Chapter Thirty
Aleksei
“Lyosha?”
The diminutive form of my name— the name she used all those years ago— pours into a hollowness deep in my chest. Her eyes are huge, hand rising to cover her mouth. Time stretches, elastic and surreal, as recognition dawns across her features.
“Is it really you?” she whispers through trembling fingers.
Words fail me. I manage a single nod, my throat constricted by emotions I’ve spent decades burying. Years of carefully constructed control crumbles in an instant.
She takes a half-step forward, then stops, as if afraid I might disappear. Her eyes scan my face with desperate intensity, taking in the changes time has wrought. The boy she knew transformed into a man she doesn’t recognize, yet somehow knows to her core.
“ Moy syn, ” she breathes. “ Moy Lyosha. ”
Something breaks inside me— a dam holding back too many years of grief. I feel wetness on my cheeks before I realize I’m crying. Silent tears that I haven’t allowed since the day she vanished.
“ Mama, ” I choke out, my voice broken.
Her own tears spill freely now, tracking down cheeks hollowed by years of living in this fucking hellhole. For a moment, we stand frozen in mutual disbelief, separated by less than a foot of physical space and an ocean of lost time.
Then she moves.
With surprising speed for her age, she closes the distance between us. Her arms— thinner than I remember but stronger than they appear— wrap around my waist. Her face presses against my chest, her body shaking with sobs that seem torn from the depths of her being.
“My boy,” she cries, the words muffled against my shirt. “My beautiful boy.”
My arms encircle her automatically, carefully, as if she might break under too much pressure. She feels smaller than in my memories— or perhaps I’ve simply grown into the man she always said I would become. Her head barely reaches my shoulder now, when once she seemed to tower over me.
I hold her as she weeps, my own tears falling silently into her gray-streaked hair.
The scent of her— flour and cooking spices layered over coarse, institutional soap— triggers a flood of memories so vivid they steal my breath.
Sunday mornings making blini . Her hands bandaging scraped knees.
Her voice singing lullabies to usher in sleep.
Mama.
We stand locked together while the world continues around us— distant footsteps, the clatter of kitchen preparations, the mechanical hum of the building. None of it matters. Nothing exists beyond this impossible moment of reunion.
Eventually, her sobs quiet. She pulls back slightly, looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes full of wonder. One trembling hand rises to touch my face, fingers tracing the line of my jaw, the arch of my brow.
“Look at you,” she whispers. “A man. My little boy is a man.”
She guides me to a nearby table, her hand gripping mine as if afraid I might vanish. We sit facing each other, neither speaking for long moments. Words seem inadequate, trivial against the weight of so many years of absence.
I study her as she studies me. The Maria of my memory was vibrant, her movements quick and graceful despite the shadow of my father’s abuse.
This woman before me moves with the careful precision of someone who has learned to navigate a world of strict limitations.
Her beauty remains, but transformed— softened by age, tempered by hardship, deepened by survival.
“Twenty years is a long time, son,” she says finally, her voice steadier now. “Tell me about your life. Tell me everything.”
How do I compress two decades into words? How do I explain the Bratva, the empire built on blood and fear? How do I tell my gentle mother that her son became the very thing she once protected him from— a man whose rage shapes the world around him?
“I live in America now,” I begin carefully. “California. I have… business interests there.”
Something in her eyes tells me she understands the deliberate vagueness, but she doesn’t press. Instead, she squeezes my hand. “And Diana? Vasya?”
“Diana lives near me. She’s an architect now— designs beautiful buildings.” I feel my lips curve in a rare genuine smile. “She still plays piano, just like you taught her.”
Mother’s eyes fill with fresh tears. “She had such talent. Even as a little girl.”
“Vasya runs the technical side of my business. He’s the same— brilliant with computers, awkward with people.”
She laughs softly, the sound so achingly familiar it sends a fresh wave of grief through me. All those years of missing that laugh. Of wondering where she was buried, how she died.
“And you?” she asks. “Are you married? Children?”
The question creates a complicated tangle of emotions. Stella. Polina. Bobik. The family I’ve cobbled together from broken pieces.
“I have… a daughter,” I say, deciding to start with the simplest truth. “Polina. She’s just a couple of weeks old.”
Mama’s face transforms with joy. “A granddaughter? I have a granddaughter?”
“She has your eyes,” I tell her. “And your smile, I think.”
She presses a hand to her heart, as if physically containing her emotion. “And her mother?”
“Stella. It’s… complicated.” I’m not ready to explain that relationship— the revenge that became love, the secrets and revelations still fresh between us.
Mother nods, accepting the boundary. “Life usually is.” She looks down at our clasped hands, then back to my face.
“I have a confession, Lyosha. In my darkest times here, I wasn’t sure I would ever see you again.
But I never stopped hoping. Every night, I would talk to you and Diana in my mind, telling you about my day, asking about yours. ”
The simple statement breaks something open inside me. I imagine her lying on a bare bunk, whispering into the darkness, keeping her children alive in the only way available to her.
“How did you survive this place?” I ask, gesturing to our surroundings.
She is quiet for a moment, her expression distant. “Not well, at first. I fought. I screamed your names until my voice gave out. I tried to escape three times.” She smiles faintly. “The third time, they put me in isolation for six months.”
I tighten my grip on her hand, rage building toward my father, toward this institution, toward a system that could swallow a woman whole.
“After that, I found God,” she continues.
“Not the God of cathedrals and icons, but something quieter. Something that helped me accept what I couldn’t change.
” She touches the small Orthodox cross hanging at her neck.
“Then I found cooking.” She smiles, and her face transforms. “The kitchen became my sanctuary. My small kingdom where I had some control.”
“Father told me you were dead,” I say, the words coming out roughly. “All this time, I believed he’d killed you.”
Pain flashes across her features. “Rodion always was a coward. Easier to have you think me dead than admit what he’d done.”
“Why?” The question that’s burned inside me since learning she was alive. “Why did he put you here?”
She withdraws her hand from mine, folding both in her lap. “That’s a longer conversation, Lyosha. One we should have, but not here. Not now.” Her eyes meet mine, steady despite the tears still clinging to her lashes. “How did you find me? After all this time?”
“That’s not important now,” I tell her, not wanting to ruin this moment by bringing up the bastard’s name who sent her here. “What matters is that I’ve found you. I heard you were alive and I found you.”
“And you came immediately.”
“I had to see if it was true. If you were really…” I can’t finish the sentence.
She reaches out, touching my face again. “My Lyosha. Always so impulsive when your heart is involved.” The familiar gesture, the gentle teasing in her tone— it’s so perfectly her that I have to close my eyes against a fresh wave of emotion.
“I’m taking you home,” I say when I can speak again. “To America. To your family.”
Something shifts in her expression— hesitation, fear perhaps. “You don’t just leave Vostok, son. This place… it becomes part of you.”
“I don’t care what it takes. Money, connections, threats— I’ll use everything I have.” I lean forward, taking both her hands in mine. “I am not leaving you here. Not for another day.”
She studies me, seeing perhaps more than I want her to— the power I wield, the methods I employ, the man I’ve become in her absence.
“You have influence now.”
“ Da. ”
“The kind your father had?”
The question cuts deep— the implicit comparison to the man I’ve spent my life trying not to become.
“Different,” I say finally. “But effective.”
She nods slowly. “There’s much we don’t know about each other anymore. Time creates strangers, even from blood.”
“Then we’ll learn again.” I squeeze her hands gently. “Diana will want to see you. And Bo… Polina— she should know her grandmother.”
At the mention of family, her resolve visibly strengthens. “ Khoroshiy, ” she says, straightening her shoulders. “Family is what matters. Always has been.”
“I’ll speak with Reznikov. Make arrangements.” I don’t elaborate on what those arrangements will entail— the bribes, the threats, the leverage I’ll apply to anyone who stands in my way.
“It won’t be simple,” she warns. “Nothing involving Vostok ever is.”
“I don’t need simple. I just need you free.”
She smiles then— a real smile that changes her face, erasing years of hardship for a brief moment.
“My Lyosha. Still so determined.” She touches the cross at her neck again. “God works in mysterious ways. I prayed for twenty years to see my children again. And here you are.”
“Not God,” I say, unable to share her faith after everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve done. “Just a son who missed his mother.”
She cups my face between her palms, studying me with eyes that see too much. “There is good in you still. I can see it, even behind all you try to hide.”
The observation makes me uncomfortable— too close to places I keep guarded. I stand, still holding one of her hands.
“We should go. I need to speak with Reznikov about your release.”
She rises, but hesitates. “My shift in the kitchen—”
“Doesn’t matter anymore,” I finish firmly. “You’re never cooking in that kitchen again.”
For a moment, I see fear flicker across her features— the institutionalized response to breaking routine, to stepping outside established boundaries. Then determination replaces it. She unties her apron, folding it with deliberate movements before placing it on the table.
“Twenty years,” she says softly. “A lifetime.”
“A lifetime we get back,” I counter, offering my arm.
She takes it, her thin hand resting in the crook of my elbow. As we walk toward the administrative section, her steps grow steadier, her head lifting higher.
Mother and son, separated by decades, reunited by a deathbed confession.
Whatever obstacles lie ahead— bureaucratic, legal, emotional— I will overcome them. I have built an empire, destroyed enemies, protected what’s mine at any cost.
And Maria Tarasova is mine to protect now, too.
As she once protected me.