For fuck’s sake.
I kneel and start shoveling the contents back into the box, but as I’m doing that, something catches my eye. At first glance, I don’t know why I pause. Only that it feels familiar. It isn’t until I pick up the small hand-carved trinket box that it comes back to me. The etching on the top is exactly like the one that sat on my mother’s nightstand. But this couldn’t be hers.
Even as I tell myself that, I’m hesitant to open it up. To confirm what I never wanted to believe. Because if it was hers, this would be a betrayal of the worst kind. A betrayal I could never come back from.
The hinges creak as I lift the lid, my lungs frozen as I peer inside at what is undoubtedly my mother’s jewelry. Her rings, a necklace, a bracelet. But I still don’t want to believe it. I can’t accept it until I pop the locket open and see a photograph of our family staring back at me.
I claw at my neck, tugging the collar of my shirt down. I feel like I can’t fucking breathe. What the fuck? How did this get here? How the fuck did this get here?
The echo of Andrei’s footsteps in the house snaps me out of my delirium. Slamming the lid shut, I stuff the wooden box into my pocket and leave the rest of the shit on the floor. When he opens the door to the garage, I have the shovel in my grasp and a wild look in my eye. That I can be sure of.
Andrei gives me a questioning look but seems to disregard my sour mood. “I’m done cleaning. What should I do now?”
I stare at him for a beat too long, considering how bad it would be if I tortured him right here in his garage. If I cut off every one of his goddamn appendages and stuffed them down his own throat before I jammed a knife through his skull. It’s what I would have done. Two weeks ago, before Kat and Josh, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But right now, things need to go smoothly. This needs to be a clean break. And I need to fucking think before I act on my impulses because right now, I just want to beat him until his blood explodes across the ceiling.
“Go to the store and get some plants.” I toss him my car keys. “Whatever the fuck you can find this time of year.”
He nods and heads back for the house. But before he does, I stop him.
“Who was she?” I ask. “The woman in your bed?”
“Just some slut from the club,” he says, confirming my suspicions. While it’s likely that Vasily has already deleted the video of that night, there is a strong possibility there is other surveillance from the street. Something I’m counting on.
“Don’t take too long,” I tell him. “And don’t get any fucking blood in my car.”
He stumbles out the door and leaves me to my thoughts. I just want to get the fuck out of here. I need to check on Kat and Josh, and I need to sort through the facts before I do anything rash. There’s also still the matter of meeting with Alexei this week. The sooner I can get out of this shithole, the better.
I haul the shovel out into the backyard and use my simmering rage as motivation. Three hours later, Andrei has a new garden. A hodgepodge of plants and flowers that will certainly be dead within the week. But for now, it’s enough to satisfy the bare minimum. At least until I can figure out how to destroy this sick bastard for good.
23
Kat
Pasha spends the day trying to keep to the background, but Josh is curious and somehow manages to snare him in a game of hide-and-seek in the afternoon.
I get one text from Lev all day. It’s brief, telling me he’ll miss dinner and that he’ll be home late.
I want to tell him this isn’t home. I feel anxious and the opposite of safe even though this is supposed to be a safe house.
But taking Josh and leaving, I can’t do that. I know that. Not that I’d be able to. I have a feeling Pasha is here to make sure we stay in as much as to keep the bad guys out. The few times I’ve walked to the front door, he’s turned up at my side in an instant, reminding me to stay away from the windows.
I think back to our drive after landing in Baltimore. I felt Lev watching me when he thought I was asleep. Well, I was asleep, and I’m not sure what exactly woke me, but all I can recall was the intensity of how he was looking at me.
And I guess what he said more than once is hitting me.
I’m his.
We’re his.
“Mommy?” Josh looks up at me from where he’s sitting on the floor at my feet. I realize the cartoon has ended, and his eyes are sleepy.
“Time for bed, sweetie,” I tell him, standing.
On cue, Pasha turns the corner, coming toward us to take him.
“I got him,” I say.
He nods, stepping backward, and returns Josh’s sleepy smile. I didn’t realize Russian men were so chivalrous.
Josh lays his head on my shoulder, and I carry him upstairs. I pause when I get to the door of his temporary bedroom. I eye the key in the lock on the outside of the door. Each of the bedrooms and the bathroom in the hallway have that. It’s strange.
But I don’t care about that now. Right now, I’m remembering what Lev said. That Josh sleeping with us was for one night. But I bypass his room and lay him down in our bed.
Our bed.
I shake my head and tuck Josh in.
“Want a story?” I ask, lying down beside him.
He nods, puts one thumb into his mouth—something he only does when he’s very tired—and wraps his other hand around a lock of my hair. He closes his eyes as I start to recite from memory Good Night, Gorilla and can’t help the tear that slides down over the bridge of my nose as I watch him sleep.
They wouldn’t hurt him, would they? Would they hurt a little boy?
I was three when I lost my mom. Will history repeat for Josh? Is alive better than dead if it means foster care and caregivers like the George family?
No. Alive is always better than dead.
I slip my hair out of his hand and climb out of the bed, wiping the stray tears. From our duffel which I’d laid on a chair when we arrived, I find my scarf. I dig it out and inhale the smoke smell that still clings to it.
I go to the bathroom and lock the door. Filling the sink with warm water, I set about cleaning the scarf, draining the dirty water several times until it finally runs clear.
I think about Nina as I wash her blood away. And I think about Joshua, about when he gave me the scarf, as I squeeze the excess water out of it. He’d stolen it. We were at the mall with the Georges, and I’d been looking at it. Mrs. George thought the pink ugly and childish and told me to leave it. I think I may have liked it even more because she hated it.
Later that night, when we were supposed to be asleep, Joshua snuck into my room and gave it to me. I still remember how surprised I’d been. How happy. I don’t think I’d ever hugged anyone as hard as I hugged him that night. Over a simple scarf. It just felt like so much more at that moment. It felt good to know that someone cared about me.
When I open the bathroom door, I stop dead, my heart in my throat to find someone lurking at the bedroom entrance. I almost scream but recognize it’s Lev when he moves into the little bit of light coming in from the streetlamp.
Lev puts his finger to his lips and gestures for me to follow him into the hallway.
I go, and he pulls the bedroom door closed behind us.
“I told you one night,” he says. “He should sleep in his room.”