His jaw hardens, and for the first time, I see why people used to say we looked alike. “I couldn’t throw my life away,” he whispers. “I had you and your mom to think about.”

I snort. “You never spared a single fucking thought for us.”

He lunges forward and clasps my hand in his. “The two of you are all I ever thought about, Nikolai. Ever. It’s the only reason I stayed in the Bratva at all.”

“What does that mean?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t want to live that life. It was my father’s dream, not mine. I wanted to get out and forge my own path, but… I met your mom.”

“Don’t tell me she wanted you to stay in. Don’t blame her. Don’t lie to me with that shit.”

My mom died before I ever had a chance to ask her about her early years, how our family formed. Then my father left. So by the time I had questions, there was no one around to answer them.

“No.” He puts one wrinkled finger in the center of my chest. “She got pregnant withyou. And I needed the money the Bratva could offer. The dependability. It wasn’t the time to strike out on my own.”

“So you married her?”

“Not just because she was pregnant,” he insists hastily. “I’m not honorable enough to marry her just because I knocked her up. No, I would have married her anyway. I loved her. I knew it from the moment we met.” He runs a hand through his thinning hair. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved her. She was all I needed. The only thing that mattered. When the Bratva collapsed and we were broke, it didn’t matter as long as I had her. And as long as we had you.”

“How touching,” I mutter.

But it’s all bullshit. If any of that was true, he wouldn’t have left. He would have stayed.

He ignores me and continues. “But then she got sick. And I couldn’t do a damn thing to protect her from it.”

This part I know from experience. Mom got diagnosed and died six months later. It was fast and heartless and brutal, just like everything else in this world.

“It broke me,” he whispers hoarsely. “And I know I let you down, but… at the time, I saw me leaving as a benefit to you. What did I have to offer you?"

"You could have rebuilt the Bratva,” I suggest. “Or tried, at least. You could have tried to restore our family name. Done something to make Mom proud. You could’ve done anything but what you did."

"That kind of thing wasn't me," he sighs. "I would have failed. Probably brought more Battiato attention to your doorstep. No, if anything, I was going to be a burden around your neck. I figured leaving was for the best.”

I offer him a dramatic slow clap. “You’re so selfless. Abandoning your pre-teen child so you can go shoot up day in and day out to run away from your problems. You’re a fucking hero. They should build statues of you.”

He slumps forward. "Do you have a kid, Nikolai? Kids?"

"It doesn't matter. You'll never meet them."

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