Chapter 24
Being Viktor Petrov has always had its perks. Right now, as I walk away from the hospital into the cold night air, one of those perks is knowing exactly who to call.
Sasha picks up on the second ring. He is an old friend from back home, the kind who moved to America years ago but never truly left the old life behind. “Petrov… what’s wrong?” he asks immediately, because I do not call unless something is wrong.
“Where is my father?”
“Shit. Wait.” There is movement on the other end, followed by a woman complaining as Sasha apparently pushes her aside and reaches for his laptop. Keys begin clicking beneath his voice. “Give me a minute.”
Instead of going home, I hail a cab and give the driver Cole’s address. While Sasha works, I need to see the apartment for myself. The ride passes in silence except for the murmur of the radio and the hiss of tires over wet pavement.
Cole’s door is unlocked but closed. I push it open slowly, and the sight beyond it turns my blood cold.
The apartment has been destroyed. Furniture lies overturned, photographs are smashed, and Cole’s belongings have been scattered across the floor as though someone wanted to hurt every piece of him they could reach.
Broken glass crunches beneath my boots as I step inside.
A lamp lies beside the couch, its shade crushed beneath one leg of the coffee table, and a dark smear of blood marks the edge of the kitchen counter.
“Uhm. He’s in Ravensburg,” Sasha says through the phone.
I pace through the wreckage, jaw tightening. “I know, Sasha. Where in Ravensburg?”
“What the hell did he do now?” The typing grows faster as he narrows the search.
“Touched what is mine for the last time.”
Near the wall, a shattered frame holds a photograph of Cole and me from last season. The crack in the glass cuts directly across Cole’s smiling face. I pick it up, staring at the damage while Sasha goes quiet.
“All right,” he says eventually. “I have an address. I’m sending it now. Be careful, Vik. Your old man has been drinking more than usual, and he isn’t stable.”
I hang up without answering and place the photograph back where it belongs.
The address Sasha sends is less than twenty minutes away. The ownership record attached to it carries a name I know too well: Sergei Petrov. My father bought the apartment during my rookie year without ever telling me it existed.
Before leaving Cole’s building, I pull my hood over my head.
The black leather gloves I wore out of the hospital are still on my hands.
The cold bites at the narrow strip of exposed skin above my collar as I walk, but it does nothing to touch the rage beneath it.
If anything should frighten me, it is how calm I feel.
My father’s building is an old brick walk-up wedged between two newer developments, its entrance recessed beneath a rusted metal awning.
The intercom is cracked and dead, and above the doorway is only a pale square where a camera might once have been mounted.
Inside, weak yellow lights hum over peeling wallpaper, and the narrow hall smells of dust, damp plaster, and old cooking oil.
When I knock, the door opens almost immediately.
My father is already drunk. His face is flushed, his eyes wet and unfocused, and one hand braces against the frame to keep him upright.
“Viktor,” he says, surprise briefly cutting through the slur.
I shove him backward, step inside, and lock the door behind me.
He stumbles several steps before catching himself. “How did you find me?”
I walk past him without answering.
The apartment is small and badly furnished, the kind of place rented by someone who never expected to call it home. On the kitchen counter sit two bottles of vodka, one half-empty and one still sealed. A used glass beside them tells me where the missing half of the first bottle went.
“Sit.”
He watches me, searching for the authority he once carried so easily, but the alcohol and the years have hollowed it out. Eventually, he drops into the armchair beside the coffee table. “Son,” he begins.
I bring two glasses from the kitchen, fill one from the open bottle, and set it in front of him. I pour less into the second and sit opposite him, holding it loosely near my knee. “Drink.”
His gaze moves from my face to the glass. “What is this?”
“I said drink.”
The instinct he beat into both of us answers before pride can stop him. He raises the glass with an unsteady hand and empties it, grimacing as he swallows. I refill it immediately.
The remaining half of the first bottle disappears quickly.
Sergei drinks while trying to convince himself this is a reunion, and his suspicion fades as the alcohol drags him deeper beneath its surface.
“You think you are better than me?” he asks in Russian, his words already thickening.
“You come into my home dressed like some American gangster and order me around?”
He takes another drink before continuing. “You are nothing. You hide behind that loud American whore and your mother’s skirts, but she was mine and always will be. That boy will leave you too. Everyone does.”
I open the second bottle, and the crack of the seal cuts sharply through the room.
Sergei smiles when I fill his glass again, mistaking my silence for surrender. “That is better. Sit with your father. Drink like a man.”
I lift my glass in a shallow imitation of a toast. He is too drunk to notice that it never reaches my mouth.
“You are weak,” he says after another swallow. “Pathetic, just like I always told you. People cheer for you now, and you think that changes what you are?”
I continue pouring. The second bottle empties one glass at a time while his insults lose their shape and his tongue grows heavy. His face becomes a mottled, unhealthy red, and when he tries to set the glass down, he misses the table before catching the rim with an irritated grunt.
Eventually, the venom shifts into memories.
“Do you remember when you were six?” he asks, leaning forward as though sharing a cherished family story.
“You cried because I hit your mother too hard and tried to fight me with those little fists.” His laugh is wet and ugly.
“I knocked you across the room. You learned quickly after that. Good boy.”
Nothing says good father like teaching a six-year-old that love looks like bruises and broken ribs. I keep my expression neutral while he empties another glass.
“And the closet,” he continues, his eyes brightening with drunken nostalgia. “You talked back, so I locked you inside. Your mother begged me to let you out and cried on her knees like a weak little bitch, but you needed the lesson.”
For an instant, I can smell the dust beneath the closet door and feel my small hands pressed against wood that would not move. I can hear my mother crying somewhere beyond it while I tried to become quiet enough to disappear.
“I made you strong,” Sergei says.
I fill his glass again. He drinks because I am finally listening and because every swallow convinces him I have returned to him.
“You remember the snow?” he asks. “Barefoot because you looked at me wrong. Your feet turned blue, but eventually you stopped crying. That was when I knew there was something worth saving in you.”
When the second bottle empties, I rise and retrieve another from the cabinet. The crack of the new seal makes him flinch, and his glassy eyes follow me back to the chair.
“Viktor…”
“We are not finished.”
Vodka spills across his fingers when he reaches for the next glass, but he drinks anyway, swallowing with visible effort. “You are my son,” he tries to say. The words drag against one another. “I made you strong. I made you…”
You made me into the man who is going to watch you die.
His head begins to loll as his breathing turns shallow and uneven, punctuated by wet clicks at the back of his throat. One hand grips the armchair as though it is the only thing keeping him upright. The pride is slipping away now, leaving behind something smaller and far less impressive.
“What did you do to Cole?” I ask.
He blinks at me slowly. “What?”
“Cole. What did you do to him?”
A smile crawls across his face.
“Hired four good Russian boys,” he murmurs. “Told them to teach the little whore a lesson and remind you who you belong to.”
The rage inside me turns white, but my hand remains steady as I pour.
“Who you really are,” he adds, almost proudly. “My son.”
He drinks without being ordered now, his body following the pattern even while his mind begins to fail. By the time the third bottle is half-empty, his chin is resting against his chest and every breath sounds like something dragging through water.
I set the bottle on the table. “You know what lesson I learned?”
His eyes struggle to focus on me.
“I learned that you do not deserve to breathe anymore.” I lean forward, resting my forearms on my knees. “And now you will learn that nobody is coming to mourn you.”
Understanding clears the fog for one brief moment. His eyes widen, and he tries to stand, but his arms cannot support him. He rises only a few inches before collapsing into the chair again, his shoulder striking the side with a dull thud. “Viktor,” he rasps. “Son…”
His body jerks, the first convulsion small enough to resemble a shiver. The second folds him forward. A horrible wet sound catches in his throat before vodka and bile spill from his mouth, coating the front of his shirt.
He tries to inhale and chokes instead. His hands claw at his throat and then at the arms of the chair. One leg kicks outward, striking the coffee table hard enough to send his glass to the floor, where it shatters beneath the wet, desperate noises coming from his mouth.
I rise but make no move to help him.
The air turns sour as he coughs and gags, every failed attempt to breathe drawing more fluid into his airway. When his eyes find mine, recognition has replaced the arrogance. He understands why I came and what I have done.
His mouth works several times before a sound emerges. “Viktor… please…”
I set my glass beside the half-full bottle and bend close enough for him to hear me over the failing rattle in his lungs. “You always said I would never be anything without you,” I tell him. “Look at you now.”
Another seizure arches his back away from the chair before he collapses. The choking grows quieter after that, reduced to weak, wet sounds that slow with every breath he cannot take. His hand reaches toward me, trembling in the space between us, but I leave it there.
His gaze remains locked on mine until the panic drains from it. His chest rises once, stops, and makes one final attempt before becoming still.
I wait before checking his neck for a pulse. There is nothing beneath my fingers except the cooling skin of the man who spent decades trying to destroy everything bright enough to make him feel small.
The apartment smells of cheap vodka, vomit, and death. I look at what remains of Sergei Petrov and find no triumph in it, only a quiet certainty that the threat hanging over my mother and Cole is gone.
For most of my life, fear followed me from room to room, a shadow waiting for the moment my father decided to reach out and hurt someone again. Now my mother will never have to look over her shoulder, and Cole will never have to wonder whether another attack is coming because of me.
I leave the apartment as it is and pull the door shut behind me. The old stairwell remains silent as I descend, the yellow lights flickering above my head, and when I step outside, the cold strikes my face hard enough to make my eyes water.
The light in my father’s window remains on as I turn away and begin walking back toward Cole’s apartment.
I need to clean what they did to his home, even though I do not intend to let him stay there alone again.
The thought of Cole returning to a place where men hurt him makes something dark and protective twist beneath my ribs.
He will come home with me for as long as it takes, and perhaps longer if I have anything to say about it.
I expected guilt to find me somewhere along the walk, but all I feel is relief. Perhaps that makes me a monster. It does not matter. I would become far worse before allowing anyone to touch Cole again.
When I reach his apartment, I step inside and begin restoring what I can.
I sweep the broken glass, right the furniture, and gather the photographs, books, and ridiculous little objects Cole collects because anything bright or shiny catches his attention.
Piece by piece, the room begins to resemble a home again.
Whether I repair this place or move him permanently into mine, he will not be alone.