49. Sasha
49
SASHA
I bend down and press a kiss to Ariel’s temple. “Gonna go find the bathroom, moya zhena,” I murmur in her ear. “Don’t have too much fun without me.”
She laughs and pulls me down for one more kiss on the lips. “No promises.”
But the smile dies on my face when I start the trek into the villa.
Feliks meets me by the foot of the stairs. From the dance floor, his face was bad; up close, it’s far, far worse.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” I tell him.
He just shakes his head. “Wait until you see.”
I don’t know what I’m bracing myself for as we mount the staircase and go down the hall to Kosti’s bedroom. A heart attack? Did the old man slip and fall? Did the cigarettes finally catch up and exact their vengeance?
It occurs to me, perhaps for the first time, what a debt I owe Kosti. I feel like a selfish bastard for waiting this long to see it. He dragged me from that alley and saved my life. Why? Was it loyalty for Leander? Hatred for Dragan? Love for Jasmine, or simply balancing the scales?
He did so much more than simply pull me out of harm’s way, though. For six months, he stood over me. Stood by me. Kept me breathing. Kept me sane. And if he did it by irritating the fuck out of me sometimes—well, we each have our own methods.
Never once did he ask for thanks or repayment. No matter how many times I offered it, he’d simply shrug it off and light another cigarette. “You owe me nothing, neania, ” he’d say. “Not one red cent.”
So my teeth are clenched as I round the corner to his room, ready for blood or an old man on death’s doorstep.
What I find instead is…
Nothing.
The closets are stripped bare. His go-bag, always packed and ready by the door, is missing. His bed has been neatly made, sheets drawn taut. It’s like he was never fucking here.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. The desk is the only item of furniture that still shows some signs of life. I see a black, rubberized phone. A notepad. And a laptop with a stark red screen.
“Feliks,” I growl, pointing at the computer screen, “what the fuck is that?”
In the center of the screen is a skull and crossbones. Beneath that, two words: DELETION COMPLETE.
“It’s wiped,” he explains. “Roza’s showed me something like this before—it’s like taking a nuke to the hard drive. There’s nothing left to salvage, no matter how good you are.”
He passes me the phone and the notepad. The inbox contains a single text, with a string of coordinates. On the top page of the notepad…
I’M SORRY, NEANIA.
I drop them both. Standing in the middle of the room, I look around. The evidence is staring me in the face, but I don’t want to see it. I refuse to see it. I won’t fucking allow it to take shape in my head.
Feliks fidgets at my side. He can see what I’m denying. He knows it as well as I do.
Through the window, we can hear the music and laughter from my wedding reception. My wife’s joy, pure and perfect, floating on the night air.
All I can think is, It’s not fucking fair. The world is not a fair place; I’ve known that since the day I was born. No one earns what they get, or gets what they deserve. It just is. Everything simply is.
And what this is is betrayal.
I feel sick to my stomach. But I force myself to paste on a smile when I hear a knock at the door and I turn to see Jasmine appearing in the doorway.
“Hey, goofs!” she says brightly. “Ariel’s starting to open presents downstairs. She’s looking for you.”
I step in front of the laptop so she doesn’t get the chance to see. The burner phone and notepad get tucked into my pockets. Still grinning, I nod. “Perfect. We’re right behind you.”
But Jasmine isn’t stupid. Her eyes narrow as she takes in the stripped room, the tense set of my shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say roughly. “Tell Ariel I’ll be there in a minute.”
She doesn’t move right away. “I’ll keep her distracted,” she warns. “But hurry. You know how perceptive she is.”
I nod once, sharply. “Thank you.”
As Jasmine’s footsteps fade down the hall, I turn to Feliks. “Get Pavel. Search the grounds. He can’t have gone far. And call Roza. I want to know exactly what kind of deletion program that is.”
“And you?”
I straighten my jacket, already moving toward the door. “I’m going to go watch my wife open presents and pretend this is still the happiest day of my life.”
Everything that was so perfect earlier is now cloying and wrong. The garden’s scent is overwhelming; the fairy lights are tacky, fake, fucking ridiculous. I look around at the rice still scattering the grass and wonder how we ever convinced ourselves that it was okay to be normal for a little while.
But I can’t show her that. I vowed to be darkness so she can be light, and I’ll defend that vow with my last fucking breath. Tonight, that means contorting my face into a smile as I step out of the villa.
Ariel’s laughter rings out—bright, trusting, wrong —and my teeth grind together. She’s perched on a wrought-iron chair, swollen belly brushing the edge of the gift table.
“Sasha, look!” She holds up a ridiculous lace lingerie set, laughing hysterically. “Gina knew exactly what size you’d be!”
I want to laugh. Fuck me, wouldn’t it be nice if I could laugh? But there will be no lingerie tonight. All of the plans I had for Ariel are gone now. Dust in the wind. If we’re lucky, we’ll survive. If we’re unlucky…
I won’t dwell on that yet.
Still chuckling, she sets the lingerie in her lap and picks up a small envelope. “From Uncle Kosti!” she announces, holding it aloft. She looks around for him and frowns. “Is he still peeing? My God, old man bladders are even worse than pregnant ladies’. Oh, well. I’m sure he’ll be back in a sec.”
No. My pulse jackhammers in my throat, but I can’t speak. Don’t open it. Don’t ? —
Too late. The seal cracks under her thumbnail. The letter inside comes rustling out.
Ariel’s smile dies mid-sentence.
I see the exact moment the words sink in—the blood draining from her face, her knuckles whitening around the paper. Her lips move soundlessly, tracing some fresh horror.
Then she stands. The lingerie slides from her lap and lands with a plop in a patch of mud. Black earth staining the white. Sucking up the muck, the filth, the ugly reminder that nothing in my world can ever remain pure for long. Not even for one night.
The letter goes next. It flutters out of her hand like a dying bird and lands at her feet. I’m close enough to see the same handwriting on it as the words written on Kosti’s notepad.
No. Not like this. Not again.
Ariel’s eyes find mine. “Not again,” she whispers. “Not again.”
Then her horrified face gets hit with a lightning bolt of pain. She plummets to her knees with a hand pressed to her womb.
The scream she lets out shatters my world.