46. Octavia
My legs are numb.
Each breath burns.
In.
Hold.
Release.
Steps creak across the wood of Dad’s office. Then a soft blanket is draped over my shoulders, and a cool glass finds my hand. I bring it to my lips and tip the contents onto my tongue. The burning heat makes me choke.
“Vodka. From my favorite stash,” Dad says, settling onto the couch with a drink of his own. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” I say, taking another small sip. The liquor streams down my throat like a lit match, heating my blood from the inside out.
I like it.
It chases the cold.
A pained sigh rumbles. “You don’t need to be fine, love. Not with me, anyway.”
I curl up tighter on the sofa. “He’s just a man.”
Lie.
Vasiliy is many things, but that short, silly word could never encompass them all. I’m not even convinced he’s human.
He’s the coat that wraps my shoulders on a cold night. He’s the playful trill of laughter that lightens up the dullest of rooms. He’s the bloody, restless organ that pumps in my chest. And now he’s another thing entirely: on a plane, thousands of miles away.
I know I was the one who told him he could go, but I didn’t expect him to actually leave.
To leave me. When the soldiers rushed us in from the garden and bolted the doors before Vas returned, I knew something was very wrong.
Dad explained the bounty and the threats.
He even tried to pretend he was the one to make him go, but I saw through that fallacy immediately.
You’d have to be a truly horrible person not to understand his actions.
I’m not allowed to be so angry.
But we could’ve found another way. I know it in my heart. I told him we could run. He trained me to withstand threats just like this one. If he had only included me, confided in me…
“Listen, daughter,” Dad says, resting a hand on my bouncing knee. “You and me? We’re made from stubborn stock. We don’t care to admit weakness. But I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to think of that boy as a weakness.”
“You never even liked him,” I mutter against my glass, avoiding his weighted gaze.
“I lost so many years with you. I wasn’t going to enjoy sharing your attention with anyone, let alone some Morozov soldier with a smart mouth and a violent track record.”
A soft chuckle leaves my throat at the description, surprising me.
“But you chose him. Chose him,” he repeats, enunciating each word. “You can’t buy that kind of loyalty in our world. Most people will never experience it.”
Maybe I wish I didn’t have to experience it.
I know the thought is prideful bullshit the second it drifts through my mind. I would choose him a million times over.
Even if he had to leave me every fucking time.
A warm hand tilts my chin. “No matter what last name you use, you, my dear, are a Siderov. And Siderovs never back down.” Dad leans forward, tracing the scar on my cheek.
I hold still beneath the prickling touch.
“Sometimes, we bend to withstand the storm, but we never snap. When the clouds clear, we stand tall and continue on. It’s what we do. ”
His words remind me of something Vasiliy told me once. I had been self-conscious and impatient with the painful process of improvement when he set me straight.
You are building. Rolling vital anchor stones across the field in boiling summer heat. Come winter, those stones will support the cabin that keeps us warm.
I smile to myself. It sure is storming now.
I’ve turned to Dad with a question when the door to his office bursts open.
“Ilya,” Dad shouts, rising to his feet.
The man who stumbles through doesn’t belong to my personal guard. He’s in his mid-forties and has run security for the family for years. If you ever need help, turn to him, Dad said when I first came here. Nothing will faze him.
He seems pretty damn fazed. His knuckles pale around the tight grip on his gun. It’s only when his mouth pops open that I understand why.
“One of the safeguards has been triggered—”
“Which one?” Dad interrupts. I climb to my feet at his alarm.
“Level two.”
Level one: perimeter breach.
Level two: interior breach.
We fall silent.
Dad mutters something to the man as I wander to the window. The sun is setting over the bushy trees on the edge of the property, painting the grounds in an array of oranges. The metal gates glitter in the distance, with one particular deviation from the norm.
They’re unmanned.
I’m still perched at the window, trying to comprehend the sight, when the glass shatters. I jump back, heart in my throat. Shards glint across the hardwood floor.
Dmitri and Stoya, my personal units, fly into the room at the sound. Dad’s already shuffling me away from the jagged window frame.
“We need to get to the saferoom. Now.”
One of his hands finds my back, and the other palms the gun in his belt. My own weapon is locked upstairs in the safe beside my bed, and I suddenly feel like an idiot for leaving it behind.
Dmitri says something into his patchy radio, and ten more soldiers run into the office.
“Wait! Where are the others?” I stammer as the men close ranks and begin edging me toward the door.
It’s been hours since I’ve seen one of my cousins, but I know they’re somewhere in the compound.
Nik never said where he was storming off to, and Juliet!
Could Aunt Juliet have returned to her garden?
“They’ll meet us there. They know the drill,” Dad says sternly, taking the lead.
I don’t understand.
Vasiliy is long gone by now. We complied with his uncle’s ultimatum to the letter.
“Do you think these are the mercenaries?” I ask softly, a tremor working its way down my arms.
“Unlikely. Your bounty was removed from the site a while ago.”
His response might be methodical, but there’s a wild look in his eye that sets me ill at ease. This is all wrong.
“Come, Ms. Siderov,” Dmitri says, a hand pressing the base of my spine. I follow, naked as can be, save for the blade pin in my hair that Vasiliy gifted me this morning. That feels like years ago.
I stop moving forward. “Arm me.”
Dmitri reaches into his thigh holster to procure a pistol and his spare magazine. I take both, looking back toward that broken window by the desk. There are no surrounding buildings for snipers to hide in. The shot must’ve come from the treeline.
I check the chamber, noting Dad’s lingering attention.
“Where to?” I ask.
“Saferoom’s on the third floor. We’ll take the service staircase up—less exposure that way.”
We clear each of the four rooms on the way to the service steps in the same practiced motions. Dmitri and another soldier go in first with their sights raised. Lights stay off. Steps keep quiet. When we reach the stairs, an unearned breath of relief flows from my lungs.
I’m used to feeling invincible with Vasiliy at my side.
I grew so accustomed to the privilege that I forgot what it’s like to be bare and exposed.
Thanks to him, I’m a decent fighter and a good shot, but there was something about knowing he was a step away, ready to defend me against any foe, that let me walk a little straighter.
My fear has no use in this situation. I press it further down.
I’ve never taken the service steps before. All fifteen of us flood into the dark space, bodies pressed together and guns raised. We’ve made it halfway to the third-floor landing when Dad raises a closed fist. His fingers sweep through the air, signaling for Dmitri and the other two at the front.
The blond man raises his weapon and edges further up the steps. I’m reminded of him in the fight weeks ago. He was a different beast, back there. No methodical movements, only instinctual hits and vicious advances. I wonder how he reconciles the two halves—the brutal boxer and the silent guard.
“Clear,” he says quietly.
We start moving again, one step at a time. The distance between floors has never felt so large. Elbows dig into my ribs on either side. The Siderov compound is not supposed to be silent. There are far too many moving bodies and independent objectives. It’s more of an outpost than a house.
I’ve shifted towards the front of the group when I smell it. Blood. Gunpowder.
Dmitri pushes me back down without turning. I wait anxiously as he takes one step up, and then another…
Pop.
His head snaps back.
I gasp, lurching to avoid his falling form. No one tries to catch him. When he finally lands on the steps, there’s a red dot in the middle of his temple that blooms like a drop of ink. His eyes gaze up at mine, unseeing.
Movement rustles. A masked man appears at the top of the steps, face covered in a black balaclava just like the attackers at the safehouse. His gun lifts. My skin goes cold.
Shots crack through the air, and arms tug me sideways.
“Free up a path! Go! Move!” Dad’s voice thunders beneath the gunfire. The masked man drops, but I can see more shadows slipping around the corner to send shots at our group.
We need to get out of this staircase.
I can’t think. Everyone is pressed too close. I follow in a daze as we gain ground. The landing is now clear, but outside the door to the third-floor hall, so many forms move that it’s hard to count them all.
Dad stays close. Probably because my guards are nowhere to be found.
That’s not exactly true.
I look back at the steps, taking in the blond hair splayed across the stone. He looked so large in that fighting ring. So unbreakable.
Suddenly, three masked men step out from the wall they’re using as shelter, advancing into the door to the service staircase.
Shots bloom. Before I can duck, Dad slams me against the stone, covering my body with his.
We both grunt from the impact, but he manages to turn and send out a collection of level shots.
The men cry out and collapse to the floor.
“You okay?” he chokes out, patting down my arms and torso.
I nod. There are more of them. They hide in the hall, bending around the corner just long enough to fire into our stairwell and duck away. Dmitri isn’t the only one on the floor. Our group has dwindled, and I punish myself by counting. Eight. There are eight of us left.
Labored breaths meet my ear, and I can’t even tell if they belong to me.
“Pakhan,” one of ours says from behind. “I think they…”
He never finishes the warning. The crackle of bullets cut him off. To my horror, they don’t come from the direction of the third-floor hall.
“Shit,” Dad hisses, turning and directing orders to our shrinking group.
We’re surrounded.
The realization settles with a cool terror.
I glance up while Dad’s turned.
Just in time to stare down the barrel of a gun. I raise my own on instinct and squeeze the trigger. It’s a small miracle I manage my shot before he sends his. The man jerks back, dead on impact.
“We’ll take the hall,” Dad says with a shaky breath. “You guys watch the steps. They’re trying to box us in.”
I nod, turning to the dark curve we ascended from. I don’t allow myself to count our survivors again. I don’t need to. Our count is dwindling. We are losing…
Not helpful, Octavia.
Movement bursts into the steps, and I fire.
Dad keeps shooting behind me. The air turns smoky, and groans fill the space between bullets. Blood splatters against my cheek, and I break my no more counting rule.
Another man down.
Three.
Only three of us remain. Dad. Me. One other.
My gun stalls, and I hear Dad coughing from the smoke. His shots are slowing. How many could have made it up to the third floor since the alarm was triggered?
This isn’t an attack.
This is an execution.
I drop to my knees. With desperation, I crawl to the nearest body, still warm and wet on the stone landing.
I don’t look at his face when I take the gun from his hand, tugging it free from lifeless fingers.
He has another in his back holster, and I grab that one too, wedging it into the belt of my pants.
Before I can climb to my feet, two more masked men appear at the base of the steps. I point. Duck. Fire again.
Two of my bullets go wide, and the shooters dive back around the corner for cover.
My back presses against the wall, waiting for them to return. I know they’re there, but everything has gone quiet.
Far too quiet.
The only sound is those thick, tired breaths from before.
Dad cleared the other side, I realize, not daring to turn away from the looming threat. It’s just him and me. Our third is gone, spread across the floor in a direction I refuse to look in.
When the sound of gunfire rises from the floor below, I have to choke down my sob. Hopeless. Dad may have cleared the third floor, but more are on their way. We can’t take them all ourselves. We’re done for…
“Octavia!”
I choke at the familiar voice.
“Octavia! Where are you?”
“Here,” I cry, rising to my feet. “We’re up here!”
I lean back against the stone, tasting blood in each breath, the same way I would after finishing an exhausting show in a faraway life. My mouth splits into a victorious smile.
After another round of shots, Alex appears on the staircase like a desert mirage. He’s not alone. Soldiers ascend the steps with him. Our soldiers. Alive. Armed. This time I do release my sob.
“Dad, it’s Alex,” I say, turning toward his post at the hall entrance. “We’re good, we—”
Those labored breaths fill my ears once more.
Thicker.
Raspier.
When I look down, I finally understand why they sounded so close. Because, collapsed against the wall, still angled in front of me, is my father.