Chapter 7
Seven
Journal Entry
Thirteen years old
There comes a point in every person’s journey when they arrive at a crossroads.
Where the decision to travel down one path and not the other drastically alters the outcome of their life.
They don’t know which path is better. They don’t know what trials or perils may lie ahead on one and not the other.
Last night, I came to a crossroads. And I made a choice. I chose the road paved in blood.
What does it say about me that I feel nothing at all about killing the man who raised me? Shouldn’t I feel bad? Have remorse for what I’ve done? I’m a little scared that I don’t feel either.
There must be something broken inside me. Twisted. I really am Francesco Amato’s son.
“I don’t know what to do, Mama. I wish you were here to tell me what to do.”
A looming shadow blocks out the sunlight, casting its dark silhouette over the broken earth my mother is buried under.
There was no grand funeral with flower arrangements, or grieving mourners, or words of comfort delivered in a sermon given by a priest. There was only Aleksei and me and our crushing heartache.
Pyotr drops to the ground beside me, his hand going to the back of my neck.
A touch of comfort and solidarity. Our breaths come out as thin tendrils of fog in the cool midday air as he sits with me in the quietude of my grief.
The bright sun that hangs in the clear-blue sky does little to warm my skin.
It’s surreal how the darkest day of your life can be drenched in sunshine.
“The cleaners are almost done.”
I nod. It doesn’t matter if they bleach the entire house from roof to foundation, nothing will ever erase the image of finding Mama or what I did. I took a life. It doesn’t matter if Nikolai Stepanoff deserved it. I killed someone. There is no coming back from that.
My fingers curl into the dirt. “Where’s Aleksei?”
“Inside.”
I didn’t know what to do, so I called Pyotr.
I couldn’t call the police. The Society owns a lot of influential people, but Aleksei and I are still minors with no other family in the States who can take us in.
We would be put in the system. And what would happen to our home?
The business and the money and everything else?
The toes of Drako Petrov’s black leather shoes appear to my left, the long hem of his wool coat flapping against his legs in the chilly breeze.
Tall and imposing, his massive body bends at the waist, and he lays a bouquet of white lilies on top of Mama’s grave.
Funny how he remembered she loved lilies.
Father never remembered small details like that.
What her favorite flower was. Her favorite movie, favorite book, favorite season, favorite color. Or he did and just didn’t give a shit.
Raising back up to his full height, Drako tucks a hand in the pocket of his coat. “Do you want to know?”
“No.”
I don’t care what he did with Father’s body. I hope he threw it in an incinerator until every molecule of his existence was obliterated into ash.
“As far as everyone is concerned, Nikolai returned to Moscow to attend to Nina’s affairs and left you and Aleksei in my care.
Interested parties will hear that he was arrested shortly after he arrived and sent to Adskiye Vrata, where upon your eighteenth birthday, you will be informed that your father died in prison. ”
Being sent to Hell’s Gate is a death sentence. If you ever wind up in that remote part of Siberia, you never come back.
Drako’s large hand covers the top of my head. “Do you think you can keep up the pretense until that time?”
I nod.
“What about Aleksei?” he asks.
I nod again.
“You are no longer a child, Aleksander. I’m sorry that circumstances have stripped you of those years, but the second you pulled the trigger, you became a man.
It’s up to you to decide what kind of man that will be.
Your burden now will be to carry the adult responsibilities of your family.
Your brother is not strong like you. He cannot do it.
So, I need to know, are you prepared to do what needs to be done? ”
It’s not like I have any other choice. “Yes.”
“Good.” He gently tousles my hair, the gesture both parental and caring, two things I never got from my father. “I looked into the matter you asked me about.”
I lift eternally hopeful eyes up at him. “You found her?” I didn’t expect him to have news so soon, but like the Society, the bratva has eyes and ears everywhere.
“I will let Pyotr tell you. This type of news should come from a friend.”
With those parting, enigmatic words, Drako takes his leave and strolls back up the hill toward the house.
Pyotr’s grip tightens on the back of my neck, and he pulls me to him, touching our foreheads together. “I don’t want to tell you. Not now. You’ve been through too much. Please, Aleks, don’t make me tell you.”
I’ve never seen Pyotr scared before, and it freaks me out. “Do you know where she is? I need to see her,” I implore him.
Life has proven how fleeting it can be, and I don’t want to waste another minute standing on the sidelines, waiting for my chance.
A tremble goes through him, but I feel it as if it came from me. “You can’t, Aleks.”
“What? Why?”
The air surrounding us suddenly turns heavy and hushed, like it’s carrying a secret it knows will destroy me.
Pyotr’s eyelids slam shut, like he can’t look at me when he says it. His lips part and then press closed, the words backing up behind his refusal to say them, building pressure, higher and higher until…
“Because Aoife is dead.”
I jerk away from him, a roar of disbelief and denial blocking out everything but the sound of my own shattering heart. “That’s not possible.”
“She was in Ireland. There was an accident. A drunk driver plowed into their car.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.
“Aleks, there’s something else. It’s about Dierdre. It’s been kept out of the papers, but Dad found out—”
I clap my hands over my ears and block him out. If I can’t hear it, it won’t be true.
But I do. I hear every horrid detail of what he says. Why didn’t Tristan say anything last night? Why was he acting so normal?
“I’m so fucking sorry, Aleks.”
The finality of his apology sinks in, and my heart doesn’t shatter. It disintegrates. Desolation doesn’t drown me. It consumes me. They’re all dead. My mother. The girl I love. My half sister I never got a chance to know. What did I ever do to deserve so much pain and so much loss all at once?
A scream erupts from my chest, tearing through me like a bomb detonating, and I fling fistfuls of dirt as the remains of my damaged soul try to claw their way out, wanting to be with Mama and Aoife. Take me with you. I want to be with you.
I must be saying it out loud because Pyotr manacles my wrists and puts a stop to my mania. “Don’t you fucking dare give up. Aleksei needs you. I need you. You will survive this. We will help you survive this. You hear me?”
He doesn’t flinch when I turn on him and raise my fist. I want to hurt someone as much as I’m hurting. But I can’t. Not him. He’s not who I hate. He’s not who I blame.
I unclench my fingers. The blood-smeared dirt on my palm looks like a fucked-up Rorschach of a phoenix, its outspread wings made of fire.
And from the ashes of his destruction, the phoenix will rise…
And burn the world to the ground.
Drako said I had to decide what kind of man I will be.
I’ll be the man who wreaks vengeance on everyone who has ever hurt me.