Page 70 of Dressed to Kill
I didn't answer that. I pulled my sweats off the floor and went for the door.
I heard him laugh into the pillow on my way out.
The hallway was cold. The thermostat ran low at night because Nikolai liked it that way, and I'd given up the fight. Niko's door was shut. The strip of light underneath was on. Past midnight, my brother was either on his phone or watching something French on his laptop with the volume up loud.
He’d turned off the shows hours ago.
I went past his door to the kitchen and put the light on over the stove, not the overhead, because the overhead was too much for four in the morning and I didn't want my half-brother in here while I was eating.
I yanked open the door and sighed. Niko’s shit was everywhere. He had his nasty, stinky cheese and his imported meats and his weird little peppers, all just laying there next to the half-eaten sixty-dollar pizza he’d ordered because it wasauthentic. Fucking lunatic. There wasn’t anything authentic about green shit on pizza.
I built two bologna and Kraft sandwiches and left the expensive pizza for him.
And then I heard it: Niko’s voice pitched low. It wasn’t a whisper. The man didn’t know how to whisper to save his life, but he was clearly trying to keep it quiet. “Non, but listen to me, Étienne…”
I dropped the sandwiches on a plate and went to listen through the door.
“I have been patient. I’ve been…” A pause. “You said by the end of the month. It’s the end of the month. There have been two ends of the month, and I am still here, in this American shithole, waiting for you to…” Another pause. “No. Non, of course not. You know I love you. Of course I trust you to do it. Oui. That is true, mon cœur. I would never.”
The voice on the other end got louder. Then it dropped, and whatever name Étienne called him made my brother's voice go soft as a girl's. He hated it. I could hear him hating it and answering to it anyway.
“Étienne, please. I just want to come home.”
Then Niko's voice came back, smaller. I caughtouitwice and ad'accordand the long exhale that came after.
Then quiet.
I frowned. I might not have been the best at relationships, but I knew what gaslighting sounded like, and Étienne? Whoever that French fuck was? He had my brother buying his bullshit, hook, line, and sinker.
I went back to the kitchen quietly so the boards wouldn't give me away.
Niko's door opened anyway, and he came down the hall in a robe I'd never seen before, silk, dark, embroidered at the cuff like something out of a boudoir, the kind of thing a man buys himself when he wants to remember what he used to be. I didn't ask. With Niko, you never asked. His hair was up. His face was scrubbed clean. He saw me at the counter and went still for a half second, and then the easy mask snapped back into place.
"Taking a break, are you?” he said, half amused. “Surprised you’ve got the energy at your age.”
I finished pouring the orange juice in silence, then set the glass down and turned to him. "Who’s Étienne?"
Niko's eyes flicked. "You were listening at my door,bratishka?"
"I’m not fucking around, Niko. Who the fuck is Étienne?"
"Étienne is…" He glanced away. "Étienne is looking after some things while I am here."
"Mm."
"You disapprove of my friends now?"
"He's not your friend, Niko."
"You don't know him."
"I don't have to know him to know he’s fucking with you." I pointed at my brother. “Whatever you think he’s doing, he’s lying.”
“Please.” Niko rolled his eyes. “I don’t need my big brother to look out for me, Aleksi. I can handle myself just fine.”
“Tell me the truth about Paris, Niko.”
He was silent, glaring at me with our father's eyes.
