Vitali had had it up to here with all the veal. And the escargot. And the merlot. Add to that list coq au vin, onion soups, mille feuilles and soufflées.

He would have had the chef fired but, oh, it wasn’t Marie’s fault. Before French cuisine, he had grown bored with sushi and showed Chef Midor the door. And that was after he had had enough of ceviche and empanadas from Miguel, another victim of his culinary malaise. That’s to say nothing of the Australian beef, the St.Louis-style pizza, and the spanakopita. It seemed as if every month Vitali spent at his brother’s dacha, he needed a new master chef. None could please him for very long.

On second thought, he would have Marie replaced. Her fault or not, it was exceptionally easy to blame her.

Throughout his forced exile, Vitali had exhausted his interest in a great many things besides food He could only wile away so many days jet skiing or fox hunting. And, of course, it was great fun to have your own professional ballet troupe, but, really, when you’ve seen one spin, you’ve seen them all. There were no good movies left to watch in his personal theater and no good books left to read in his personal library.

Falling out of Igor’s favor had severely limited his entertainment options. At least then he could fly the helicopter over for a change of scenery. The amenities were largely the same in that dacha, naturally -- there are only so many ways you can decorate with elephants tusks, for instance. But it was the little things that mattered, like a sauna with a view of the mountains instead of the lake. The art was better at Igor’s dacha, too; Ilya, Vitali’s brother, was an inexplicable fan of Manet whereas Igor, thankfully, preferred Monet. It was a refreshing change to go over there now and then.

As so often happened with Vitali, though, boredness set in. It was no different for him with romance, be his paramour male or female, than it was for hobbies or foods or sport coats. His passion was, at the onset, scalding hot; in the middle, lukewarm to cold; and at the end, frozen solid. He and Igor barely talked during their last few days together. Eventually, he wasn’t permitted to land at Igor’s heliport at all.

With that, Vitali was officially restricted to the grounds of his brother’s property. Nowhere else was he welcome, unless he was willing to adjust to the feeling of handcuffs on his wrist. This his brother stated plainly and with great frequency. Step even foot in the wrong direction, he was fond of saying, and you’ll be trading in your Armani for an orange jumpsuit.

As if Vitali had worn Armani in the past decade -- fashion was yet another topic Ilya was painfully ignorant about. And what difference did it make, he had wanted to say in reply, to be imprisoned there in the Hague or here in your dacha? Yes, yes, he enjoyed the trappings of wealth; but, lo and behold, he was now their prisoner. It had taken almost forty years for Vitali to realize that the only thing he liked more than conspicuous consumption and fancy things was freedom; the only thing he could not afford.

“You’re in a particularly despondent mood today, brother.”

Ilya and Vitali sat at opposite ends of a very long breakfast table. It was constructed from the very rare planks of a very extinct tree. To be heard, they were forced to holler at one another, making every conversation appear more heated than it truly was. Yet, this was still too close a distance for either of their tastes.

“You noticed,” Vitali yelled back.

Ilya, in fact, had only barely noticed. As usually was the case, he was multitasking. While Vitali sulked, Ilya worked. In addition to this brotherly quality time, he was monitoring esoteric activity on two laptops, answering emails on his tablet, and eating a piece of maximally dry toast. The sound of his teeth crunching through the brittle bread echoed through the cavernous dining room.

“What is it this time?”

Vitali was the older brother, but, lately, Ilya got away with the patronizing tone and air of indifference. He, after all, was funding this little staycation of Vitali’s. When all that imaginary venture capital money disappeared, it was Ilya who paid to have Vitali spirited away. It was Ilya who paid for the chefs who fell out of Vitali’s favor. It was Ilya who footed the bills for the gold leaf toilet paper and the stained glass shower stall. It was Ilya who, at last, held the power.

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To live with Vitali as your brother meant living perpetually in the shadows, a sapling dwarfed by a sequoia. Vitali excelled at nearly everything and people noticed -- their parents especially. Whether it was the violin, downhill skiing, or calligraphy, the Dynko parents were so impressed by Vitali’s inborn talents, they often neglected to let Ilya have a go at things at all. His best, they figured, would fall far behind Vitali’s worst. Unlike Vitali, Ilya hadn’t been afforded distinguished tutors or international boarding schools. Most of what he knew he had learned from watching a small dusty TV in their Sheepshead Bay apartment. Never a wealthy family, they lived beyond their means to give Vitali what they thought he deserved. For Ilya, there was less than nothing left in reserves -- financially, emotionally, or otherwise.

But now, Ilya had upset the natural order of things. Through sheer force of will and powered by years of resentment, he had come out on top. This, however, was only the beginning.

“I said --”

“I heard what you said, Ilya.” The brothers spoke in the same slipshod multilingual cant that Vitali was famous for, though Vitali’s accents, regardless of the language, always seemed inflected by an air of opulence from his years spent in Switzerland.

Still not looking up, Ilya rolled his eyes.

“Then why the silent treatment? You know how busy I am, Vitali. Too busy for your games. ”

“Because, Ilya, I’m not going to tell you again what I’ve told you countless times before. I’m bored. This place, this mansion, is nothing but a very beautiful prison. Like a very attractive person with handcuffs for lips. Or a taser where their --”

Ilya cleared his throat and, at last, looked up at his brother.

“And this is my fault? Your boredom? I rescued you from real prison, I hope you remember.”

Ilya’s motivations for coming between Vitali and a maximum sentence were not entirely altruistic, that was much was certain. The true nature of his benevolence, however, was unknown. He was an early investor in Pyramid Building & Loan, yes, but Ilya had long ago divested himself from his brother’s venture -- and at a handsome profit, too. Nor could his actions be chalked up to brotherly love, loyalty, or affection. Put very simply, Ilya lacked all three of them.

Whatever drove Ilya, only he knew. For the time being, at least.

“Yes, and I’ve said my thanks many times, but…

“Not nearly enough times if you ask me,” Ilya interjected.

“...but I never expected to be locked away here forever. This is no way to live, Brother.” Vitali slammed his well-manicured, jewel-encrusted hand on the table. “I need to be free.”

Ilya could not feign sympathy. He lacked even the basest of bonhomie towards his brother.

“Yes, and what happened to Igor? Perhaps you wouldn’t feel so cooped up here if you hadn’t made a mess of things over there. Would you like me to call Igor? Is this another mess of yours I need to clean up, Vitali?”

Vitali scowled and threw a very expensive glass at the wall. Even shattered into pieces on the floor, it was still worth quite a bit of money.

“You don’t understand, Ilya. You are content staring at spreadsheets and ordering people around like they were pieces on a chessboard. You could live here the rest of your life and not grow bored, so long as you still had the power to make the world spin the way you wanted it to. Not me, Ilya.”

“You don’t like fancy things?”

Vitali guffawed.

“Of course I like fancy things -- look at me! I am a fancy thing. But I need to be out there.” He pointed, and though his finger seemed to suggest he meant the bucolic alpine lake out the window, what he really pointed to was well beyond their line of sight, well beyond the horizon or anywhere one of Ilya’s helicopters could reach. “What good are fancy things if you’ve no one to show them off to?”

Ilya had to hide his grin. For the longest time, it had been something of a tell of his. He was no good actor; of course, this was yet another way Vitali had bettered him. One look at his smirking face and it was obvious he was cooking something up. He had to harness a great deal of self-control to not betray himself and the underhanded plot he was preparing.

“Well, Vitali. I’m convinced. You win. You’re free. On one condition”

It was too good to be true. It was cliche, but there had to be a catch. Nevermind a catch; there had to be a trap. Vitali knew his brother too well to expect anything else. This had been too easy. Ilya had been too willing. He wasn’t free yet, after all. Nor would he be, unless Ilya got something out of it as well.

“On one condition,” Ilya said at last.