LUCA
Holding Zoe shifts everything in my mind.
This is real. She is real, with the cutest little happy face and big blue eyes just like her mom’s.
I’d go through all that violence again if it would lead me back to this moment once more.
She smells so sweet, and she’s so soft and tiny, and protectiveness roars inside me.
Nobody gets to touch her, hurt her, or ever look at her with a smidgen of malicious intent.
I’ve never before in my life had a surge of love like this, but this baby girl has, by some weird and warped path, become mine to protect with my life and to love with everything in me.
Milana has her coat on and the baby bag is ready at her feet.
I don’t want to let Zoe go, but I need to put on the baby carrier.
Once we’ve followed Masha’s instructions to a T, I’ll have her against my chest where she belongs.
I press a kiss to my little princess’s head and hold her out to Milana again.
“Let’s wrap this up. You have gloves?”
“Yes,” she says as she takes her. “She’s clean and has had a bottle. There’s enough for three more days.”
“Is she warm enough?” Zoe is wearing a thick fleece onesie and I bet she has a layer underneath. The lined coat will protect her and she’ll be pressed against my chest, but I don’t want her to be cold at all.
“She should be fine with her cap and mittens. I’m thinking we could head to a small town down the road. It’s in the opposite direction from Saint Petersburg, about thirty minutes’ drive off the main road. If someone’s looking, it won’t be the first place on their radar.”
“Okay. You know your way around? Can you find a deer track in the forest?”
“Yes. We knew all the tracks back then, and deer don’t change their habits. We can do it.”
We don’t have a choice.
“Come.” I hold the door into the main room for her. “Don’t look. Don’t let Zoe see.”
She cups our little one’s head close and picks her way through the room to the front door, avoiding the carnage by facing the wall.
Once outside, I put the baby bag and our backpack into the car, and gesture for Milana to get in too, with Zoe. “Wait here,” I say. We’re going to be out in the elements for long enough. “I’ll be quick.”
Once she’s settled, I grab the cooler box in the back and go into the cabin.
The Russians had fleece neck gaiters in their backpack, and I pull one over my nose to block the assault coming from the cooler box.
I first check the body to see if Masha’s story tracks.
I sag with relief at the scar on her little chest, but I also look for the marks where drips would have been attached to her small body.
It’s all true. For a moment, I still. Pray for this little soul. Blink at the tears welling.
Fuck it.
Maybe we won’t pay for this tenfold in the years to come.
With a swallow, I force myself to focus.
I set the scene. Place the baby’s corpse next to Masha’s, in the fold of her arm, then roll Masha on her side and make as if she was hugging the baby, protecting her.
I inspect her head and find the bullet’s exit wound.
The hole is a bit small for someone shot execution style with one of the Russian’s guns and could give us away.
I don’t bother to find the bullet; it will deform in the fire.
I take the plastic gun and shove it in my waistband behind my back.
I lift Masha’s head, and using one of the Russian’s guns, I shoot another shot through her head at close range, aiming so the exiting bullet slams into the wall on the other side of the room.
I place her obliterated head back on the floor, and then do the same for the baby, but let the bullet lodge in the floor. I go about all of this as if I’m preparing a body for our promession site: cold, clinical, disconnected.
I can’t afford to think beyond what I need to do to get us the fuck out of here and make the world think this is another vendetta gone wrong.
Let whoever comes to investigate ask questions about the Russians’ bashed-in heads and broken bones, and hopefully, the fire will eliminate any evidence that could tell the real story.
I hope they think Masha and her baby were executed by these Russian hands and their guns, before someone came for them.
When the scene is set, I change coats, making sure to put on the one with the least blood on it. Camo fucking sucks; when it comes to blood, black is the only choice. I go outside and haul in all the fuel cans. I gauge the distance between the car and the cabin.
Fuck it.
I walk back to the car, open the passenger door and lean in. “I need you to wait outside. At least fifty more yards from here. I don’t want things to go wrong.”
“Okay. There were gunshots?”
“Just me covering our tracks. Give me the baby carrier.”
Milana steps outside and helps me put it on. I have my coat on again, but don’t zip it up. I guide her, with Zoe, to stand further away, pushing the motorbike to the same spot.
“Here, let me help you with that.” I put her helmet on, and this time, she doesn’t protest like she did all those weeks ago when we got married.
Did I call it the perfect muzzle? Fuck me.
I was a real fucking dick, but the memory makes me smile.
“Get ready for the ride of our lives, my queen and my princess.”
“Why are you smiling?” she asks, flipping her visor up.
“Just a fond memory.” I lean in and tilt my head to put a peck on her nose. “You, me, our first bike ride together. How you crapped me out in Russian.” I flip her visor closed. “Back in a minute.”
At the cabin, I give the place one last inspection.
This is as good as it’s going to get. The rest, I’ll leave to fate.
I take a fuel can and empty it in the other room, bending low to make sure it doesn’t splatter on my shoes or pants.
I close the door, but the pungent smell ribbons through the cabin already, begging for a flame’s kiss.
Now I’m extra careful. The fire in the hearth has burned down, but this is still an explosive situation.
I grab a set of matches off the floor and open all the fuel cans.
I manage to drain two out along the walls before it’s clear I need to get the fuck out of there.
I tip one more over and then step outside with the last can, to douse the interior of the car.
I light a match and toss it inside, just as the cabin explodes into flame from the inside, sparks from the hearth having ignited the fuel into liquid fire.
I race to the bike, cursing under my breath as each step is like a stab in my injured thigh. As I glance back, flames are already roaring from the windows, the glass broken by the heat, and licking their way towards the roof.
“Help me,” I huff, not knowing how to put Zoe in the carrier.
Milana flips up her visor. “Here, like this.” She guides Zoe in, directing her head so her face nestles against my chest.
As she tightens the straps, and I have my hands on Zoe’s little back. “My most precious cargo, in front.”
“Yes. Be careful.”
I close one hand on her shoulder, my other on Zoe’s head. “And my most precious cargo behind me. I’m going to be hugged from all sides by everything I love.”
She stills, her eyes soften, and there’s a look in them I can’t decipher, not in the dark. “Luca—”
“Later. We need to go before this shit spreads.”
She glances at the cabin and then at the car, which is a ticking bomb.
“Right.” She closes my coat’s zipper, the jacket big enough to cover Zoe. Not my first choice of transport for our baby girl, but here we are, about to head out on the road for our first big adventure. This one is going to be a biker girl, I sense it in my gut already.
“You’re ready?” I ask as I put my helmet on.
“Yes. I’ve managed to put the baby bag in the backpack,” she says, turning to show me where it’s strapped to her back.
“Good. I’ll get on first and you hop on? You’ll manage?”
“Yes.”
No back chatting this time. No snarky comments. I’ve managed to turn my rebel wife into a sweet obedient lamb. Imagine that.
“Trust me?” I ask, reaching for her one last time.
“Always.”
With those final words, I pull on my gloves, swing onto the bike and kick it off its stand, holding the handlebars steady as I wait for her to hop on.
Milana manages without any fuss, and as soon as I feel her arms circle my sides, everything is right. She has a firm grip on my coat, her feet and legs positioned as if she’s done this many times.
Zoe’s little hands are stirring against my chest, and I lower the coat’s zipper a bit to give her air. She isn’t crying or fussing; it’s as if she knows she needs to be quiet and calm and let me deal with the last leg of our escape.
I turn on the motorbike, and in the glare of the headlight, the forest spreads out in front of us.
Dark, menacing, but dusted with snow like a Christmas postcard.
It will hide us, protect us tonight from anybody coming this way.
We inch forward, at first heavy and uncertain as I find my footing with the new bike and strange terrain.
The progress is slow as we keep to the edge of the lake, but then Milana taps my arm and points to the forest.
“Here!” she calls out. “A deer path!”
I turn into the dense pine, and she leans, working with me and not against me as I spot the opening, where the deer have beaten a tunnel through the thicket, making a path soft with pine needles and moss.
There are tree roots and branches on the ground, but the scrambler’s suspension deals effortlessly with them.
The tunnel is just the right size for us to make headway at a decent speed as the forest swallows us whole.
All my training seems to come together in this moment as we flee for our lives.
The deeper we head into the woods, the calmer I get.
I’m used to this: my go-to escape has always been on a motorbike, and every cell in my body is tuning in to what I need to do.
Despite everything, we’re pulling this off.
Behind us, the past is on fire and turning into ash. We’re disappearing into the night and to a future I finally feel I have a firm grasp on.