Chapter Iskra
Iskra
“What do you mean I can’t leave?”
Radovan’s face was unreadable. Arms crossed, body filling the doorway, expression set to the blankness of a man delivering orders he didn’t make and had no intention of discussing.
“What about the garden?”
“I’ll check,” he said, pulling his phone out.
I stared at him while he typed.
The garden. My one square of outside air, my daily perimeter walk, my pretence of freedom—and now even that required clearance from a man who wasn’t in this house.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, and turned back toward my bedroom.
I had stayed in my room for most of the week. Down for food, occasionally the living room, then back again. The walls of the west wing had become as familiar as the walls of my parents’ house—which was to say, a cage I knew the dimensions of.
Having Radovan or Spartak outside my door every minute of every day and night had grown old fast.
Vadim had left me alone since that night at the club. No morning visits. No evening schedule. Just the silence from his end of the floor with an occasional click of his door and the absence of a man who was making a point.
And now I would miss my job interview.
One interview. One small reach toward something that resembled a normal life—a desk, a role, a reason to get dressed that had nothing to do with him or the contract or the function I had been purchased to perform.
Gone.
I fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
The story of my life.
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When the knock came at my door I jerked awake to the same ceiling.
“Go away,” I croaked, my voice thick with sleep.
Another knock.
I sat up and unbuttoned my dress suit jacket. I had fallen asleep in my interview clothes.
Another knock.
“Come in,” I sighed.
The door opened.
To my utter shock, Ruslan walked through.
His hair was cut short—close at the sides, neater than I had ever seen it. Dark jeans, dark top. It made the blonde stand out more than usual. I didn’t have time to assess him properly.
I ran to him and threw my arms around his waist.
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around my back, and for a moment we just stood there in the middle of my borrowed room and held on.
I pulled back to hold his face and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
His wide smile dimmed. I searched his eyes.
“You didn’t—” I stopped. Started again. “Ruslan. Tell me you didn’t join them.”
He patted the top of my head the way he used to when we were small and the roles were reversed and I was the one doing the comforting.
“Do you think we are the masters of our fate in this city?” he asked, with a rueful smile that was too old for his face.
The words landed like a blow. How had he grown so much in a matter of weeks? When had my baby brother become someone who spoke like that—quietly, without bitterness, having already made his peace with something I was still fighting?
He didn’t need my recriminations. He needed his big sister.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the couch.
“Tell me everything,” I said, squeezing his fingers.
As he talked I became aware of the distance between this conversation and every conversation we had ever had before.
Classes. Pass marks. Girls. The ordinary noise of a boy becoming himself.
Now he was telling me about Bratva sites, errands, the people who surrounded him—the infrastructure of a world that had swallowed our father whole and was now digesting him.
My father’s face flashed before me while I smiled and nodded and kept hold of his hand.
How was I any different?
My children—one, two, however many the contract required—were being handed to the head of a criminal organisation.
By me. Through my compliance. Through the signature I had pressed onto that document in the bedroom of my parents’ house while my mother squeezed my hands and told me I would never struggle.
I was my father.
The realisation sat in my chest like a stone.
After catching up over lunch Ruslan began to glance at the clock.
“Do you need to leave?”
He nodded.
“You’re staying in the city?”
“Home for now,” he said, standing up. He looked around the room—the high ceilings, the chandelier, the artwork that had nothing to do with either of us—then nodded toward the doorway where Radovan and Spartak were stationed. “I see you’re well guarded.”
I didn’t miss the fact that both of them were present. Not one. Both. Did they think I would run off with my own brother?
“It’s just a safety precaution,” I said, with a smile that asked him not to push it.
He didn’t need to know about the state of my marriage.
He had enough on his plate. The shestyorka—the sixer, the lowest rank in the hierarchy, the bottom rung of a ladder that only led somewhere worse—was his world now.
Just as he hadn’t told me what was behind the shadows in his eyes, I wouldn’t tell him what was behind mine.
We were both performing fine for each other’s benefit.
I walked him to the door. The byki flanked us at a distance that was technically respectful and practically inescapable.
We kept up our pretence all the way to the goodbye. There was no car waiting for him. He walked down the driveway and then he was gone.
The house was exactly as it had been before he arrived, except heavier somehow.
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Seeing Ruslan again had taken the wind from my sails.
I spent the rest of the afternoon organising my laundry and making use of the balcony.
I may have stolen a few cigarettes from Spartak’s jacket.
The need for fresh air and tobacco in my lungs simultaneously was an oxymoron I was prepared to live with.
My sneaky bad habit from school. Some things survived everything.
At a distance the sky was streaked with orange and a hint of underlying red as the sun began to set.
A beautiful sight I didn’t appreciate often enough.
I sucked on the cigarette and watched the filter paper glow red and turn to ash before blowing out a long slow breath.
A gust of wind made me shiver, lifting the grey ash off the balcony railing and taking it with it.
“Nasty habit.”
I jumped and turned.
Vadim was leaning in the door frame with the particular ease of a man who had been there long enough to observe and had decided to announce himself in his own time.
“I didn’t hear you knock,” I said, moving the cigarette back to my lips.
He reached out and snatched it from my fingers and flicked it over the balcony in one motion.
I watched it arc through the air and disappear.
He didn’t know about the three others stashed in my drawer. I let it go.
“You had a visitor today.”
His face was inscrutable. His eyes stayed on mine.
“You don’t need my brother,” I said, keeping my voice light. “Why don’t you cut him loose?”
“Let’s call him an insurance policy,” he said, crossing his arms.
Understanding arrived all at once. How had I missed it?
The timing of his visit and moving back to Chernograd.
“You’re a nasty bastard,” I said, with a smile that had nothing warm in it.
“Actually,” he said, straightening, “I’m a client with an appointment tonight.” He pushed off the door frame. “Be ready.”
He turned and crossed the bedroom.
The door opened.
The door closed.
I stood on the balcony in the cold and the fading orange light and didn’t move.
Tonight. Another performance.
He hadn’t harmed me, but I couldn’t guarantee the same for my brother.