60. Arsen
60
ARSEN
GEDEON: We’re on the plane. Five minutes to take off.
Succinct and clinical. I make a note to compliment Gedeon on sticking to the need-to-know details. As far as Laila and Nina are concerned, it’s exactly what I’m looking for going forward.
I respond in similar fashion.
ARSEN: Dominik’s out of surgery. He’s going to make it.
I pocket my phone and walk into Dominik’s hospital room. Kira is sitting by his bedside, clutching his hand and whispering to him, even though the doctors have told us repeatedly that he can’t hear a word.
“Kira.”
She keeps hold of Dominik’s hand as she looks at me. Her eyes narrow. “Arsen.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Well, let’s see,” she snaps. “He lost three liters of blood and had to have two transfusions. According to the doctor, he barely escaped complete paralysis. But I suppose he’s breathing. That’s something.”
I ignore the sarcasm, my gaze dropping instead to her protruding belly. “He’s a strong man.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
I take her anger like I took Laila’s punches—as the punishment I deserve. “I never meant for this to happen.”
“And yet it did.” She squeezes Dom’s hand tighter. I’m not sure if it’s for her sake or his. “Dominik is two months away from meeting his son, and you decided this was the best time to take him out on a mission?”
“He could’ve—” I run a hand down my neck. Defending myself while my second is unconscious in a hospital bed is a bad look, even for me. “Does he know you’re having a boy?”
“Of course he knows. He was at every single one of my appointments.”
I hear what she doesn’t say: Unlike another father in this room.
I collapse into the seat on the opposite side of Dominik’s bed. “He never mentioned that, either.”
“Maybe he didn’t think he could.” She’s got a white-knuckled hold on Dom’s hand. That grip could wake a corpse from its grave—but Dominik doesn’t so much as stir. “It’s not like you leave a lot of room for anyone else in your world.”
I tilt my head to regard her carefully. “You still don’t like me, do you?”
Her eyes drift to me, the anger in them softening. “That was true—up until recently. My opinion of you changed when Laila came into the picture. She made you better… softer.”
“Do you know what that will do to you in this world, Kira? Being soft —” My lips curl around the word. “—will send you and the people around you to an early grave.”
Kira looks down at Dominik like she can’t bear to look at me another second. Silence descends, broken only by the regular blips of the heart rate monitor.
Beep.
Stillness.
Beep.
Silence.
Beep.
The unforgivable gap of things that cannot be said aloud.
“If Dominik was awake,” she murmurs, “he’d tell me to stop being so angry. He’d tell me that this is the life he signed up for. And that, by marrying him, I signed up for it, too.” She closes her eyes. “But he’s not awake. And he can’t tell me that. So I just?—”
“Blame me if you want,” I tell her. “I deserve it.”
She shakes her head and laces her fingers across her belly like she’s trying to shield her child from me.
“I’ll cover all the medical expenses,” I tell her robotically. “You won’t have to worry about anything.”
I can’t stay here any longer. I push myself to my feet, even though every bone in my body is begging me to sit the fuck back down. Kira says nothing as I rise, as I start to leave. It’s only when my fingers close around the doorknob that she speaks.
“Where’s Laila? I thought she’d want to be here. She and Dominik are close.”
My hands ball into fists. “She’s… busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
Getting on a plane.
Getting the fuck away from me.
Before my sins do to her what they did to my best friend.
“I have work to do, Kira. The men who attacked Dominik are still out there. I need to make them pay.”
I can tell she knows I’m changing the subject, but she doesn’t argue. She just turns away, going back to holding Dominik’s hand. “Send my love to Laila, then.”
I don’t respond, mostly because I don’t want to lie to her any more than I already have.
For Laila’s sake, I’m not going to send her anything.
Polina is waiting on the steps when I arrive home. Her face is a perfectly arranged mask, but I know her well enough to see the simmering anger just beneath.
I step out of the car. “Polina.”
She ignores the greeting and stomps into my path. “Why is Marie crying and telling me Laila and Nina are gone?”
It wasn’t an oversight keeping my plans from Polina. I knew there’d be hell to pay when she found out. “Because they are.”
“Where?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Arsen Adamov?—”
“You are not my mother,” I snarl with a sudden, violent lash of viciousness she doesn’t deserve. “You don’t get to reprimand me like I’m a child. I did what I had to do for my family—to protect them.”
“Bullshit!” she cries out. “You did what you did to protect yourself .”
I brush past her. “Believe what you want?—”
“One setback, one scare, and you undo all the progress you’ve made!” she screeches at my back. “That girl trusted you. She loves you!”
“Then that’s her fucking mistake, isn’t it?” I roar, whirling around. “She should have known better!”
Polina shakes her head at me, a disgusted sneer twisting her lips. “This is not how you do things, Arsen. This is not how you protect your family. Laila and Nina need you.”
“Being associated with me is what got a ten-million dollar bounty on their heads. Or did you miss that part?”
“I miss nothing. She’s safer with you than anywhere else. And I think she’d be the first to tell you that.”
“What do either of you know about it? Neither one of you know what it’s like to be pakhan . You don’t know the kind of decisions I have to make.”
Her sneer deepens. The moonlight sharpens her teeth into fangs—or maybe that’s just my imagination. Maybe I want someone else to look like a monster, even if it’s just for a moment, so I can pretend like I’m not the only beast out on the prowl tonight.
“You sound like your grandfather. Maybe you’re more like him than I thought.”
I don’t even flinch. At this point, I’m used to taking hits. It seems every woman in my life is armed and dangerous. “Maybe I am.”
“Except for one little thing: you love her.”
Goddammit, I need some quiet.
Some peace.
I’m getting neither.
“I don’t love her,” I lie. “I just needed to make her believe I did. It was the easiest way of controlling her.”
“Arsen—”
“She was nothing more than a warm place to stick my?—”
I don’t see her hand coming before her palm slaps across my face. For an old lady, she can pack a punch.
I welcome the sting.
The slap rings out, then dies. The night is so fucking still on all sides of us. I shake my head and drag my eyes back up to hers. “Feel better?”
Polina’s face is red with anger. I’ve never seen her so out of control. “Your mother would be ashamed of you.”
“If you say so.” My jaw works back and forth. “You knew her better than I did.”
“Consider this my last day, Arsen.” She straightens up to her full height and, even standing a full head taller than her, I’ve never felt smaller. “I’ll be gone in the morning. May your house be all the poorer for the people you’ve driven out of it.”