Chapter Five
In which no one instills crushing guilt better than a sister-in-law.
Alexsey…
"Chort voz'mi! What happened here?"
I open my blurry eyes and squint. Roman is standing there, his expression thunderous. "You destroyed your paintings? What the fuck?"
He runs his hands through his hair, walking over to look at the shattered canvases.
"Brother, these were your life's work. Why would you –" He turns to me, trying to suppress the sorrow he's radiating from every pore in his body.
"I won't give you the bullshit, 'Everything is going to turn out fine' speech,” he says heavily.
"We are Bratva. We know that's not often true.
But to destroy the things that matter most… " He shakes his head.
I'm still silent. He waits for me to say something, and I push myself up on the couch. I passed out there last night after drinking a bottle of vodka, which every screaming cell in my body is now regretting.
Roman takes off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves, and crouches to pick up the shattered canvas of Ava and Lev. "Maybe there's a way to repair this…" he says quietly.
Standing up unsteadily, I grip the back of the couch for a minute until the room stops spinning. "There's no repairing this, Roman," I chuckle harshly. "This is what I am."
He lets out a breath, hands gripping the canvas for a minute. "Why didn't you go take a shower? The stench of vodka coming off you is making my eyes water. Maybe shave, so you don't look like one of those mountain men who buries weapons in his front yard."
"Is this the tough love portion of our morning?" I ask. Checking the light coming in the windows, I rub my face. "The tough love portion of our afternoon, I see."
"Yeah, you're going to have a couple hundred texts and messages," he says. "Seriously, man. Take a shower."
Staggering up the stairs, I look at myself in the master bathroom mirror. Yeah, I look like hammered shit.
Awkwardly slipping on the waterproof sleeve the doctor designed for my stump, I get into the shower and let the water cascade over me, my forehead pressed against the tile, watching the water swirling down the drain. Like my life.
Pulling on a pair of underwear and sweats with my right hand wasn't bad, but then I picked up my razor.
I haven't slightest fucking idea how to shave right-handed. Carefully, I touch the razor to my cheek and pull it down.
"Fuck!"
A jagged line of blood instantly wells up and I slap a handful of tissues against my cheek, bracing myself against the sink. Footsteps pound up the stairs Roman races into the room
"I heard something, are you okay?" He eyes my face and grimaces.
"Shit, it's like when we were learning to shave when we were fourteen and got those first chin whiskers, huh?
" He grins insolently, picking up the bloody razor, rinsing it and putting it back in the drawer.
"As I recall, you were shit at it then too.
" A little blood trickles down my arm from the cut on my cheek, and I watch its path over my bicep.
Leaning next to me on the counter, Roman stares at me thoughtfully. "You did, however, learn to shave," he says. "I remember that you had it mastered by the time I still had bloody bits of toilet paper stuck to my face."
"It's not just the fucking razor." My voice sounds rusty.
"Yeah, I know," he says, pulling out a couple more tissues and handing them to me.
"I could give you the 'you've done hard things before' speech, but I'm pretty sure you'd shoot me in the face.
" He chuckles heartlessly. "With your shit right-hand aim, you would probably be going for my chest, but end up shooting me in the face but the important thing here is… "
He looks at me, no pity. There's some grief mixed in his green eyes. Rage. And determination. "You have to live," he says, a grin stretching across his face to feral proportions. "There's so many things to live for. One in particular."
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury," I say. "Marcus Aurelius said that. He was a fucking idiot."
***
The next two weeks aren't any better. I keep walking into the left side of the goddamn doorway of the downstairs bathroom until I figure out how to angle my body away from it.
"Your vestibular and proprioceptive senses have been altered," Dr. Peterson says. "Yoga is a good way to rebuild some of those muscles."
"Yeah," I mumble. "Though I've found blowing up a building is just as good, because you really have to get the sense of space to place that C4 just right." I'm mildly disappointed that he doesn't look shocked by my observation.
With her typical diligence and ferocity for anything regarding the well-being of her children, Mother has tracked down who she calls a 'phenomenal' physical therapist to help me get acclimated.
"You're going to like him," she says happily.
"He's on the research team for this new neurotransmitter device that Dr. Peterson wants to use with your prosthetic.
His name is Seok Choi, he lost both legs in a farming accident in South Korea and he built his first prosthetics out of home equipment.
He doesn't tolerate fools, and he's as cranky as you are, so you two should get along extremely well. "
I miss my first appointment.
Letting Mother think that she can bulldoze me into making everything 'all right again' with an earnest application of physical therapy is a waste of time. And I ignore the second one, avoiding calls from Dmitri and Roman, asking me to pull my head out of my ass. Then, they bring out the big guns.
Ava.
Her voicemail is gentler. "Alexsey, I know life is shit right now. You know I know what that feels like."
I flinch, a tiny thread of guilt working its way through my heart. Ava had been caught up in a human trafficking ring and had suffered unimaginable torment before Dmitri rescued her.
"I'm not saying that to make you feel guilty," she continues, clearly reading my mind. "I'm saying you would've wanted me to get better then, right? Well, I want the same thing for you."
My first look at Choi is not promising.
He's smoking, crouching gracefully on an equipment chest. A plume of grey smoke puffs out the corner of his mouth and through the open window.
His sharp eyes glance over at me and based on his expression, he's unimpressed.
Expertly pinching out the cigarette, he hops down from the chest. Choi's got skin like a battered leather couch, though I'm guessing he's in his fifties.
"You missed two appointments. I already don't like you."
"Okay, that's it." I turn around heading for the door, and Violet and Ava grab onto my arms. My brothers - being manipulative pricks - knew exactly what they were doing when they sent their wives out to do their dirty work.
Because there's no way I'd hit the girls.
However, I have no problem with throat-punching Roman or Dmitri later.
"No, no!" Violet says, stepping in front of me and looking up at me pleadingly. "You promised you'd try!"
"Do you know, you're wearing the exact expression your sisters use when they're trying to dupe me into doing something?" I ask, unimpressed. Her pleading expression melts into a frown, but she stays put.
"You have to do this! You promised. Five sessions, that's all. If you still want to set the physical therapy room - and by extension us - on fire at the end of five sessions, I won't say a word. I'll even throw my new Hermes handbag onto the pyre." Her face falls a little. "I really love that bag."
"Yeah, it is beautiful," Ava commiserates.
She gives me her best "I'm a medical professional and you're not," expression.
"I'm not telling you anything Dr. Peterson hasn't, but this is your peak opportunity for rehabbing the muscles and the nerves.
What you do now can solidify into vastly improved mobility later.
I don't care if you're doing it to humor us, or to make us shut up. You just have to do it."
"Do my brothers know they married pit vipers?" I ask. Neither of them looks guilty.
"Who do you think made us this way?" Violet retorts.
With a sigh, I turn around again. Choi is leaning against the chest, watching me. He's short, but he's got muscle. He's wearing a tank top and a series of crisscrossed scars march up one arm to his neck.
"So, what did you get caught up in?" I ask. "Like, a thresher? I'm trying to remember my farm equipment here."
He should punch me for that, but he doesn't. "I wasted my smoke for this? Do you want me to start with the excruciating agony when the blade sliced through my femur or can we do warm-ups first?”
I raise an approving brow. “Well, okay then.” I hear the door closing as the girls slip away and Choi picks up an iPad, running through my records.
"Eleven high caliber bullets plowed through your left arm and your shoulder." His thumb moves, scrolling down the medical data. "Hm. Good. You still have some nerves and tendons to work with." He looks up at me, "You can do better than a hook, I believe."
I snort, "You've been talking to Dr. Peterson."
"He's worried." Rapidly scanning the rest of the report, he gives a grunt and focuses on me again. "Dr. Peterson likes you, I cannot imagine why. He would do anything for your mother. I, however, will not. You come back with that sullen expression; I will punch it off your face."
This motherfucker.
Grabbing a weight bar, I send it spinning at him. A direct hit should flatten his nose. He leans easily to one side, as if gravity is no longer an issue for him.
"Your aim was off." He continues as if I'd not just tried to brain him with a thirty-pound weight. "Pity that you are not ambidextrous, but it was not a bad throw. This means we have something to work with on your right hand." Snatching up a therapy ball, he hurls it at me.
The red ball is speeding toward me and I take a clumsy step to the right, getting under it and batting it away.
"You will be catching it by your second session," he says.
The room smells new; shiny equipment purchased at great expense. I can smell the fresh paint and lacquer they put on the wooden floors. New energy.
"You will never be who you were." He walks closer, still eyeing me disapprovingly.
"But you can be something better. My family waited for me to die after the accident.
What good was a legless farmer? Had I never lost my legs, I would still be plowing fields in Jeonju.
You will find hidden skills. Are you too weak to try, or should we begin? "
This short Korean man stares me down. I can feel sweat gathering on my forehead.
"Five sessions," I snap. "Only because I keep my word."