"Hey, hotshot," Nikolai called across the table.

Alex glanced up, but avoided his eyes. She cradled a mug of hot chocolate between both hands. She was still shaken from her vision. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her brothers dead.

It had been several hours before she last saw Nikolai or the others.

Nikolai dropped a plate and fork in front of her.

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat." He went to fetch another serving.

Alex moved the peas around. A scrape against the floor startled her. Lev raised an eyebrow. She shook her head, leaning back watching three of her brothers eat.

"Hey, slow down. Taste your food." Lev looked toward her, glass of milk in hand.

Alex glared at her youngest brother. "I already told you, I'm not hungry." Hiding a snare behind her mug.

"I can see how you'd be full after a few pieces of bacon."

"So?" Alex looked towards Kellin as he finished his food. "You want this?" The sight of food made her nauseous. The smell didn't help either.

"No." Kellin moved her plate back in front of her.

Alex pushed the lunch away. With butterflies in her stomach and her head buzzing with possibilities, there was no way on Earth she'd swallow a bite, let alone a whole plateful.

"Where's Ryder?" Alex asked. She hadn't seen him since this morning after their training session.

"Changing the subject won't help you," Nikolai replied, pushing the plate back. "And he's working on the jet."

"Any word on a new mission?" Alex took a sip from the mug.

"Stop it."

Alex glared at Nikolai. Her eyes met his gray-blues, neither so much as blinked. Finally, Alex turned her gaze to her other brothers, only to find them watching her and Nikolai.

"What's going on?" Kellin moved to stand in front of her.

"Did you see something? Are you hiding something from us?" Nikolai asked.

"No. I didn't. You know I'd tell you if I had." She knew lying to them broke their rule. As kids, they promised to never lie to each other. What she had done she could not undo. She had to protect them. She watched them from the corners of her eye, her heart hammering so loud, she could swear they heard it, too.

Kellin, Ryder and Lev looked towards Nikolai as he watched her. Her eyes pleaded with him to not say anything. He nodded slowly. Alex sighed.

"No news on Dimitri," Nikolai said.

"What about Lorenzo and the Russo de Famiglia?" Kellin asked.

"Nothing on them, either. Same goes for the Cosa Nostra. The boxes we found, didn't have much in them. Just bank accounts."

Unease settled over them. No word on four of the top five crime families wasn't a good thing. Bad things usually followed radio silence.

Cold sweat glistened on Lev's furrowed brow. With hands clasped tightly in front of his stomach, he constantly fiddled with his knuckles, weaving his fingers in and out of each other. He felt guilty for not finding something. What Lev could do with computers always amazed her.

Kellin moved to the sink, and began washing dishes. His face was calm and composed.

Nikolai lay back in his chair, grabbing the touchpad he had. His brows furrowed in concentration, his eyes scanned for any details. Alex couldn't understand what he was muttering to himself.

Alex turned her head at the sound of Ryder entering the kitchen. Grease smeared on his cheek, and his dark hair stuck up with sweat dripping from his bangs.

"Jet ready to go?" Kellin asked.

"Yup. All we need is a mission." Ryder opened the refrigerator and grabbed the milk. "I'm headed to train, anyone want to join?"

Lev raised a brow. "Again?"

"Why not? Lev, you coming?" Kellin asked, giving Ryder a glass. "Sure." Lev rolled his eyes before following the others.

Nikolai didn't even raise his head from the tablet, just gave a dismissive wave.

Alex started to rise with the others to leave the kitchen, but Nikolai sent her pointed finger, then a closed fist. Stay

She fooled around with her empty mug. Don't snap. Nik doesn't deserve it. Just look somewhere else. Her anger needed to be released. Snow covered mountains outside the window. Peaceful. Reminded her of the times where their parents would take them skiing on winter breaks.

There was no way she was going to discuss what was on her mind. The vision weighed heavily on her. When was it going to happen? Where? No. No. It wasn't going to happen at all, if she could help it.

The only thing that was going to clear her head was some action, another on-the-edge mission. Otherwise, she'd start thinking and, as she'd proved through a long sleepless night, a dead-end road to nowhere.

"Alex, I'm talking to you." Nikolai's voice was soft.

"So talk." Just spit it out Nik. Please.

Nikolai scrubbed at his face, then looked at his watch, he didn't deserve this. He was just being a concerned brother. Alex opened her month to apologize, but Nikolai cut her off.

"Look, Alex." His voice turned harsh. He was being her commander right now, not her brother. "I don't know what bug crawled up your ass, but if you don't sleep.I'm leaving you here on the next mission. We clear?"

Alex stared down at the table, fingers gripped around her mug. She needed a good response. A chair scraped against the tile floor. Nikolai headed for the door, leaving her with mouth parted and brow creased.

Shouldn't have done that. It's not their faults Mum and Da are gone. Alex glanced back towards the mountains in the distance. They lost them, too.

She staggered to her feet and placed a hand on the table as the room did a quick tilt and whirl. Once that settled, she dropped her empty mug and plate in the sink.

Nik is right. I do need more sleep. Her body needed to rest, yet her mind refused to still, the only way to burn the anxiety was to move. She was tired as hell, weary with the burden of long-closed eyes; she could've easily pulled off being a walking zombie, dead on the inside but subconsciously awake.

She didn't want to dream. When she closed her eyes, all she saw were her brothers, blood covering their chests, skin an unnatural blue hue, their blank stares boring into her.

She needed to take something to make her sleep.

Making her way down the hall to the infirmary, the door automatically opened when she arrived. She searched the room, making sure no one was inside. Thank goodness Kellin went to train. Walking to the far left cabinet, Alex tapped her code in for the cabinet to slide open. She moved a few bottles, before finding what she needed. Making sure everything was back where it was or Kellin would know what she had taken.

Well, screw that.

He would go back on the computers and find out she'd used her code. Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge on her right, she swallowed two pills before heading out.

She somehow made her way to her room. She closed the door, and the dim room wavered along the edges of her vision.

She fell facedown onto her bed and drifted off to sleep.

*

No matter how much Nikolai strived to be the man his conscience wanted him to be, it kept taunting him with his failures. Each time the regrets reemerged he diligently analyze them again, hoping that this time his mind would be satisfied with his self professed remorse, but it never was. Like an unforgiving spectre, it would be back tomorrow to haunt him all over again. Every time he saw his siblings, guilt filled him. They shouldn't have to live this life. They were supposed to grow up, marry someone, have kids and grow old. Not this. Not in this business.

"You blaming yourself again?"

Nikolai glanced up to find Ryder leaning against the door frame.

Taking a deep breath, Nikolai set the pen he had been chewing on down. "Is it that obvious?"

"To me, yes. The others? Nah." Ryder sat in one of the leather chairs in front of the desk. "I just know you."

"How did training go?" Nikolai sat back in his chair, studying his brother. Sweat was dripping down his forehead.

"Good. They both worked hard, though Lev is still having trouble shooting with his left hand." Ryder grabbed some papers on the desk.

Nikolai made no movement to stop him. They both worked better knowing everything. "Well, at least he's trying."

"Igor won't be happy. We failed the last mission."

"We got some information from the folders. Lev is working on those."

"But we still have nothing on Dimitri. Igor knows more than he's telling us." Nikolai leaned back in his chair. Igor had power no one else did. He has people working for him all over the world and no one knew them all.

"Of coarse he does. How about you ask him? You're his favorite." Ryder said.

"Yea, like I could go and say, 'Hey Igor. I know you are hiding stuff from us. What is it?" Nikolai said.

Ryder smirked. "Sounds good to me."

Nikolai shook his head, but a slight smile stayed on his face.

"So. How did the meeting go with Alex?"

Did he really just asked that? Nikolai just looked at Ryder, his smile faded.

"So, I take that as it went horrible." Ryder smirked.

"What do you think?" Nikolai asked.

"You going to pull her off missions?"

"Not yet. I think I finally got through to her." Nikolai said.

"I don't think it's smart, letting her go on the next one." Ryder gave his input. "She is going to get her or someone else injured or killed."

Nikolai raised an eyebrow. Ryder had a point, but Nikolai knew what Alex was doing. If he took her off, she's just go on her own and do something stupid.

"Let's see how the next one goes." Nikolai put an end to that discussion.

"Fine. You're the boss." Ryder got up. "I don't like it one bit. She's off her game. We can't have that in this business." He paused at the door. "Do you think it's wise to keep the truth from her?"

"She's running herself into the ground now trying to find anything on him. I'm just glad she doesn't know it was Dimitri."

"She's going to be pissed." Ryder sighed.

"I know, Ry. But it's to protect her. We are just lucky she doesn't remember much about that day." Nikolai said, looking down at the picture on his desk of their parents, with all of siblings behind them making funny faces. He missed those days where he and his siblings didn't know about this life.

"Don't wait too long."

When Ryder left, Nikolai stared at where Ryder had been. He hoped that Alex would take his advice and get sleep. She was going to need it. They all were. He prayed that she wouldn't be pissed at them when they finally tell her the truth.

He had been sitting at his desk for the past three hours, completing his assessment on the last mission. Wondering if the others had finished theirs as well, Nikolai paused for a moment. Nothing much scared him, but Igor. The head of RCI had given them direct orders to bring Dimitri to the warehouse beside their home. And they had no information on where he was.

Maybe, keeping the secret about Dimitri wasn't the best, but he had believe it was. They all did. All four of them had seen how determined she became with finding their parents' murderer. She wasn't sleeping nor eating. She had been digging herself an early grave. Nikolai wasn't going to have any of that.

He signed the last of the papers, took one last look around his office and went to find his siblings.

Hopefully things would look up. Knowing this business, it was highly unlikely.

*

Alex leaned across the table where her brothers surrounded Lev as he typed on the screen in front of them.

Nikolai took the lead. "Okay, Lev,  tell us what you found."

"Grigori Petrov, known as The Captain of the Vasiliev Bratva, first surfaced about ten years ago. We assume he's about forty-five."

"Assume?" Alex interrupted.

"Yes. Grigori doesn't exist. No birth record, no ID, nothing. We just know he's the Captain of the Vasiliev Bratva under the control of Dimitri. He's a big time drug dealer working mainly out of Novosibirsk, but travels from Moscow and Yekaterinburg. I found an abandoned house where we believe Dimitri and Grigori are meeting up." Lev pointed to the picture of the house before facing his siblings.

"What does this have to do with us?" Alex scanned the photo of Grigori.

"Before Mum's and Da's murder, there was a video I dug up where they met with Grigori and a man that we assume is Dimitri, but we're not sure."

Lev turned back towards the screen, pressing a button.

A video from a surveillance camera at their old house appeared. Their mother and father were seen talking to Grigori and a man dressed in all black.

No way. His eyes; a well of jet black ink, held a gaze more fearsome than a tiger. A thin cigar hung from his bottom lip, a small trail of smoke escaping from the corner of his mouth danced its way around their parents. A chill in her blood brought the synapses of her brain to a stand still. She'd seen him before.

Her mind swirled questioning where she had seen him. Not only was she feeling uncertain, she got a sense of fear that crept up inside of her. Her heart thundered at the thought of fighting this man. She normally didn't get fear of fighting and killing, but for some reason, this man made her clench her fists and bite her cheek. Whoever he was, he seemed powerful, just by the way her mother showed fear in her eyes. Her mother was one of the most fearless people she knew. She had hoped to be just like her.

An argument broke out on the screen.

"Zoom in, Lev," Nikolai said. "I want to see what's going on."

Their mother crossed her arms, eyes locked on the man in black. Their father's face mottled crimson, his eyes popped, his neck strained. Their mother leaned close to their father, whispering something the siblings couldn't understand. His fuse simmered and fizzed like a firework in a chill autumn breeze, then he exploded with unrestrained fury. Their mother remained as still as a cadaver and just as pallid, unblinking with his outburst.

With a smirk playing on his lips, he walked away as if strolling in the park on a fine day. Their mother gave their father a worried look before the video went black.

"Any idea what they were arguing about?" Ryder asked.

"There's no sound, but I did a lip scan, and found that Mum had mentioned an address, which leads us to a house in the middle of nowhere, but get this," Lev said.

"What?" Ryder asked.

"The address is where Dimitri and Grigori are meeting up in Moscow."

Nikolai whistled softly, mumbling, "Of course." He turned around."I'll call Igor, and get the OK."

Ryder rolled his eyes."Let's suit up and get going. We can be there in half the time, you get permission."

Alex sighed. "Let's go get some answers."