I hesitated. “What happened…”
“Just get the fuck,” he stopped himself. He shut his eyes and exhaled through his nose. When he looked at me again, his eyes were softer. “Please. I need a moment.”
Our eyes held for one long second. “Okay.”
The silence clung to me as I stepped inside. I didn’t look back. He needed the distance and maybe I did too.
The walls pressed in on me with silence. Minutes blurred together, but sleep refused to come. I paced, sat, and peeked through the door, but nothing helped.
Rodion had walked inside earlier, so I knew he was somewhere inside the house. But it was so quiet. If Dmitri truly was Luigi, then the madness in Rodion’s eyes had a name.
Goosebumps pricked my skin. It wasn’t just the name of Luigi. It was the rot that came with it. If Dmitri had killed their mother… God, no one walked away from that kind of truth without something breaking.
Rodion trusted him. Every time he left me with Dmitri, that was an unspoken trust. What the hell was he feeling now?
What if this cracked something deeper, like his sickness? I couldn’t sit in that room and wait for the explosion.
A faint flicker of light bled from down the hallway. My toes hit the cold tile as I followed the soft clinking of glass that reached my ears.
Rodion sat at the bar counter, shoulders sagging, one hand nursing a glass, the other limp beside two empty bottles. His fingers dragged through his hair.
He sat alone in his storm. I slowed as I reached him, but hedidn’t look up. I pulled the stool beside him. When he finally turned, his gaze caught mine.
“You should be in bed,” he said.
His voice wasn’t cruel, just distant.
“Pretend I’m not here,” I whispered, waiting for him to snap. But he didn’t. So I stayed. “If you want to talk, I’m still here.”
His jaw ticked, eyes dropping to his glass. He emptied it and refilled it. The silence between us wasn’t empty. It was full of everything unspoken and shattered.
The glass touched his lips again. But he didn’t rush it. He let the liquid sit in his mouth, as if it held some kind of answer.
“Rodion…”
The name slipped out before I could stop it. I had pulled him from a place he wasn’t ready to leave.
“He’s Luigi,” he muttered. The words didn’t just sound painful, they bruised. “He watched me bury their ashes. And made me believe I failed them.” A dry laugh scraped out of his throat, jagged and not quite human. “He’s fucking Luigi.”
Filling the glass again, he swallowed the drink as if it couldn’t burn him anymore.
The betrayal wasn’t just in his words; it bled into his eyes. I reached out and placed my hand lightly over his. It may be stupid and reckless, but it felt right. He didn’t move. He stared at my hand like it didn’t belong. Was he deciding whether to break it or hold it?
After a moment, he looked at me. The weight in his gaze made my breath catch. “I bled for them,” he whispered. “And still, they saw a fucking curse.”
A sharp ache bloomed in my chest, grief slicing from the inside out.
He scoffed. “I don’t regret killing Renat. But Dmitri?” My breath hitched. He killed Renat? Rodion dropped his head. “I taught him how to lead. How to handle business. How to fuckingsurvive.”
His hand twitched under mine.
“I protected him.” He exhaled, shaking his head. “And he looked me in the eye and used you against me.”
A harsh laugh followed, sharp enough to wound.
“I wanted to kill him. Fuck, I still do,” He paused. “But I couldn’t. If I pulled that trigger, I could have lost you, too.”
My heart ached. It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it. He wasn’t just mourning a brother; he was mourning loyalty. All the nights he stood on fire for people who never stepped forward for him.