I hold up the letter. "Then it means you fucked up again. The threat isn't a mystery. There is a clear action and consequence. If you don't want the consequence, don't mess up."
My twin shakes his head and looks down at the floor. "You say that like it is easy."
"It can be," I say. "You have to want it, Mikhail. You have to fight for it."
"You think I'm not fighting?" The chair he was sitting in is across the room and on its side before I can even jerk back in surprise. He leaned forward, his palms flat on my desk, and I met him head on, refusing to turn away. "You think I like being this way?"
"Yeah, I do." I stand up so we are the same height, my eyes looking straight into his. To anyone walking by, it would look like I was looking in a mirror. "Because if you didn't like it, you'd change it."
Mikhail's eyes go hard, and he leans forward until his nose is only an inch from mine.
"Fuck. You."
I sigh and sit back down, too tired to deal with him right now. It feels like I've been too tired for years. Mikhail wants my sympathy. He wants me to feel bad for him, but he doesn't want the truth. He doesn't want to hear how he is failing. Because honestly, I think he already knows.
Mikhail knows that he has a problem. He knows he needs to get off the drugs and get away from his lowlife friends and the women who cling to him because he pays for them to get high. He knows this life will kill him if he doesn't get away, but it is easier not to think about it and drown his worries in the bottom of a bottle or the end of a line.
"And fuck Dad, too," he adds, pushing off my desk and stumbling backwards. When I don't say anything, he moves to sit down, but remembers he threw his chair. He looks sheepish as he picks it up and sits it upright across from my desk. "Neither of you know what it's like to be me."
My brother is like a small child. Selfish and self-absorbed. He can't think beyond his own needs and wants. Even if he does get clean, he won't be the kind of boss our father is. People won't respect him. Still, I'd rather it be him than me.
"Maybe we don't," I say. "But we seem to be the only people who know what you could become."
Mikhail rolls his eyes, but I can see that my words are breaking through his wall. He is softening.
"You seem to think this is all you'll ever be," I say, waving a hand at his stained clothes and bloodshot eyes. "But Dad has always seen a leader in you."
He presses his lips together until they are white. Then, he looks at me out of the corner of his eye. "And what about you?"
"What about me?"
He folds his hands together in front of him, elbows resting on his knees. "What do you see?"
I stand up and walk around the desk until I'm standing in front of him. I rest on the edge, legs crossed at the ankles. "I've always seen my brother. My twin. And I have every bit of faith that he is in there somewhere, and he'll return one day."
He stares at the wall for a long time, his eyes flicking up towards the ceiling, and I know he is fighting back tears. "The ultimatum won't do shit for me," he says finally.
"Losing your family isn't enough motivation?"
Before Mikhail walked in, I hadn't realized how tired I was. Now, exhaustion seeps into my bones. I feel like I could fall over at any second.
Mikhail points a shaking finger at me. "That's why you don't get it, Alek. I already feel like I've lost my family."
"How?" I don't mean to raise my voice, but I can't take his victim act anymore. How he can think he has been alone when I've been covering for him with Dad for years is absurd.
"Because I'm in this alone," he says, gesturing down to himself. "No one knows how it feels to need what I need. No one gets the pull. And because they don't get it, they don't get me."
I think his logic is bullshit, but this is the closest we've ever been to a real conversation about his issues. And I can see that Mikhail wants me to get it. He wants someone to understand. For the first time, he is reaching out for help.
"I'm not going to shoot up so I can understand you," I say firmly. "But I will always have your back. Always."
He nods. "That is all I need. I need you to help me. Support me."
I run a hand through my hair. It is greasy; I desperately need a shower. I check the watch at my wrist and realize, suddenly, I need to be on a plane to St. Petersburg in eight hours, and I haven't packed yet.
"You need rehab," I say, pushing myself to standing and walking back around my desk. I grab my jacket from the back of my chair and shrug it on.
He snorts. "Rehab doesn't do shit."
"Doing nothing doesn't do shit," I say. "Rehab at least shows you are trying. It shows that you care. Go and get clean. Then, we start from square one. Together."
He has been to rehab before. Never consistently. Never long enough to clean himself up properly, and I can tell he doesn't like the idea even now. But I don't care.
"Is that your condition?" he asks.
I nod. "My own ultimatum. Go to rehab and prove to me you're serious. Then, I'll stand by your side. If not, you are on your own."
He sighs, and I can already tell he is going to give in. We have the same face, which makes him incredibly easy to read. "Will you at least go with me to check in?"
I shove my wallet in my back pocket and shake my head. "I can't. I'm leaving first thing in the morning to oversee a weapons shipment. You have to take this first step on your own, big brother."
I walk to the door and flip the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. When Mikhail turns around, I can see his blue eyes shining in the light from the hallway. He looks at me for a second before looking down at the floor and shuffling past me.
"Are you going to go?" I ask when he reaches the end of the hallway.
He gives me a thumbs up over his shoulder, but he doesn't turn around. I shut the door to my office and follow him out, hoping he's telling the truth.
Chapter 2
ZOYA
MY MOTHER SITS SILENTLY in the seat next to me, her gaze fixed on the blurry scenery passing outside the window. She hasn't looked at me since we pulled out of the parking lot. She hasn't really looked at me since I delivered the news a month ago.
Getting pregnant was not part of the plan. Eventually, sure. But not now. Not when we'd only lost my father a few months before, when my mother was mired in a dark pit of grief. And certainly not when I would have to do it all on my own. No, the pregnancy had been an accident, but my mother didn't see it that way.
"The baby seemed big," I say, my voice expanding in the tight space of the car, filling every crevice. I'd spoken softly, but it still felt too loud.
My mother hums in agreement.
"I think the image was blown up, though," I say, tapping the black and white sonogram image sitting in the cup holder. "I'm not showing enough to have a baby that big inside of me."
"They magnify it." She turns to look forward, her face pulled back in an expressionless mask. Her lips, which only a few months ago were constantly turned upwards in a smile, sag towards her jaw. She looks older.
"Did you have sonograms with me?" I ask. "When you were pregnant, I mean? Did they have the machines back then?"
"I'm not that old," she says, her voice filled with a playfulness I haven't heard in too long.
"If you say so," I tease back, but when I elbow her arm across the console, her mouth tightens and she pulls her arms closer to her sides.
