Chapter 32
Alina
Itell Seamus everything on the way back to the apartment. He has a dozen questions I can’t answer. Once we’re inside, he pours wine and looks at the photograph, scrutinizing my mother’s face.
“All this felt personal from the start. The way those men were killed. The notes she’s left. The way she spoke about you. I just never guessed it was this.”
“Why do you think she’s doing it?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head slowly and hands me the picture back. “But I have a feeling your father didn’t tell you the whole story about their marriage.”
I tuck the picture away in my pocket, being careful not to crease it. “She’s fixated on our relationship. There’s something about me and you being married that she hates.”
“I don’t know why she cares. She abandoned you when you were a baby.”
For some reason, I feel the urge to defend her. “Being a mother isn’t easy. All her life she was a spy. She traveled around and did important things. And then she found herself changing diapers.”
“Diapers are temporary. Family is the most important thing in the world.” His jaw works, and I can tell he’s angry. “It’s not an excuse to abandon her own daughter. What right does she have coming back now?”
“Maybe this is her way of making things right? I mean, can you imagine what she must be like now? She left the spy service to become an assassin. She’s probably been living like a fugitive and a ghost all these years, killing for money. That must’ve twisted something in her.”
“Still not an excuse for what she’s been doing.” Seamus’s fist comes down on the counter. “She murdered good men, Alina. For no good reason. That woman is twisted.”
“She’s my mother.”
“She’s fucking insane, and she’s going to kill people I care about if we don’t stop her.”
I drink my wine down. I know he’s right. I can’t even fathom why I’m starting to feel like I have to take her side on this. All I’ve wanted since this started was to catch and stop Molchanie. Now I’m trying to make excuses.
But it’s my mother. I’ve thought about what she might be like all my life. My father always refused to talk about her, except to say that I’ll never be as amazing as she was. He created this impossible standard, and in my head, my mother took on mythic proportions.
I dreamed about meeting her. I dreamed about having her in my life.
Sometimes I’d picture her waiting for me downstairs to make us both breakfast. Sometimes we went on incredible adventures together.
Always she was amazing and perfect, but also gentle and loving.
Always she was so sorry she left, and I was willing to forgive her, so long as she never abandoned me again.
I wanted her so badly. I kept thinking, if only I could live up to her memory, maybe then my family wouldn’t treat me like old leftovers.
I’ve had a thousand different relationships with my mother in my heart since I was a little girl.
And now she’s back in my life.
Only she’s unhinged. I saw that clearly. There’s something deeply wrong with her, and it kills me, knowing my mother is finally here, but she’s not even close to the woman I created in my head.
“I have to talk to her again,” I say very softly. It’s like there’s a rope in my guts pulling me in this direction. “I have to do it.”
“Absolutely not.”
I grimace and grip my glass tighter. “She’s my mother.”
“She sent you the severed head of your ex-boyfriend in a box. I know this is hard, but that woman is insane.”
“She’s not going to hurt me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“We were talking when you came to the store. You scared her off.” I frown slightly. “You tried to shoot my mother.”
“To be fair, I didn’t know you two were related at the time.
” He leans toward me and holds out a hand.
I don’t take it. “I can only imagine how you’re feeling.
She left when you were a baby but now she’s back, and you probably think you’re safe around her, just because she’s the one who gave birth to you.
But that’s not your real mother, Alina.”
I stare at him, heart hammering. “How can you say that?”
“She abandoned you. I’d never leave my family. Never, not for anything, and that includes you. That woman doesn’t get to be called mother by you.”
I have to walk away. I need space between us. I know what he’s saying makes sense, and he’s not saying it to be cruel.
But it hurts anyway.
“All this time, she’s been doing these things because of me. I think it’s got something to do with her marriage to my father and the reason for her leaving. She was talking about how dangerous it is to be married to a man like you—”
“A man like what?” he asks, watching me carefully.
“In the life. You know what I mean.”
“Like your father? Because I’m nothing like him.”
“I know that. I didn’t say you were.”
“Then why are you trying to defend her?”
“I don’t know!” I throw up my hands. My temper flares, and I feel my control slipping.
It’s late, and I’m so emotionally exhausted that I can’t really keep myself centered anymore.
Every little thing sets me off. “I know you’re being reasonable right now.
You probably think I’m being crazy, wanting to go anywhere near her again.
But I just have this feeling I can get through to her. ”
“No,” he says firmly, arms crossing over his chest. “No more risks.”
“You don’t get to give me commands.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, even if that means pissing you off and making you hate me.”
“Or you could just back off and let me make my own decisions.”
“That woman is crazy, and you’re not thinking clearly.” He comes toward me, but I back away.
“I know you’re not wrong, but I still want to see her again. I know I can do this, Seamus.”
“No.” He stares at me, face brimming with emotion. There’s pain in his eyes. Desperation on his tongue. “You can’t do it, Alina.”
“I need space.” I move past him to the stairs. “Don’t follow me, okay? Just leave me alone.”
He drifts in my wake but lets me go. I hurry into the guest room and lock the door behind me just in time to collapse onto the bed in tears.
I hate this so much. Molchanie is my mother. She’s the woman I’ve been dreaming about all my life, and now she’s back. And she’s also crazy as fuck.
Seamus is right to keep me away from her.
I still want to go. I still think I can convince her to leave us both alone, if only I can have the chance. Now that I know who she is, I think I can break through.
I’m dizzy and exhausted. I feel sick all over, like my skin’s rotten. I curl up under the sheets and close my eyes, not bothering to get changed or wash my face. I’m drifting, head twisting with old thoughts and fantasies of my mother’s adventures when my phone buzzes.
It wakes me just enough. I squint as I unlock my phone.
My body goes numb when I look down at the screen.
It’s a single text from an unknown number.
You know who I am.