But it’s not anyone else. It’s my brother. Bogdan, Adrian, whoever the hell he is—he’s still my flesh and blood. I am still his keeper.

And I’ve beaten him senseless with my bare hands since the day he was old enough to take up a fighting stance.

This will be no different.

I straddle him and deliver a trio of swift punches to his gut and face. His skull cracks back against the tile floor and he grunts again in pain. He tries feebly to throw me off of him. It’s enough to toss me aside, but I pull him along with me and use the momentum to do a full roll and end up on top once more.

He catches me with a wild elbow that splits my lip open. I tongue the cut and taste blood, feel it dripping down my chin, as our hands scrabble for purchase.

It doesn’t last much longer. He throws another reckless punch, I bat it aside, and then I have the ultimate advantage, and he knows it. In one smooth move, I withdraw the knife from my boot and press it to his throat.

“Yield, motherfucker,” I snarl. “Or I’ll gut you like a fucking fish.”

He struggles for one more moment before he accepts his defeat. His hands fall by his side, though I keep my eye on them.

The son of a bitch came back from the dead just to spite me—there’s no telling what he might do to finish the job.

The sweat makes my grip on the knife handle unsteady. I adjust it, Adrian’s gaze fixed on me the whole time. He sees in my eyes what I’m drowning in in my head: the desire to kill him for what he’s done versus the desire to save him from himself.

“You’re supposed to be dead. I should kill you for this.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but it’s not his voice I hear.

“Kolya!”

June’s voice gets my attention. I look up to find her standing in the threshold of the door, the pitiful shower curtain thrust aside behind her.

She looks so ghostly. So thin. So lost.

It just makes me even more furious.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing with her?” I roar down at my brother, abandoning the knife in favor of wrapping a hand around his throat.

He coughs up spit, but his eyes are laser-focused on me, still seething with old resentments. “I’m saving her from you.”

“Please,” June begs weakly. She grips the frame of the door, barely keeping her feet. “Please stop this. Kolya, he is your brother. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you killed him.”

“There’s only one way to find that out for sure.”

“No!” she cries. “Kolya, please. Don’t be the monster your father was.”

Those words hit a nerve. I grimace, but I loosen my grip on Adrian.

Which is when he acts.

The moment he senses opportunity, he acts, smashing his fist into my chest and shoving me off him. I make a grab for my gun, but by the time I’ve swung around and taken aim, he’s bursting through the entrance in an explosion of rotted wooden planks.