This is how it ends. Not in federal prison. Not with a wire taped to my chest. But with my best friend’s bullet tunneling through my skull while my wife sleeps upstairs, unaware she’s about to become a widow.
And Sofiya—my daughter, my heartbeat outside my body—will never remember me. I’ll be a distant memory at best. A shadow seen through photographs and the dim haze of other people’s memories.
Arkady’s eyes shine wet with unshed tears. I know that look—it’s the face of a man about to execute his own soul.
The gun shakes against my forehead, cold metal kissing my skin. “I loved you like a brother,” he croaks.
“Then be my f*****g brother now,” I growl. “Lower the gun.”
The room contracts around us—two men trapped in the gravity of impossible choices.
I could plead. Maybe Arkady and I
