Chapter 5
FIVE
IGOR
THE PAST
Two years later
Julian, 17 years-old. Igor, 19 years-old.
My fists ache as I go against the bag like my life depends on it.
Pain reverberates along the bones in my fingers all the way up to my wrists, elbows and shoulders.
It’s a pain I know well. I’ve trained every day for the past two years and some months.
Often with that same weight caressing down my back like it does now.
It’s not subtle.
“You’re being creepy again,” I tell the boy who’s leaning nonchalantly against a beam of concrete.
He gives me a lazy smile I see at the edges of my vision. I don’t turn my head fully. Nothing good comes from staring into Julian Bartoli’s eyes.
“It’s all that sweat, all that strength. Igor, if you don’t want me to check you out constantly, put on a tee-shirt. At this point, I know you’re only half-naked to torture me.”
His voice is suggestive, low and just a little whiny. If my knuckles aren’t already white with how tight my fists are, they certainly are now.
Lana groans next to him. “Leave him alone, Jules. He’s already rejected your ass so many times. At this point, I think you’re a masochist.”
She steps onto the mat. I stop my workout and wait while she wraps her knuckles before we start our session. She’s a strong fight partner and ideal for today. I don’t feel like sparring at half-mast. Again.
“She’s right,” Jules whispers close to my ear as he passes by me to join our training instructor. Our eyes collide and I get lost in the baby blues. He winks. It takes everything in me not to crush my molars together.
I shake my head and join Lana.
Julian has had a crush on me for two years. I suspect since the very first night we met. And he’s never shied away from telling me. It’s all been innocent, if not a little annoying.
I kept my distance. It’s only recently that I… I started seeing him differently. My reaction to him, these new sensations and feelings, they confuse me. He’s too young—though his birthday is in two weeks. He’s too rash. Too pretty.
And he’s a man.
I’ve seen men together before. It’s not forbidden on Kalliste. Not frowned upon like it is in Russia. It took me a long time to not sneer or have that knee-jerk reaction to ask them to stop. Now, in the secret part of me I tell no one about, I just envy them. Their freedom to love who they want.
“What’s up with you today?” Lana asks when my eyes are still closed, trying to fight the image of Julian and I holding hands.
It’s innocent enough, but I know my own mind.
It’s just a start. When these images take shape, it’s always with him, never anyone else.
I try to imagine a woman instead, but I know now I’m not interested in women.
Not that I am into men, either. Just Julian, for a reason that I don’t understand.
“Nothing.”
My head doesn’t move but my eyes do though. And of course she doesn’t miss a thing. She never does. She follows my gaze to Julian, who’s already in a headlock and down on the floor. He’s so impulsive.
“I see,” she drawls.
“Nothing to see.”
“Sure.”
She shrugs but her smirk says what her words don’t. I blush. Better my friend catches me than him.
Lana and I have grown close over the past two years.
While Julian lives down by the harbour with his parents, I still have that same bedroom at the Moretti mansion, eating and living as if I were a sibling to Lana and her sisters.
And she’s just as annoying as a younger sister would be, I imagine, teasing me incessantly.
Misha would have never done something like that. He was always serious.
It’s rare that I think of him or my dad. I’ve stopped hoping they would rescue me. When I finally got a hold of the language a few months ago, I asked Mr Moretti for news of them. His jaw worked but he answered.
“They’re both alive, but I have to warn you, Igor. They will not be claiming you before your tenure ends. The Pakhan forbade you to come back. It would dishonour him if you were to step foot in Russia before the end of your… time here. You’d be killed on sight.”
I gulped, and nodded. By that point, I had been with the Morettis for just over a year, and something niggled me. I knew the Morettis valued honesty so I showed my employer the respect he gave me and asked the question I couldn’t let go of.
“Sir, can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Igor.”
“Why am I not being punished?”
He reclined in his chair, looking at me with what I thought was pity at the time but later understood was concern. “You’re a kid.”
I bristled at that. “What I mean, Igor, is that I won’t fault you for the sins of your father.
You didn’t kill someone I cared about. You’re collateral damage to vile people who don’t value your life” he explained, incensed on my behalf.
“I have no hatred towards you. None of us do. Because we know who was really responsible that night. And I will tell you now, with your father’s reputation and what I heard from my contacts in Russia, I’m glad at least one of his sons escaped his clutches.
One less trained soldier is one less enemy I have to watch. ”
“So you’re not only raising me because you have a heart of gold?”
His smile was wicked. “Loyalty isn’t always bought with violence, Igor.
But rest assured that I’m not manipulating you.
You live with us because I saw your kindness before I saw your fear.
Because I saw a child barely older than my daughters.
If after your ten years of service, you decide to wage war against us, it’ll be my failing not yours. ”
I left his office more confused about my contradicting feelings, missing my brother and resenting his absence, but also glad I didn’t have to fight for survival every waking day.
It’s not like life here is hard. Sometimes, I find it difficult to be so…
happy. While I know my brother must not be.
Those days I train harder, making sure when it’s time for me to go back to Russia, I’ll be strong enough for him.
The Morettis have more than earned my loyalty but my brother will always come first.
“You’re distracted,” Lana says as she lands a hit on my jaw and pain radiates into my brain. For a tiny girl, she sure knows how to hit. “Don’t make me go for the nose, Igor.”
Her taunt is all I need to finally focus my attention on her.
I give her a predatory smile, and wipe the floor with her ass.
I’m still two years older than her and two hundred and thirty pounds.
She gives a good fight, though. That’s why our trainer pairs us together.
I give her a challenge. No one else dares to hit the daughter of Pietro Moretti.
While our trainer takes Julian and Lana apart to correct some of their defensive stances, I rush to the locker room and shower quickly. I just finished wrapping a towel around my waist when Julian boasts inside.
“Damn, I missed my favourite show.” He pouts before giving me a dazzling smile. The dimples on both his cheeks mock me, accentuating his boyish charm.
“Your own podcast? You sure like the sound of your own voice.”
Scratch the previous dazzling smile. That grin on his face now? Breath-taking. All I can do is stare.
“If you flirt back, I’ll fall in love with you,” he says with just a hint of truth to put some sense back into me.
I roll my eyes and take my clothes to change into one of the closed cubicles, resisting punching his shoulder. Even that small point of contact would be too much for me to bear. The sound of his chuckle follows after me.
Once clothed, I join Lana in front of the boxing club, scanning the street for danger as I usually do. Her driver is absent.
“I sent him home ahead of us,” she says. “I thought we could walk.”
When Lana wants to walk, she wants to talk. When she wants to talk, she asks questions.
I sigh and start walking uphill. “Let’s go, kotik. I don’t want to miss Mammona’s dinner.”
“You’re always thinking about food.”
She would be, too, if she had ever known hunger.
I’m glad she doesn’t. For two years, I’ve never had to wonder when my next meal would be but some habits die hard.
I have a tendency to ask for multiple servings of any meal Lana’s grandmother prepares for our clan.
It shows on my body, but I don’t really care.
The extra weight helps to build more strength.
“So,” Lana starts, then pauses. “Julian, uh?”
“Julian, nothing. I’m nineteen. He’s underage.”
“He’s turning eighteen in two weeks. You’re only twenty months older than he is.”
“It’s not about his age,” I retort and stride faster.
There’s no escaping her. She’s like a dog with a bone when she wants to know something. Her father hasn’t taught her any interrogation techniques like he did with me, but at this rate, he won’t have to.
“You brought it up. I just said his name.”
A sound escapes me. Frustration, I think. She’s right. “Leave it, kotik.”
“But he likes you, and—.”
I stop and catch her eye.“And nothing. I’m not permanent, remember?”
Her face contorts with pain. I swallow around shards of glass that suddenly appeared in my throat, and shake my head.
I want to tell her that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for hurting her with the truth.
She’s been a good friend to me. Better than I deserve.
My family is responsible for hers losing someone they loved and admired.
Yet, she never faulted me for it. None of them did.
I want to apologise but I don’t know how. My shoulders hunch forward and I drop my eyes. Words are on the tip of my tongue when tires screech on the pavement.
A black car turns the corner and races towards us.
Without license plates.
Two men jump out of the vehicle when they stop in front of us, almost hitting us. Thinking takes the backseat. I react as I was trained. I surge in front of Lana, but I’m too slow.