Epilogue - Yakov
Three months ago, we went through a shit storm of an afternoon where we found our men dead, Sofie kneeling on the clinic sidewalk in a pool of blood, and Raya missing.
Three months ago, I heard the frantic, fractured words she’s pregnant, and felt the entire world both end and begin in the same second.
I think about that moment a lot now. How the absolute worst moment of your life and the absolute best can arrive bundled together in the very same breath.
My mind drifts back to the armored car ride on the way to the hospital that afternoon.
Raya’s hand had been locked in mine, her fingers holding on with a desperate, white-knuckled grip as the adrenaline finally bled out of her system.
I had stared out the window into the gray city traffic, a statistical realization clicking into place inside my head.
I cleared my throat, not breaking my grip on her hand. “I’m a twin, you know.”
Raya shifted her head on the leather headrest, her dark eyes tracking my face. “And?”
“And Selene has twins,” I continued, my voice betrayed by the grin beginning to curl on my lip. “Statistically speaking—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted, a faint, warning edge returning to her voice.
“I’m just saying, malysh. The math is—”
“Yakov, I swear to God, do not finish that sentence.”
I didn’t have to. Less than an hour later, the hospital sonographer glided the cold transducer across the gentle slope of Raya’s abdomen. The machine hummed, the static clearing until a rapid, rhythmic sound filled the sterile room. Thump-thump-thump.
“That’s a strong, healthy heartbeat, good,” the sonographer murmured, smiling down at the screen. She moved the wand an inch to the left, and then she went quiet, her brows furrowing for a split second. “Oh. Actually... look here.”
And there it was on the gray monitor. Two tiny, distinct flickering shadows.
Two.
I had looked at Raya. Raya had looked at me, her eyes wide with a mixture of profound shock and sudden, bubbling amusement.
She started laughing first, a breathless, rich sound that echoed against the white walls.
“Two for the price of one,” she whispered, her teary smile bright enough to blind me.
“We really don’t do anything by halves, do we? ”
I hadn’t been able to speak. For a full minute, my throat had been locked, a terrifying lump rising in my chest because I knew that if I opened my mouth to respond, I wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears.
That was three months ago.
Tonight is family dinner night. Somehow, against every single shred of logic and personal history, this has become my favorite night of the week.
It is a reality I could never have predicted for myself.
I spent most of my life sitting at a long, silent mahogany table being barked at, interrogated, or systematically berated by a dictator.
This table is the exact opposite. It is loud, chaotic, and full.
Down at the far end, someone has already spilled a glass of red wine, and the deep stain is blooming across the white tablecloth like a map.
Two of the children are screaming with laughter, chasing each other in a frantic circle through the kitchen archway.
Selene is throwing her head back, laughing loudly at something Matvei’s wife muttered into her ear, and across from them, the Volkov brothers are aggressively shouting over one another, arguing about a football match.
I sit right in the middle of the roaring madness, quietly watching the life hum around us.
But beneath the warmth of it all, I can’t help my mind stepping backward into the dark.
I think about Yaroslav and me, two little boys making up imaginary monsters in the shadows.
I think about our very last conversation when we met at the dive bar, and the silent understanding that passed between us.
Right now, I have absolutely no idea where my twin brother is.
It is the first time in my entire life that I cannot pinpoint his exact coordinates.
It means Yaroslav does not want to be found.
And because I know him, I am not digging.
I am not sending out my shadow networks to hunt him.
Yaroslav knows exactly where I am if he ever needs the monster he grew up with.
And I know exactly where I wish he was—sitting right here at this loud, ridiculous table, out of the cold.
A soft movement beside me pulls me instantly out of the shadows.
Raya shifts in her chair, and I automatically reach across the space to start filling her plate.
The violent, exhausting sickness of her first trimester has finally faded, replaced by an insatiable, daily desire for all things carbohydrate.
Recognizing the shift, Selene and Sofie have gone out of their way to pile the table high with pasta, fresh breads, and potatoes.
I don’t know who’s more pleased by the sight of it all—Raya, or her brothers.
She looks up at me, her dark hair falling over her shoulders, her cheeks flushed with the warmth of the room.
I reach down under the table and place my palm flat over the small, beautiful curve of her stomach.
I leave it there briefly, feeling the firm, protective heat of her changing body.
She doesn’t pull away. She places her hand directly over mine, squeezing my fingers, her thumb tracing my knuckles.
I lean in, tilting her chin up, and kiss her.
It’s a soft, lingering kiss, a silent communication of everything I am too locked down to say out loud in front of her brothers.
Someone down the table lets out a loud, dramatic gagging noise—Egor, most likely—and Raya breaks the kiss, letting out a soft laugh against my mouth.
I know my father is moving.
My deep-cover contacts within the Mykros network have been feeding me data for weeks.
Assets are quietly shifting between offshore accounts, security rotations are changing at the main estate, shipping manifests are being altered—the predictable, sloppy pattern of a paranoid old man who is preparing a new play and stupidly thinks he is not being watched.
He is always being watched. The sleeper viruses Adrian Nikolai and I buried deep inside his servers remain dormant, but they see every single line of code he types.
I will have my day with my father. A reckoning is coming, written in the stars since the day he first drew my blood as a child.
When that day arrives, I will be ready, because I am always ready, and because Alek Mykros has never truly understood the lethal, unforgiving nature of the monster he raised.
But that day is not today.
Today is family dinner night. Today, my beautiful wife is laughing at a ridiculous remark Sofie threw across the table. My sister is safe, sitting across the room with a smile on her face, and the children are running absolute riot through the hallways.
This is what home should always have been. This is the peace, the laughter, and the warmth that those two little boys building monsters in the dark were fighting to survive for.
I find Raya’s hand beneath the table, locking my fingers through hers, and squeeze.
*****
THE END