I’m feeling woozy. More woozy than I should for just drinking a few shots of vodka. “Did you put something in that vodka?”
“No,” Viktor says. “I wouldn’t ruin good vodka like that.”
“The glass?”
“Maybe.”
Things are feeling tilty. Like I’m not really in my body. “Warn my father beforehand. His heart can’t handle the shock, but if he’s warned…”
“Your worthless father,” Viktor spits. “I should open his chest with a machete and fuck his heart as he dies. If it was not for Kiro, this is what I would do.”
I swallow past the dryness in my mouth. “The Valcheks are the ones who killed your parents, Viktor. They’re the ones you should be angry with. And the Valcheks are dead. Why? Because Dad killed them. He avenged the death of your parents, and this is how you repay him?”
“This is what you tell yourself? That it was the Valcheks?” Viktor wipes the paper cutter. He’s careful, deliberate. Lush lashes like Aleksio’s, but none of his warmth.
“It’s what happened! Everyone knows it.”
“Aleksio knows different. He saw.”
“What?”
“Aleksio saw your father kill our parents. Your father slit their throats. Bloody Lazarus helped.”
My throat feels thick.
“Your father drugged our mother and father and cut their throats. He killed them as they begged for the lives of their babies.”
“No,” I say. “My father wouldn’t…” My heart pounds. “He couldn’t!” I’m about to tell him about my dad’s secret, that he becomes violently ill at the sight of blood, but I can’t form the words.
Viktor draws his face near to mine. “We were all there. Kiro was one. A tiny boy.” He straightens. “I was a baby, too, but not so young. I remember the feeling. The blood. Nothing more.”
“My father wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t and couldn’t.”
“The man you know now, maybe not. He is old now.” He watches me with dark calm. “Your father split those babies up so that they would never find each other. Me he sent to the worst orphanage in Moscow. Kiro he sold. Aleksio got out. But not before he saw all. Old Konstantin pulled him into a cubby and kept him still. Hand over his mouth. They hid in the very room where the killing was.”
Viktor wipes the cutting surface with vodka. “There are many cubbies in that playroom, no? Many places to hide. He watched it in the reflection of the window. Your father gave our parents drugs to make them slow. He slit their throats and then he threw up, so disgusted was he with what he did.”
“He threw up?”
“He cleaned it up, of course. He is not stupid.”
I’m stunned, reeling. He threw up.
It’s his reaction to blood. The secret he hides, the secret they would have no way of knowing. Could it be true?
I feel like throwing up myself.
Viktor is droning on with the story. When my father could not find Aleksio, he figured out Konstantin must have helped him get away…and my father put out contracts on them both.
I think about the burn. The hiding. That was my father hunting Aleksio. I think about the look on my father’s face when he recognized Aleksio. Could it be true? God, to kill a mother and father in front of their babies!
“Your father hunted Aleksio unceasingly. You know what the price on Aleksio’s head was at the age of nine? Three hundred thousand. It takes only fifty to have somebody killed. But for this young boy, three hundred thousand. Konstantin, too. All the best hitters were out for him. They raised it later. Too little, too late. Isn’t that what you say? A baby one year old,” Viktor continues. “Our mother begged while her babies screamed.”
Tears swim in my eyes. “Why would he hate your family so much?”
“Bad blood between partners. Konstantin saw it coming. He tried to warn our father.” Viktor positions the cutter in front of me.
I let the tears fall as the details mesh up into a perfect story. It’s got the ring of truth, and not just about the blood aversion. It feels right, feels like the truth. It echoes with the contours of that dark time.
Is it possible he knows more about Kiro? Is Dad holding back, even knowing I’m in danger? No way.
“We have each other’s backs.” My tongue feels thick. “He doesn’t know more—he can’t.” The trees are blurry. A three-week-old baby is tiny. Just a little bundle. I’m floaty.
“Bloody Lazarus is hunting Kiro now. He cannot let the brothers unite.”
“But Bloody Lazarus would want to find my father first.”
“If he has a chance to kill Kiro, he will kill him. He needs that prophecy put to rest.”
So many things I don’t know. But I know his story is real—I can feel it in my gut. It makes sense with Aleksio’s story.
“Was everything a lie?” I mumble, watching the trees sway. Or is that the ground swaying? Or the table? I’m staring at the world from far away.
The slaughter of their parents in front of babies? It would imprint their souls. I can’t let it be true. I won’t accept it.
Viktor’s face floats in front of me. “How do you feel?”
I furrow my brow. “The trees…”
Just then the door slides open. I jerk my head up, but it’s not Aleksio. It’s an outdoorsy-looking guy with a blond beard. He’s carrying a little black bag.
“Currie!” Viktor says.
“What happened to her?”
“Nothing yet.”
“What the fuck?” The man called Currie sounds strange and faraway. “You’re not going to do what I think you’re gonna do with that.”
“Hold him,” Viktor says. A couple Russians grab on to the man. “You will see to her after.”
“Fuck me,” the man called Currie says. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
“Okay.” Viktor comes to me. I gasp as my world spins. He twists my hair and shoves it in the back of my shirt, then he takes my hand and flattens it on the cool, flat surface of the paper cutter.
I’m sweating, flying.
“Don’t do it, man!” Currie shouts. He sounds like he’s on another planet.
Viktor pulls my pinky out to the side so that it hangs partly over the edge.
“Get away!” I try to jerk away. Another guy comes to press my wrist into place. I can barely move—they’re too strong, too determined, too expert. It’s like a dream. A nightmare.
“Breathe,” Viktor says.
Little Vik. A baby can’t understand that kind of violence, but it goes into its psyche all the same.
“Look at Yuri’s eyes,” Viktor says. “And breathe.”
Yuri’s face is blurry. I can’t tell if it’s the drugs or the tears. There’s a crisp metal-on-metal sound as the blade is lifted. It’s happening. Everything is too bright.
And then a crash.
Not my finger—it’s from somewhere else. A yell rips through the air.
Aleksio.
“Fucking hell.” Viktor lets my pinky go and straightens.
Aleksio’s limping, half running across the patio past Currie to get to us. Our eyes lock. He’s the one steady thing in my seasick world. His white shirt is bloody, half tucked in.