The next week, I was doing push-ups in my cell when a guard rapped on the bars. Exercise helped to numb the boredom, and my body was a temple honed by hard discipline that made my former, younger self look sloppy and weak. Now, I was truly strong.
“Chernov, a visitor.”
I got up, toweled the sweat off my neck, and passed by the guard without acknowledging him. I had learned how to play the prison game in Russia. I didn’t cooperate with the authorities and had taken plenty of beatings for it. Me and authority still didn’t mix.
A shriveled figure sat at a scratched table in the waiting room. Age and a hard life had turned Artur Golubev into a gnarled hump of a man, but I knew he could still beat down the newest bratva recruit when he needed to. Artur would never need to prove his physical strength. Besides, his talent with discreet explosives was renowned.
He was vor, and no Russian in jail would ever challenge him.
“Nikolai, malchik, you look well, a difficult thing considering what they feed you in here.” Artur smiled at me. His gold teeth flashed under the fluorescent lights.
“I’ve gained a taste for it.” I grinned at him and relaxed back in my seat.
Artur had been an inmate two separate times while I was incarcerated. The sight of the old man was a strange comfort. He was the only person I’d ever met who had as many tattoos as I did, but his were infinitely more valuable.
He had the marks of the vory v zakone. He kneeled for no man.
“Of course you have. Prison suits you, Niko, like it suited me. I saw your brother last week.”
That caught my interest. Kirill was pakhan of the Chernov bratva, a brotherhood who claimed New York and ruled from Brighton Beach, a historically Russian seat of power. Still, a single bratva in the scheme of the countless number of brotherhoods in the vast territory of North America was a small thing. Kirill was smart. He knew his position, and he’d have known to show respect to a man like Artur. Vor status is a mark of the deepest respect, and the vory v zakone wasn’t an organization to fuck with.
“I trust he was welcoming,” I said.
Artur nodded. “As he should be. Your brother is a smart man, and a good pakhan. New York is a difficult territory to hold, and he does it well. The vory hasn’t had to intervene in there since your father and his troubles in the nineties.”
He was talking about a particularly bad few years when a bratva based in Boston and the Chernov bratva had clashed spectacularly. The streets in both cities had run red with Russian blood, until the vory had intervened.
“I guess the apple fell far from the tree when it comes to Viktor and Kirill, unlike me.”
Artur raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“Meaning my father was an ignorant Russian thug, and I’m pretty sure he attended school more often than I did. Kirill is the brains in the family.” I shrugged like it didn’t bother me, which it really didn’t. I had no illusions about who I was.
“You sell yourself short, Nikolai. I’ve been impressed by you. There are book smarts, and then there are street ones. More than that, not every man understands the code.”
The code. Artur was talking about the code of the vory. Vory v zakone roughly translated to “thieves in law” and had its own rules. Above the petty squabbles of rival bratvas, the vory knighting a man with the title was a sign of ultimate respect. It was an old system, and while it had changed and adapted in many ways, it remained a powerful accolade.
“I’ve seen how you reign in here, your effortless understanding of rules that aren’t written anywhere. The vory needs men like you.”
Now it was my turn to stare.
Artur’s gaze shifted over my prison overalls. “I hope you have space on that scribble board of a body. I’m making a case for your stars.”
Stars. One of the many symbols imbued with meaning in the intricate system of the vory. When inked in different places, they marked different stations in the organization.
“Stars? I’m too young.”
“You’re old for a man with your experiences.”
“Fine. I’m too unstable.”
Artur laughed. “Knowing that makes you not.”
I smoothed a hand down my shaved head. Stubble prickled my palm. “It’s too late for me, old man. I just want to watch the world burn.”
Artur stared at me for a long time.
“And your brother, and his wife, his children? Having a vor in the family would make the Chernov bratva stronger and safer.”
I let out a tired sigh. “Kirill can more than take care of himself. I don’t want to be bothered with bratva shit. That life ended a long time ago for me.”
Artur stared at me, a critical look in his eyes. “You don’t get a nickname in prison like Palach if you’re done with bratva life.”
“Being the executioner has nothing to do with bratva business.”
“What’s it about then?”
“Feeding the beast.”
I smiled at Artur, and the old man flinched. That seemed to happen more and more these days. I was the abyss that no one wanted to look too deeply in to.
“Here.” Artur passed me a book. “For your collection.” The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. “I thought it fitting.”
I smiled and took the volume, rubbing my finger over the title. A classic I’d read before but would happily read again.
“Thank you. I’ll pass on your vor recommendation, but thank you for your consideration,” I said quietly.
Artur sighed loudly. “You sound like a fucking politician. Well, I’ll see you when you get out. Surely you can make time between burning the world down and going back to prison to take an old man for a drink.”
“I have my scores to settle. I’ll find you after.”
Artur frowned at me. “Why do I doubt that’s going to happen?”
Because you know me too well. I simply shrugged, watching the old man lever himself up and head out. I turned my gaze around the rest of the visiting room.
It hadn’t changed in seven years. The table by the window was the one where my brother had delivered the killing blow to my sanity.
“It was quick if it helps at all. She’s gone, Nikolai. Sofia De Sanctis is dead.”
He’d stabbed me deep and left me to die. Like a truck blindsiding me at an intersection, I was lying at the scene, bleeding out. I was stuck in that moment, and I had no idea how to come back to the world. I hadn’t lied to old Artur. I didn’t care about the world anymore. I had no interest in having a fresh start or turning a new page, like the therapists droned on about inside. If they could see inside my head, they’d never let me out.
I was going to watch the world burn and warm myself in the blaze.
Hell was waiting for me, and I couldn’t fucking wait to go home.
Back in my cell, I added the book to my prized collection. Every single paperback on the small shelf I’d read countless times. Every word was etched in my memory. The characters in the books sometimes felt more real to me than the people I had once known. Except for her. She would always be the most real thing to me, even if she was only a ghost.
The thought of becoming vor played through my troubled mind. It was a surprise to be considered. It was the highest accolade a man like me could ever aspire to. An uneducated, violent felon with a track record that read like a serial killer’s rap sheet. I swung myself onto my bed and stared at nothing. Bran was gone, released a few days ago. I would follow in a few weeks. It was too fucking quiet in the cell without him. I didn’t like the quiet anymore. It only made the screams in my head louder.
I stared at the ceiling, where several things were taped up. My treasures, if such a word could apply to such a meager collection.
A photo of Molly Chernova, my sister-in-law, with two young children. My imposing brother stood behind his family, his hand lying on Molly’s shoulder. They were the only remaining family I had in the world.
Then a black-and-white newspaper clipping. An obituary. I hadn’t bothered to keep the words beneath the photo. Antonio De Sanctis couldn’t have written an obit for his daughter if his own life had depended on it. He’d never known her. He’d never cared enough to try.
Sofia. My lastochka.
The picture quality was terrible. It was far too grainy to make out, unless I let my eyes unfocus a little. She wasn’t smiling in the picture, merely staring a black hole through the camera lens, right at me. Every single night, I stared back, for hours on end, and let my mind wander the halls of the past.
My little swallow with the clipped wings, who had died inside her cage, after all.
Her death had ripped away what little sanity I’d had left. Everything had stopped making sense in that moment, and it had never gone back to normal.
I’d always known I was a damned man. I hadn’t been enough for my mother to live for, and I hadn’t been strong enough to protect my lastochka. Life was a horror, a sickening freak show.
I wanted it to end. I would soon.
First, I had my scores to settle.
First, I’d have my vengeance. It was the only thing that brought me a measure of calm.
Violence was all I had left. The whirling chaos inside me had only quieted once in my life, around her, my little lastochka, and now she was gone. It’d never be still again.
I’d learned to live with the storm inside me. People had learned to fear it, and that made sense. The part of me that had been sane and rational had died with her. All that was left were the flames of madness.
There were the only thing that kept me warm.
The only thing I had.
