They were a foot apart, yet it felt like a wide chasm existed between them. She wanted to be closer. He propped his head on one hand, and the sheets pooled low around his waist, letting her eyes have their fill of his bare upper body. He was built for strength, built for power, and it should have terrified her, but it didn’t.
“What’s this?” She pointed to a knotted scar on his left shoulder.
“A bullet wound. An old one.”
“A wound there would do major damage, wouldn’t it? What happened?” She stared at the spot, wondering what horrific circumstance had caused that wound.
“It did. I underwent two separate surgeries to fix the nerve damage. It’s back to about ninety-five percent of its strength now.”
“How did it happen? Can you tell me?”
Dimitri took her hand and held it in his own. He then placed her hand on his chest in silent encouragement to touch him.
“It’s a long story and a rather grim one. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yes.” Strangely, she wasn’t put off by the idea of a story that possibly didn’t have a happy ending. She had suffered so much that she felt she could take a little more, even if it was hearing someone else’s painful story.
“I was young when my mother died, as I told you, but what I didn’t tell you was that I was there when she was killed . . .”
Elena’s stomach knotted. Maybe she wasn’t ready to hear this.
“My mother didn’t believe in the Soviet government.”
“She was against the Communist Party, you mean.”
“Yes. She was devoted to the people of Russia, and to a way of life lost to us. She . . .” He hesitated. “She performed tasks, delivered things, if you understand what I mean.”
Elena was pretty sure she did. His mother had been a spy.
“One night, as my mother brought me home from the market . . .” His blue eyes darkened. “We’d spent hours in a line for food. The old days were tough. Times are still difficult now, in fact in many ways worse. I remember the smell of the bread. It was so enticing, and my stomach wouldn’t stop growling. My eyes were closed. I heard the rush of footsteps coming toward us, and then my mother made a sound, a soft groan as she slumped to the ground beside me. It was dark, just after dusk, and I remember looking back, seeing a man in a dark coat rushing away. At first, I didn’t understand what had happened. I turned to my mother. She lay facedown on the concrete, the tips of her fingers on one hand touching the back tire of our car. I dropped the bag of groceries so that I could kneel down beside her. I remember that so vividly still . . .”
Elena couldn’t breathe. She was there with him, trapped in the slowly building nightmare of his past.
“Her throat had been slit. Blood pooled out, thick and dark, staining the tips of my shoes.” Dimitri’s voice didn’t waver, it was as though he had told this story a thousand times, yet she wondered if he really had or not. From the open, raw look in his eyes, she wondered if maybe this was the first time he’d actually said the words to someone other than himself.
“I ran after the man . . . I’m not sure why. Most children at my age would have stayed by their mother. But I barreled after him and latched onto his leg as he reached his car. He spun on me, stunned to look down and find a child was holding him back. He slapped me, but I didn’t let go. That’s when he pulled a handgun with a silencer out of his coat and pressed it against my shoulder and fired.”
“He shot a child?” Elena nearly sat up as a fresh wave of horror washed over her.
“It hurt like hell. I passed out and came to an hour later in a hospital. It took my father nearly half a day to find me. My mother’s murder was buried in bureaucracy, and even my hospital records were edited to say that the cause of my injury was unknown.”
“What? Why would they change something like that?”
Dimitri still held her hand, and he continued to hold it against his chest. “When a government wishes to control people, they do not only silence the voices of the opposition—they erase them. The Russian government is a master of painting the erasing of truths in a positive light, calling it social and political progress, when in fact erasing history is the very opposite of progress. Even though it puts the ones I love in danger, I stand against that ideology every day.” He let out a weary sigh. “Even now, such ideas spread beyond the borders of Russia . . . even here . . .” He didn’t say any more, but she understood. The world had started to change in the last few years and not for the better.
To know that Dimitri wasn’t afraid to fight, even if it was a fight he would probably lose, told her something important about him. He was loyal to people and causes he believed in.
“What happened after she died?” Elena moved her fingertips over his chest, and he let her explore him. There was a sense of security in him, and the way she could talk about hard things while having the ability to comfort him with her touch.
“Losing my mother nearly broke my father. He spent ten years trying to find the man who killed my mother and almost killed me. But the deeper he sank into his grief and lust for revenge, the more he forgot that I was still alive, that I still needed a father.” There was pain hidden in his voice, but he couldn’t hide it in his eyes.
“Is he . . .?”
“Alive? No, he was killed in a car bomb explosion when he tracked down my mother’s murderer. From what others have told me, he had one chance to take the man out, and the bomb’s remote
