29. Laszlo
Lyn frowned, tears dancing in the corner of her eyes, her lower lip trembling.
“Hey… Don’t cry, angel. This is a good thing. It means we don’t have to be around any of these low-rank blatnoi anymore. I’ll be working for myself, and you can do anything you want. You’ll be safe now, from everyone.”
I cleared her tears away, kissing her cheeks. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, the messy braid I’d done poking out awkwardly, and I was irresistibly attracted to her.
She sniffled.
“I did something bad.”
My heart seized in my chest, my vision failing. She flinched, and I coached my facial expressions, my breathing, so I wouldn’t frighten her.
“Lyn, what did you do? Did you tell someone?” My voice was darker than I intended.
Her blue eyes were as sharp as daggers, a stormy tempest. It was glorious to behold, and despite myself, I smirked.
“Okay, you didn’t tell anyone. Then what could you have possibly done?”
She sucked in air, her voice shaky.
“Will you come with me?”
My entire life was a dreadful mystery, so the tension that coiled in my gut was a familiar companion. I followed her down the hall, past the theatre, into my office of all places. Was this about what she’d found on my computer?
“Laszlo, are you religious?”
She was the woman who made me believe. Not in god, or a heaven, or even a hell, but in her. The only holy thing I’d ever known. If she were my religion, I’d worship her daily. Get down on my knees and pray at the altar of her divinity.
“Why do you ask?”
“You always call me angel…”
I grinned. “I don’t have to believe in god to know you’re heavenly, angel.”
Her soft expression came and went too quickly. She was trying to be serious, and I cleared my throat. “Would it help if I was?”
“Yes, probably.”
Hm. That was unexpected. She stared at my computer screen, watching the python slither across the multiple monitors.
“Will you unlock it for me, please?”
I entered my password without complaint. She settled into my seat, and it took her a few tries to work the mouse. I steadied her hand.
“Do you want to tell me what you’re looking for, Lyn?”
She sucked in a deep breath, afraid she was going to get in trouble. Probably not porn, then. What had she found? It was my private drive, everything dealing with finances or the business encrypted and partitioned away. The only thing I didn’t fully secure was…
Fuck.
She double clicked.
Lilien’s folder opened. The photos of the mansion, the mine that ran beneath it, the tunnels, the ritual room. She scrolled down until she found a particular one, but her choice was strange.
She opened a photo of a stone pillar, the one in the centre of the ritual room.
“Do you know what this means?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know that it meant anything. The carving was crude, circular symbols that reminded me of some of the tattoos that they marked into my skin. I had covered them, now, but could feel them itching.
“Are they Christian symbols?”
“No, it’s a language. Ancient Greek. One of the dialects, anyway. It probably predates Christ by a few centuries.”
“A language?” I gripped the desk. “You can read it?”
“Yes. We had scripture written in the same lettering. I don’t know enough to speak it, but I can translate.”
Holy fuck.
I had spent a decade looking for leads, some clue as to what the Bratva was doing in that place. Why they had a dark shrine in the belly of a mansion on the outskirts of Newburyport. Why they took children down there and tortured them, broke their bodies and minds.
I was the sole survivor out of the thirteen.
I had wondered about it for seventeen years. She took one look at those photos and saw something I’d never considered. The symbols weren’t random at all.
“You are full of surprises, Lyn.”
Why wasn’t she telling me what it said? Why was she staring at me with all that suspicion?
I turned to her, my head cocking to the side.
“This first word means arise, or get up. It’s usually referring to an instruction, like ‘Get up and stand.’ That’s not the scary part.”
I grit my teeth, waiting, my breath held in my throat. The sugar from the pancake I forced myself to eat churned in my guts.
“This is the word for the lower regions.”
My brows tensed, jaw locked.
“Lower regions? Like… genitals?” I guessed.
She paled, shaking her head. She didn’t want to say it, and I knelt down at her side.
“Lyn, I’m not mad that you went looking. I don’t blame you at all. You have had every single reason not to trust me, and to try to find out more about who I was. I’m glad you told me about this.” She didn’t soften under my reassurance. She swallowed down a knot in her throat.
“Laszlo, the second word is Hades. Hell. The carving is calling for Hell to rise.”
I faltered.
What?
“No, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would the Bratva have a secret occult shrine dedicated to raising hell? My sister and I were tortured next to that pillar.”
Her mouth parted in shock, her blue eyes wide, and then she embraced me.
I held her into my chest, kissing the crown of her head.
“The mansion is under repair. Lyn, if there’s anything else you could tell me about what you see in those pictures, it could save more kids from being raped and abused there. ”
I spoke the words I dared never even think before. My heart squeezed in my chest, terror chilling me to the marrow. I couldn’t believe I said that I had been raped out loud. I trusted her with something I couldn’t even trust my own mind with.
“I’m sorry, Laszlo. I didn’t know. I’m…” She struggled for the words, grappling with the enormity of the revelation. She didn’t look disgusted, repulsed by me as if I had a catching disease. In her expression was empathy and awe. She held me, kissed my throat.
And instead of sorrow, I felt a well of something build up in me. Unfamiliar. Warm.
Hope.
That together, we could really do this. What I thought I’d have to do alone for all these years. I kissed her forehead, then kissed her tears away.
“My sweet angel. Now you understand why I need to do this.”
“Because they…” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “raped you… and killed your sister.”
“Not just me. Not just her. There were eleven other children with us.”
“It makes sense there’d be thirteen.”
“Why would that make sense?”
“In the bible, the number thirteen ties into disobedience and rebellion.”
“Does that mean I’m evil?” It bothered me to have her think that of me. Her opinion was the only thing that mattered.
“Rebellion isn’t always evil. Sometimes it could be the path to divine judgment.”
I sat her back into the chair, and I swivelled it so that I was between her bare legs, kneeling before my Goddess.
Tomorrow I would get my stars, indicating I’d bow to no one.
But I would always bow to her.
And in a few hours, I would marry her.
“Well Lyn… I’ve been granted a promotion. This is the next step towards retribution. What do you think? Want to be the avenging angel at my side?”
She leaned down, her lips pressing to my forehead.
“We were brought together for a purpose my, ah, serebryanyye glaza.”
I hadn’t even begun her Russian lessons, but I’d downloaded an app for her, and hearing her speak my mother tongue, call me her silver eyes…
I stared up at her, my hands on her legs, the golden light spilling in and illuminating her, and I knew.
She would be the thing that saves me from myself.