Nine years ago I stopped speaking to my stepbrother's family. Last Tuesday a bratva errand brought one of them back to my driveway with a broken bike and a capo's salary and a name he doesn't use around me. I said yes to the bike for one night. I said yes to him for three. He was supposed to be the man who keeps the rules. He was supposed to know which soldiers were moving product through my suburb and which weren't. Then I found a duffel of cash above my office ceiling and I understood that I was the one who was going to pay for it. Semyon Volkov chose me anyway. He handed over the route book, resigned the rank, and lost his cousin in the same afternoon. I sold the shop. I paid the loan. I drove him west in my stepfather's truck. There's a garage in Indiana with my name on the door, and nobody in that town knows what either of us used to be.
