The Spy by Sophie Lark

11

Ivan Petrov

St. Petersburg

Twenty-nine Years Ago

Dominik asks me to meet him in the War Room of the monastery, which was once the chapel where the monks knelt in prayer—or whatever they were actually thinking about. The church is a power structure like any other, and the similarities between my brotherhood and theirs are no coincidence.

This monastery has been in our family for generations. The Petrov motto is carved in stone over the gates:

Fides Est In Sanguinem

Loyalty In Blood

My brother is the only blood left to me. Our mother has been dead a decade, our father passed last year. I might have killed him, indirectly, with the stress of my takeover. It wasn’t my father I had to subdue—it was his unruly and disloyal army of soldiers, who had no respect for him, and were just as much a danger to us as our enemies. Maybe even more so.

I killed Rurik Oblast the night I was released from prison.

He knew it was coming, and he tried to flee to Kotka. I cut off his hands, the old punishment for thieves, and drove a dagger through his spine at the base of his neck, the penalty for traitors. I sent a finger to his family so they’d have something to bury. The rest of him I burned.

Oblast’s friends tried to launch a mutiny amongst my men, but I expected that. Marko, Dominik, and I slaughtered everyone that dared to raise a hand against us.

Then we turned to my enemies.

Every family in St. Petersburg that was supposed to pay homage to the Petrovs was brought to heel. I rained down terror on their heads, forcing repayment of every last ruble that should have been turned over to my father’s accountants as our tariff on the whorehouses, the gambling rings, the drug dens, and the extortion rackets within our boarders.

And then, I began to expand.

I took back the territory that had been stolen from us. Then I took more in reparation. I brought family after family under my boot: the Sidarovs, the Veronins, the Markovs.

My father ceded the position of Pakhan as soon as I was released from the prison camp. But he did not approve of my methods or my ambition. He particularly hated my alliance with Marko Moroz, a Ukrainian with no ties to the Petrovs, or anyone else we respect.

“Our allies stood by and did nothing while the vultures picked our bones,” I told my father.

“You ought to turn to your uncles, your cousins . . .” he pleaded with me.

I kept the best of my relatives: Efrem, Oleg, Maks, and Jasha.

But the others—those who stole from us, those who lied to us, those who conspired with our enemies—those I drove out into the winter snow like they were strangers to me.

“I’d rather have a true friend over false family,” I told my father.

Now the men that live in the monastery are my hand-picked soldiers. Those I know and can trust with my life. Whether I recruited them in the prison camp, on the streets, or from the ranks of distant relatives, it makes no difference. I promote off merit, not blood relation.

I was almost glad to lay my father in the ground. I grew tired of his ceaseless complaints.

He brought us to the edge of ruin, then bemoaned the measures necessary to haul us back again.

The bonds of family can be chains weighing you down.

My father wanted the love of his men. It made him weak.

I’m not interested in love—I’m interested in achievement. I want the whole of St. Petersburg under my control.

I will admit, the alliance with Marko Moroz has come at a cost. It’s a deal with the devil, and the devil always takes his due.

I knew from the beginning he would not be an obedient lieutenant. We agreed to work as partners, neither of us in authority over the other. I take control of St. Petersburg, and he takes a hefty portion of the profits, so that when he returns to Kyiv, he’ll be flush with cash for his own takeover.

I’m beginning to think it’s time for him to go.

The more I learn of Marko, the more I see that he is a coin with two sides. A coin that can be flipped by the slightest breath of air.

His warmth and humor are a real part of his personality. Equally real is the demon that lives behind his eyes. Sometimes the demon sleeps . . . and sometimes it wakes.

My methods are brutal, but they are never emotional. I do only what is necessary to secure my business, nothing more.

Marko behaves as if everyone in this world has personally offended him. His punishments are out of proportion—unpredictable and cruel in a way that will certainly come back to haunt us.

I rein him in when I can, understanding that he is no attack dog on a leash. I don’t have control of him.

I’m certain that’s what Dominik wants to discuss with me tonight—the consequences if we continue to partner with someone who is, at his core, irrational and violent.

I meet my brother in the War Room at precisely the agreed-upon time. Dominik is already waiting, sitting on the edge of the vast meeting table, running his fingertips repetitively over the deeply-carved scrolls in the woodwork, as is his way when he’s stressed or nervous.

We don’t resemble one another, not really. I’m dark and he’s fair, I’m broad where he’s lean. I take after my father’s side of the family, he after our mother’s. Dom is young—not fully grown. Still, he’s thoughtful and focused. He’s never let me down. I trust his judgment. Whatever he tells me tonight, I’ll listen.

“Privetek, brat,” he says. Hello, brother.

“You look serious,” I say.

He smiles slightly. “This from the man whose face is only capable of one expression.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” I say. “I’ve got at least two.”

I’m trying to put him at ease, but Dominik runs his hands through his sandy hair, taking a long inhale.

“Brother,” he says. “We have to end our partnership with Moroz.”

“Time will do that for us,” I say. “He intends to return to Kyiv within the year.”

“He should go now,” Dom says flatly.

I can tell from his pallor and the nervous energy in his hands that this is no idle conversation.

“What happened?” I demand.

“We went to see Isay Chaykovsky. He had our stolen guns in the freezer of his restaurant, just as you said.”

“Yes.” I nod, already knowing this from Efrem.

“He knew he was fucked,” Dom says. “He was crying and begging. I told him he would have to hand over the title on the property, just as you ordered.”

I wait, arms crossed over my chest.

“But then . . .” Dom says, “his daughter came running out of the office. She threw herself on top of her father. She thought we were going to kill him.”

I frown.

“I told her to go back to the office. Moroz stopped her. He tilted up her chin. And said she could save her father right then if she stripped naked and got down on her knees.”

I’m opening my mouth to speak, but Dom holds up his hand to forestall me.

“I told Moroz, that’s not how we do business. I sent her back to the office. I made Chaykovsky sign over the title while the men were loading the guns back in the truck. Then I heard screaming coming from the office.”

I can feel my skin getting hot, anger rising inside me.

“Moroz had her over the desk. I ripped him off of her, but he had already done what he intended.” Dom’s jaw is rigid, his hands clenched. “She was only sixteen.”

“She was ripe,” a deep voice says from the doorway.

Marko comes striding into the War Room, the same boisterous smile on his face as always, within the frame of his wild reddish beard. He’s been growing his hair ever since we were released from Stark. It now hangs below his shoulders, as uncombed as his beard.

He approaches us without shame or remorse. I don’t think he’s ever felt those particular emotions.

“This is true?” I ask Marko, already knowing it is. My brother doesn’t lie.

“Of course.” Marko shrugs. “The girl was pretty. And it’s a useful deterrent. Warlords have always known that the best way to subjugate a man is to fill his women with your seed. It’s why Genghis Khan has sixteen million descendants.”

Marko lets out his booming laugh, slapping his hands against his meaty thighs.

I’m not laughing or smiling.

Dominik glances quickly between Marko and me, probably wondering how Marko even knew we were meeting in here tonight.

I would expect nothing less from him.

“That is not my way,” I say to Marko. “It’s one thing to bend a man, another to break him. You sow nothing but the seeds of your own demise when you make bitter enemies for yourself. That is the kind of act that demands revenge.”

“I’d like to see Chaykovsky try,” Marko scoffs. “He’s no one and nothing.”

“You went there for the guns and the title,” I say. “That was punishment enough. We did not agree on more.”

“I don’t take orders from you, Ivan,” Marko says. His tone is casual, and his smile as friendly as ever. But I see the first hint of malice in his eyes—the glint of that demon, waking and beginning to stir.

“I’m not talking about orders,” I say. “I’m talking about a mutually agreed-upon plan.”

“Plans are a guideline.” Marko shrugs.

“Not to me they’re not.”

I see his jaw tighten beneath the red beard. He exhales through his nostrils, our eyes locked in place: mine dark, his an odd shade of green, like cloudy water in a stagnant pool.

Then he smiles again, breaking my gaze to stride around the room, pretending to examine the oil paintings on the walls and the heavy wooden mantle over the wide, cold fireplace where no wood burns in the grate.

Marko likes to take up space in a room. He likes to stand and walk so you never forget his stature, how easily he could destroy the furniture or overturn even this massive slab table.

“I don’t think your brother likes me,” Marko says, raising a gingery brow in Dom’s direction.

Dominik stiffens. “I never said that.”

“You don’t have to say it,” Marko hisses, the anger leaking out now. “It’s in those judgmental looks, in every time you avoid me, in every instance where you run to your brother to tattle!”

He’s roaring by the end, beefy fists clenched at his sides.

To his credit, Dom doesn’t flinch. He stares at Marko coolly as he says, “You’re right. I don’t like you. I don’t like your methods. And I don’t like your personality.”

“That’s irrelevant,” I cut between them. “The cogent point is the one Marko made first: there’s no one giving orders among us. And it’s time that there should be. This brotherhood grows too large—it requires a single leader. We no longer fit in the monastery.”

Marko has stopped pacing. He faces me, arms crossed over his chest “What are you saying?”

“Take the ten soldiers of your choice and your share of the money. Let us part while we are still friends, before anything comes between us,” I tell him.

Marko looks at Dominik, his face black with anger.

“Something has come between us,” he says.

“My brother is only saying what I already feel,” I tell Marko.

“Your brother,” Marko spits, lip raising in a snarl. “A brother is an equal. If anyone in this room is your brother—”

“There’s no need to choose,” I say, cutting him off once more. I hold out my hand to Marko, looking him in the eye. “You’ve been a strong partner and a better friend. Let us part that way. When we meet again, it will be as kings of our respective cities.”

Marko looks at my outstretched hand. I see the flicker behind his eyes—his demon battling with his more rational brain.

I don’t know if he will take my hand or not. He’s never been predictable.

At last, he grasps my hand in a bone-crushing shake. I can almost hear Dom’s sigh of relief.

“Goodbye then, my friend,” he growls. “Until we meet again.”

With that, he stalks out of the room.

* * *