The Last Hope

3

Nikolaï

I am following my twins as they join their cousins near the playground, while Mikhail goes to sit next to Elif without even glancing around.
I glance at my watch, eight o'clock, one hour late. I grimace, hoping Grigori doesn't notice our tardiness, but a heavy hand on my shoulder makes me growl.

"Well, well! Isn't it my little brother, whom I explicitly told to be in the hall by seven?" Grigori grumbles, appearing in my line of sight.

I just shrug, grabbing a glass from one of the trays the servers are circulating. My brother keeps a close eye on me as I gulp down the contents of my glass in one go. Eventually, I sigh and nod towards Andrei. "Andrei locked himself in the bathroom, didn't want to come out," I mutter, placing my glass on an empty tray.

My brother's shoulders slump as he glances towards our sons, then shakes his head gently while sighing.

"Maybe you should go back to therapy?" he suggests, still watching the little ones.

"Already done, last week. She said they're not making progress, that he's not talking anymore."

"Maybe a vacation would do you good?"

"Maybe," I reply simply.

I look around, recognizing most of the people in the reception hall, and I grumble as the crowd keeps growing. I despise crowds; too many people mean too much danger, especially in our world. Having my children, nephews, and sister out of the safety of our family domain makes me irritable. My eyes quickly find Marcus near the entrance and David near the playground, watching the children. My brothers and I chose to bring only a few men since we are all here and more than capable of defending the family.

"Rasili isn't here yet?" I ask, looking for him.

Rasili is one of the three major families in the Italian mafia, and Antonio Rasili is the son of Capo Fernandez Rasili. After years of wars between the Italian and Russian mafias, a path of understanding had finally been found sixteen years ago, thanks to my brother and Capo Marino.

"Not yet, the man likes to make an entrance," he grumbles, loosening his tie.

I sigh and head to our table, dropping between my sister-in-law and my son, glancing over his shoulder at his phone. I raise an eyebrow, trying to understand the article he's reading about something related to AI. My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I groan at the name on the screen.

"She won't leave you alone until you respond, you know?" my son warns me.

"I already know what she wants, and it's a no."

"She's our grandmother; it's only natural she wants to see us."

I give him a perplexed look, raising an eyebrow.

"But that doesn't mean we want to see her," he quickly adds, focusing back on his phone.

Elif shoots me a glance over her glass during our conversation, her dark eyes shining with compassion—a look that had helped me find myself years ago when she joined our family. She married my brother seventeen years ago shortly after our parents' death, and since then, our family had learned to live again. She had been a true ray of sunshine in my brother's life, despite the initial challenges with Grigori, who was as emotional as a tree, me in the midst of my teenage crisis at sixteen, and Sacha and Roman, who were still kids. Elif had found herself managing a bunch of misfits at only nineteen after an arranged marriage, but she hadn't abandoned us.

She is truly the maternal figure of the family, the one everyone turns to when seeking attention. It didn't surprise me that Grigori turned into a real teddy bear in her presence; my brother was truly a lucky man.