The private jet we fly on was chartered by the agents that I’ve finally convinced to help me. The FBI and CIA were no use to me—they outright denied the existence of the four families and any such operations they ran in their trafficking factories. No doubt they were corrupted from within. I knew I had to take matters into my own hands when they were insistent in their naïve denial.
It hasn’t been an easy journey getting where I am today. In fact, this past year has been arguably the second worst of my life—the first, of course, was being a captive of the four families.
When I left Anya—dying alone on the side of the road—I’d had enough adrenaline to fuel me, to keep me going to run the mile and a half to the helipad. I’d gotten there just before the pilot was about to take off again. My timing had been nothing other than pure fucking luck.
The pilot wasn’t going to let me on at first without Kostya, but I pleaded with them, showing them my baby boy, fresh from the womb. I tried to get them to help me, to go back to get Anya somehow, but they refused. They had orders to pick-up and drop-off and nothing more.
I seriously thought about putting our son on the helicopter and running back to be with Anya. The pull of my soul to hers was still so strong, still urgent and desperate, and there was a purely selfish part of me that wanted to be by her side—even if she was dying, even if it meant leaving our child’s life to chance, even if it meant I’d be with her for mere moments before losing her and facing the wrath of the four families on my own.
But there was no way I could turn back when I realized that Anya would never forgive me for abandoning her child, our child. I would never forgive myself for doing something like that. By then, the baby’s tiny lips were turning blue from the cold, even while he was wrapped and bundled in the blanket.
The thought of losing the baby and Anya all in one fell swoop was horrifying. I knew I couldn’t save her, and he was all I had left of her.
I couldn’t lose him, too.
It was the hardest fucking thing in the world to leave her.
But somehow, I climbed on board the helicopter, knowing that my last act of love for her would be to ensure a long, happy, healthy life for her son.
Fuck, it hurts to think about that night.
Things got complicated when the pilot dropped me and the kid off at the nearest public airport. I had the credit card and cash Kostya had given us—if it had just been me and Anya, I could’ve booked us on the next flight home. But with a newborn baby in my arms that desperately needed to be fed and cared for, I had to make a decision that scared me.
I had to take him to the nearest hospital.
We were still in Russia, too close for comfort to wherever the fuck Mikhailov Manor was tucked away. I had no clever cover story. I walked into a hospital with signs I couldn’t read and people who spoke a language I didn’t understand. I showed them the baby and had to have faith that they wouldn’t take us from each other.
I thought I knew fear before then, but I didn’t.
The thought of them taking him from me—separating us—that was true fear.
But I guess we got lucky. A kind woman, a nurse, held out her arms and waited for me to hand him over and it took every ounce of strength I had to do it. She cradled him in her arms, smiled at him, looked up at me, and asked me something in Russian that I couldn’t understand. It took a few tries and some gesturing for me to figure it out, but eventually, I worked out that she was asking for his name.
I didn’t have a name for him.
Anya never told me what she wanted to call him.
I worried I would pick the wrong name, but I had to decide in a split-second. So, I did the only thing I could do and that was to rely on my gut. I said the first name that came to mind.
I told her to call him Brandon.
It was the plainest, most American name I could think of, because I thought Anya would want that. She was Russian born, but she loved the American life she’d been living since she was eleven. And after all she’d been through, I couldn’t imagine her wanting him to have anything resembling a Russian name.
So, just like that, he was Brandon Bell.
The nurse waved me along with her as she took Brandon back to an area of stretchers divided by nothing other than a simple curtain between. The vinyl floor tiles were cheap and peeling, and the place was buzzing with noise, overcrowded with people and doctors and nurses. There was an overwhelming stench of bleach and cleaning chemicals that gave me an instant headache. The place was a hot mess compared to any hospital I’ve been to in the States.
The nurse gestured for me to sit on one of the stretchers at the very end of the long hallway, and she handed Brandon back to me as soon as I did. I felt such a massive amount of relief, knowing I was doing the right thing—if not for me then for my son. Because regardless of whether he was fathered by me or Nikolai, I knew right then that this child was mine because I’d claimed him as such.
The nurse cleaned him up, checked him over, and did everything that needed to be done to ensure he was okay. She stayed by our side when a surly-looking doctor came back to check Brandon, and she doted on him while he did.
She gave us bottles of formula, diapers, swaddling blankets, basic onesies, and wipes—things I think she had to sneak away to give us because this hospital didn’t seem like it was made of money. She made sure we had everything we needed before we left the hospital and she walked us out a back entrance—I thought it was odd that no one asked for payment, but I think she knew, somehow, that we needed this off the record.
I tried to give her some cash from the pile in my backpack, but she absolutely refused to take it. I had no other way to thank her, but she seemed happy to have been able to help Brandon.
We left and I took the risk of getting a hotel room for the night, thankful they let me pay cash for it. Brandon and I were exhausted, and I couldn’t wrap my head around getting on a plane just yet.
That first night was the hardest.
Brandon cried.
He cried a lot.
And so did I.
I cried over the loss of Anya. I cried angry tears at how close we’d been to having the life we deserved as our own family—me, Anya, and the baby. I cried that the three of us would never dance a pas de trois. All I’d ever wanted was a family of my own because I never really had one as a foster kid. And the closest I’d ever come to having a family was brutally taken from me by a spike strip across the road, placed by the vilest monsters on Earth.
I went to a local store the next morning and got some basic supplies, using cash as much as I could. We hurried off to the airport and booked the next flight out of Russia—two fucking layovers along the way, but then we’d land in New York and I would at least have the advantage of being on my home turf, even if they did come after me. I had to use the credit card to book the flight, so naturally, I was jumpy, anxious as hell waiting for our plane to board. Every stop along the way, I expected someone from the four families to show up, kill me, and kidnap Brandon.