He kisses me again. Stops me from talking. Footsteps at the door.
Viktor.
“Fucking hell, come on.”
We return to the car and roll out. Aleksio slides in the back with me. I can feel the rage and grief washing over him. I feel it as sure as I taste the blood in my mouth from a savage kiss that was pure Aleksio. A savage kiss I loved way too much.
I’m his.
Sometimes it feels like we’ve never been apart. As if some dreamer far, far away has been dreaming us in a life together, and we’re only now discovering it.
Just another one of the reasons I have to get away.
Chapter Sixteen
Viktor
I stare out at the endless farmland as Yuri drives. Morning. Aleksio and Mira in back.
So much farmland. It’s no wonder Americans have so much food. I think of poor Kiro. Keith, they called him. I don’t have the bad associations with the name like Aleksio does. But if Aleksio says it’s a shit name, it’s a shit name.
I want to kill old man Nikolla and Bloody Lazarus and all of the crew. I want to cut a bloody path through Chicago. Finish off every one of them with my bare hands. I want my face to be covered in their blood.
Killing does not dull the pain, but it changes the pain.
When you are in pain, any change is good. Even a change to the worse seems like relief.
This pain I feel for Kiro. My little brother. My bratik. I would change it to anything else.
But, yes, Aleksio is right. Be smart, be deliberate. Be dangerous.
But really I want to get bloody. If Aleksio were not here, I would get bloody. It is my way.
You would think, after Tanechka, that I would know better.
The pain of Tanechka’s betrayal was unbearable. Like battery acid in my heart.
Then I killed her. And that was worse.
Tanechka was the only woman I loved. I would be dead if not for Yuri.
I should be dead, but Yuri needed me. And Aleksio needs me. I stay alive for them.
Aleksio remembers Kiro as a baby. I have only the old photo, and now this boy on a tricycle, looking very much like Aleksio. On the back, it says Keith Knutson, 5 years.
“He is very big for a boy of five,” I say, fingering the stiff rectangle of paper. “Our brother would have grown to be big. Strong. A good fighter.”
Aleksio stares bleakly out the window. “We have to tell Konstantin ASAP.”
I nod.
This news will devastate Konstantin.
I look back down at the photograph.
I never had a tricycle, or any kind of bike. I do not know how to ride one. If not for Mira’s father, I would have known how, and maybe I would have helped this little boy ride one, too. We would have ridden together.
Chapter Seventeen
Mira
“Really?” I say as Aleksio pushes me into the windowless bedroom at the Stonybrook house. “After all this? You can’t lock me up like a dog in a kennel.”
He and Viktor are about to head out to Konstantin’s to break the news about Kiro. “You have to stay. It’s how it is,” he says.
Our gazes meet. There’s so much emotion in him, so much heat and rage, it frightens me. But most of all, I want to pull him to me. Hold him.
Fuck him.
So wrong.
“You can’t keep me.”
He shuts the door and locks it. I fly to it and jiggle it.
Crap.
I listen for the car roaring out. I put my ear to the door. Loud music comes from somewhere—the kind of metal that Viktor and his Russian friends like to listen to. I listen for a long time. The last time I was trapped in here and listened at the door, I could hear the clicks of a phone and the sound of a man clearing his throat once in a while. There’s nothing here. Just the music. Probably the kitchen—that’s where they like to hang out.
I’m still in the clothes I went up north in—a drapey embroidered white shirt and the short summery skirt. Sandals. Not the best for running, but I’ll take them with me. I’ll go in bare feet across the lawn and then put them on for the woods.
I listen at the door. No sounds. “Hello?” I call softly.
Nothing. Nobody out there.
Dad once had one of his best guys tutor me on how to get out of places—handcuffs, trunks, locks. Picking a lock won’t help here, but he made the point that you go for the weakest link where you can.
The weak link here isn’t the bolt, it’s the door itself. It’s an interior door, a bedroom door. It’s not hollow like some of them are, but it’s soft. I’m not under any illusions I can muscle through it like the Kool-Aid man, but the place where the screws grab the wood—that’s the weak link.
I scour the bedroom and the bathroom for something to use. I settle on the hinges from the cabinet under the bathroom sink—they’re flat metal triangles. I could slide the wide end into the door crack and then whack it. It’s the same principle as a chisel, except I’m not trying to pry something apart so much as pop it out the other end.
I use a barrette from my hair as a makeshift screwdriver and pull one of the bathroom cabinet hinges off. I try to fit it into the crack. It’s tight, but I shove hard, and it works—it slides in and stops when it hits the metal of the bolt on the other side.
Then I evaluate mallets. The wood base of the bedside lamp seems best. Really solid. I unplug it and do a few practice swings, but not connecting. There will be a loud sound. I’m hoping the music is loud enough to cover it.
I put my ear to the door. Nobody there. As the song gets fat and loud, I do it—I smash it once, twice. Listen at the door. Nothing—except a lot of noise.
I whale on it then, just slamming it, and finally the metal plate goes through and pops the hinge.
I ease the door open and push it back into place. I sneak down the hall away from the direction of the music. I slip into another room. It’s an empty bedroom, and the window is open—just a screen. I punch the fucker through, climb out, and find myself in the dizzying sunshine, bare feet on the warm grass.
I run across the expanse of grass, legs shaking. Free.
I don’t look back until I’m in the woods.
Nobody coming. Just the sound of distant music.
I keep on, feet getting torn on branches and sharp things. I stop only to put on the sandals. I’ve committed to going west, following the afternoon sun. It’s important to commit to one direction in a situation like this, because you hear so often of people going in circles.
The woods get thick and brambly. My legs are getting torn up. There’s no path here, but I can hear a highway in the distance. I need to get to that highway. I’ll hitch a ride and hide at my friend’s cabin.
I think about Aleksio with me in the dark back seat of the car. The way he felt as I held him. So much violence in him. So much pain.
Aleksio will be shocked that I’m gone. Angry. But it’s best for everyone. We belong in different worlds.
Chapter Eighteen
Aleksio
We head over to Konstantin’s place, west of the city. We’re wild with grief and vengeance. Dreading the news we have to tell.
“You don’t touch Mira,” I say. “You understand?”