Chapter 78 Rae
RAE
NYPD PUBLIC AFFAIRS
MEDIA ADVISORY: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUBJECT: Public Statement by Lukas A. Lazarev
DATE: 21 December 2025 | 7:00 AM
Mr. Lazarev has requested the opportunity to make a public statement regarding the death of Elena Lazareva. Legal counsel has advised against this statement. Mr. Lazarev has declined counsel's advice.
I burst out of the diner and sprint for the nearest subway entrance. The journal pages are crammed into my jacket pocket, crinkling with every stride. I take the stairs two at a time, vault the turnstile, and throw myself onto a train just as the doors are closing.
As the train winds through the underbelly of the city, I check the time on my phone obsessively. Minutes wither and die, and I can only pray that there are enough of them left for me to make a difference.
When I finally reach the 20th Precinct, I’m gasping for air, with a stitch screaming in my side. The media circus has already begun. It looks ten times worse than the one that consumed the brownstone when he was arrested.
I push through the crowd, ignoring the shouted questions, the microphones thrust in my direction. I’m almost to the steps when I see him.
Not Lukas.
Kir.
He’s climbing out of a black sedan, adjusting his cuffs, his face a mask of cold determination. He hasn’t noticed me yet.
“Kir!” I shout. “Wait!”
He turns at the sound of me calling his name. When he sees me, his face screws up, almost as if he’s disappointed that I still want to even be in the same zip code as his father.
I grab his arm before he can move. I try to explain, but I’m not even pulling in enough oxygen to operate my brain right now, much less enough to get this entire thorny story out in a concise and coherent fashion.
“Your mom kept a diary—buried with her— She was sick, Kir, she was dying, and she asked him to—the pills weren’t— he didn’t— she wanted— She begged him, and he only did it because she made him promise to protect you from—”
“Stop.” Kir wrenches his arm free and turns his face away. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Rae, but I’m not interested.”
“It’s not a game! I have proof, I have the actual—”
But he is pulling farther and farther away from me, and the reporters are hounding, slicing between us like that black water that closed over my head as I nearly drowned in the grotto with Lukas watching me from the shore.
“Kir, please—!”
The doors swing open. He disappears inside without looking back.
I wait one second.
Then I go in after him.
If outside was chaos, inside is even worse. Cops and reporters jostle with camera crews and curious onlookers. I’m squeezed into the packed press room just in time—right as I find a spot to wedge myself in the back of the room, I hear an officer start barking that the room is full.
“No more room for nobody!” he shouts. “Turn on a TV or some shit, but you ain’t getting in here!”
He pulls the doors closed over the groaning protests of everyone too slow to get in.
A moment later, the lights dim. A hush falls over the crowd.
Then a door opens and Lukas steps up to the podium.
His attorneys must have brought him fresh clothes now that he’s posted bail, because his shirt is pressed and his suit now is black as night. His silver hair is combed back from his face, his beard oiled and gleaming. The rings on his fingers dazzle in the spotlight.
It’s wild to think I once saw a monster when I looked at him. I look now and I see so much more.
I see a husband digging his wife’s grave on a moonless night with tears on his face, mud on his hands, and blood on his back.
I see a father turning from his only son so as not to show him the pain of loving and losing.
I see a man. Not a monster—a man.
His gray eyes sweep the room, passing over the sea of reporters, the bristling forest of microphones, the hungry camera lenses, and the detectives waiting to devour him, to bury him beneath the jail as soon as he gives them a reason to.
Soon, those eyes find me.
The rest of the room goes away as he looks at me and I look at him. He holds my gaze for one long, aching moment. I see everything in those storm-cloud eyes—love, regret, apology, goodbye. A whole lifetime of what could have been compressed into a single look.
Then his gaze shifts over. It settles on Kir, standing rigid a few spots over.
Father and son regard each other in silence. I don’t know what Lukas’s eyes say to his boy, but it seems like it lasts a long, long time.
Eventually, though, Lukas turns back to the microphones. Leans forward. Clears his throat.
“Eighteen years ago,” he begins, “I killed my wife.”