“You all right, sis? You don’t look so good.”
Who else do I have to confide in? Not Mom, because I don’t want to stress her out. Not Bethany, because she was a paper cutout of a real friend.
At the end of the day, I have only my family.
I tell Rob about the arrest.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” he says when I’m done, giving my hand a squeeze. “Now you get the cash, and you don’t gotta deal with all the bullshit. Win-win.”
But ‘all the bullshit’ is the part I’m confused about. ‘All the bullshit’ includes love.
“Listen, why don’t I make us some nachos? My special recipe. You remember. Extra fucking cheese and extra fucking jalapeños. They’ll scorch your mouth so bad you won’t have time to feel sorry for yourself. Sound like a plan?”
I smooth his greasy hair from his eyes. “That sounds nice.”
We watch The Lion King as we eat, as though we’ve slipped back in time.
Rob is doing his Man of the House routine. He’d throw on this personality like a sweater at seemingly random intervals when we were growing up, like he could, just for a little bit, forget about Dad walking out the day after he was born and just be my brother instead.
I rest my head on his shoulder the same way I did when he was ten and I was eleven, when he was five inches shorter, but seemed so much bigger than that, puffed up, full of promise for the future.
“I could be a king,” he’d say when Simba launched into “I Just Can’t Wait.”
“I bet you could,” I’d reply, truly believing him for a few sweet hours.
That feels like so, so long ago.
23
Erik
There is little else for a man to do in a jail cell but think.
In here, even two short days can seem like a lifetime.
I see my father walking like a drunken sailor down the hallway, stumbling into the wall, limping awkwardly because he had failed to take off one of his shoes properly. I see Mother standing at the door, screaming, and remember what I thought as clearly as if it is spoken.
“I will not be like him,” I whisper aloud, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling.
I see Camille lying facedown with a blossom of blood spreading all around her, her fingers gripping a blue pacifier, some shadowy nameless man standing over her with a knife that is dripping and slick.
Can I truly do this to her?
If she was just a purchase, as I planned, I would be able to stomach the risk. But Camille deserves better than to live in the constant fear and paranoia that would plague us.
When the police finally release me, I have made up my mind. I will visit Camille one last time.
I will set her free.
“You will be hearing from my lawyers,” I smile when McCauley comes to say his goodbyes.
“You got lucky, that’s all.” He rubs at his knuckles the way a man does when he is eager for a fight. “Just because that blood didn’t belong to Alena or Radovan, don’t think I can’t see you for what you are.”
“A concerned citizen disgusted at being wrongfully accused by an incompetent police force? I am glad you are so perceptive.”
“Just wait, Ivanovich. Just fucking wait.”
“Waiting tires me, Detective,” I say. “Have a pleasant day.”
He grumbles as he takes me to get my belongings, but there is not much he can say, defanged as he is.
I expect to see Anatoly or Oleg when I walk into the parking lot, but instead I spot Fyodor leaning against the hood of his car, picking something from under his fingernails. He brushes something from his suit jacket and offers me his snake-like smile.
“It gladdens me, brother, to see you walking free.”
There is little that makes Fyodor glad except power. What I say out loud is: “I will drive.”
“As you wish.” He tosses me the keys. “It will give us time to talk.”
“Wonderful.” I climb into the car. “I have been starved of conversation.”
I drive toward Camille’s house, feeling Fyodor’s probing gaze on me all the way.
“In times of crisis, men must stick together,” he says at length. “Just think of the Novgorod Republic. A group of herders and farmers armed with nothing but pitchforks and crude spears. But they banded together, Erik, and the damned Crusaders were defeated. They forgot the cold of the motherland, the bone-eating cold.”
“Yes, men too easily forget that which could bring their demise.”
He stiffens, smile faltering. But just as quickly, it returns. He drums his hands on the dashboard.
“I want you to know I do not hold a grudge for the way we ended things the last time we met. We both care about the Bratva above all else. It would do us good to remember that.”
“I have never forgotten it,” I say. “But it is good to know whose side you are on.”
I pull up outside Camille’s house.
“I ask one thing of you, Fyodor.”
“Anything,” he says overeagerly.
Perhaps I am being too harsh. Maybe he has seen the error of his ways. With Fyodor, it is impossible to know. He is like a pool of inky water, the light shimmering differently at each new angle.
“Never speak about Camille like that again,” I growl. “Or, my brother, my old friend, my second, there will be consequences.”
He bows his head, seeming almost sincere.
“You have my word,” he whispers. “And my gravest apologies.”
I nod shortly—wondering, briefly, if we can bridge this chasm—and climb from the car.
When Camille answers the door, I feel my resolve waver.
But only for a second. It is all too easy to imagine her wavy, beautiful hair—hair I could spend an entire afternoon twining around my fingers—matted and thick with blood.
“Are you going to stand out there all
