Yuri gives me an odd look. “Yeah,” he says eventually, “I’m glad he found me, too. If he hadn’t…”
I don’t dare think it. Again, images of the two brothers overlap with Nugget. If I had to leave someone behind like that, if I had no other choice…
I’d want to know they wouldn’t be alone.
“That week, my mom died,” Yuri confesses in the end. “Matvey helped me care for her until she went. Afterwards, he helped me bury her. And then he took me into his Bratva.”
It’s so easy, isn’t it? Judging a book by its cover. Judging people for living in the shadows. Like it’s a choice for everyone.
For so many, it’s no choice at all.
That’s when I realize: Matvey founded his Bratva as a kid. That, or he took up the mantle from someone else. Either way, he never had a childhood.
Looking at the toys no
