Once Upon A Lie

Twenty-two: Summer between freshman and sophomore year

Twenty-two:

Summer between freshman and sophomore year

"What the hell were you thinking?" Petyr Lantsov shouted. "Your brother is the heir to this company, Nikolai. You should look out for him. You shouldn't be letting him go into underground fight rings. Maybe if you weren't so fucking high all of the time you wouldn't have let him go to that stupid fight night!"

"It wasn't my fault!" Nikolai shouted. "Vasily was being Vasily. He got handsy with a girl-----"

"I don't care!" Petyr roared. "Your brother is now unconscious in the hospital. This was all your fault. I always knew that your brother was a dumbass. I didn't think that you were despite being a pot head."

Aleksander could only sit and watch the fight happen from outside of the hospital room. He wasn't family, so he wasn't allowed in. "Aleksander!" his father roared. "What the devil were you thinking, son?"

Aleksander looked up, flinching at the sound of his fathers yelling. "Dad----"

"Don't you dad me," said Eric, "you went to an underground fight ring! You almost got Vasily killed!"

"Hey!" Aleksander stood up. "Vasily was the one that wanted to fight. Nikolai and I didn't."

"Petyr says that you told him about the ring. Come on. We're going home." He found himself dragged by his shirt collar out of the hospital. On the drive home, his father glanced over to him. "You know they're not sure if Vasily is going to wake up again because of that stunt that you pulled, Aleksander. Vasily's the first son of his family. He's the future of The Lantsov company."

"I wasn't trying to get him hurt," said Aleksander, "I didn't even think that he would go. All I was trying to do was to distract him."

"Distract him from what?" Eric asked.

"We were having a pre-birthday party for Lina, and he was talking about asking her out. He kept on talking about how Petyr was saying that she'd make a good wife for him. They were flirting all night."

Eric was quiet for a long moment. "So, your solution was to let him get beat almost to death instead?"

"I figured that you wouldn't be to happy if I did it because he would probably beat me to death given that he's the captain of the wrestling team."

His father didn't say anything again for a bit, and then he cleared his throat. "And Alina? Did anything happen to her? I've heard rumors about the Lantsov boy."

"She was great," said Aleksander, "left her at the Starkov's with Nadia and Marie dancing to old boyband songs."

Eric glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "You're worried about her? You two have been attached at the hip since the two of you were little."

"More like she was my shadow. I couldn't shake her."

"Did you want to shake her?" Eric asked.

Aleksander shook his head. "No, I didn't want to shake her. And I know all about Vasily. I've seen him with girls. He got...rough with one at the underground fight, and I know that he would be the same way with Alina. I couldn't let that happen to her. She's the only one I care about in this world. You think business will become difficult between you and Petyr?"

"No," said Eric, "I'll settle things between us. Are you going to ask Alina out?"

He smiled. "Yeah. I was thinking about doing it tomorrow, on her birthday."

"Alright," said Eric, "very good."

Eric's cell phone rang just then. "Hello? What----what do you----Petyr calm down-----" there was shouting on the end of the phone and Aleksander heard the words "fucking bastard". "Fucking bastard? I'm the fucking bastard? YOU'RE THE FUCKING BASTARD." He slammed the cell phone off.

"What was that?" Aleksander asked.

Eric sighed. "That was Petyr. Vasily's dead."