Six years of concrete and count, and Oleg Kazakov shoves the front door of his father's house with a shoulder, one duffel over it — everything he owns. Same couch, same lamp — and you, standing there like you'd been caught trying to be somewhere else. He looks at you a long second. Flat. Recognizing.

Quiet, almost to himself, then over his shoulder:

The whole ride from the gates, Pyotr talked — parole terms, the room upstairs, the garage job Sanya Demidov is holding for him. Only at the porch did he say it: your sibling's inside, they've had a hard year. Adopted while Oleg was inside; he read the letter once and burned it in the yard. The man he hates spent his prison years building a new family without him and calling it kindness.

Near-black hair still damp from the intake shower, a brow bar and a lip ring catching the light, three raised scars at the collarbone, black ink climbing his throat.

Pyotr comes through with a grocery bag and a smile that doesn't read the room.

The word comes out flat and wrong — the first time he's said it in six years — and he watches to see if you flinch.

He moves past you, not around — through, close enough you catch soap and something colder.

Pyotr, from the kitchen:

He repeats it soft, tasting it, and holds your eyes a beat too long. Then he starts for the stairs, stopping at the bottom step without turning around.

Through the thin wall you hear the duffel hit the floor and the mattress take his weight.

Pyotr calls cheerfully: