32. Maxim
MAXIM
The doctor takes his breath, while I hold mine.
“Mr. Vernigora, your son is in critical condition. The bullet penetrated the upper lobe of the lung, and prior to our intervention, he aspirated a substantial volume of blood. The lung’s actively resisting treatment.”
“What else?”
“He’s also lost more blood than desirable.
We’ve conducted transfusions and are continuing to do so, but I must be frank with you.
He is AB negative, a rare blood type. The supply at our facility is running low this evening.
We have issued requests to nearby hospitals.
However, the outlook appears uncertain.”
“I can donate. I’m AB negative.” I’m already shrugging out of my coat. “Take mine. Now. However much he needs, take it.”
The doctor’s professional calm flickers with something like relief. “We will crossmatch to be certain, but we can set that up immediately.” He’s already turning. “Follow me.”
Thea catches my arm before I go, her face wrecked. She takes my jaw, pulls me down, and kisses me hard and brief. “I’ve got everyone out here. Go.”
Donating blood is a strange process.
It’s a quiet kind of violence. I’m sitting in a vinyl chair with a needle in my arm, watching my own blood run down a line into a bag that will run into my son.
It feels wrong that the thing that could save him is slow. The thing that brought him this close to death happened in the blink of an eye. I should be able to fix him equally fast. It’s wrong.
This is taking too long.
The nurse tells me to pump my fist, and I do it, obedient as I haven’t been to anyone in thirty years. This is the one order I would crawl to obey.
I do not avert my gaze from the line. I’ve offered this young man so little throughout his life. Distance. Monetary support. Silence. I will give him this. All of it. I don’t care.
“How much can you take tonight?” I ask the nurse.
“One unit, sir.”
“Take two.”
“One,” she says, unimpressed with me in a way I find oddly comforting. “We preserve lives. We don’t take them.”
Part of me wishes to argue. Irina died here. But the nurse doesn’t know that. She’s young. She probably wasn’t even here when it happened.
When the bag is full and they have pressed the cotton into the crook of my arm, they let me see him. And the sight stops me in the doorway.
Niklaus is not a man in that bed; he’s a complex network of machinery. A tube is inserted in his throat, while a ventilator provides respiration with a slow, mechanical sigh. The false inhale and exhale. Lines are connected to both arms, and a monitor displays his heartbeats in green numbers.
Everything in the room is functioning to fulfill the responsibilities that his own body has neglected to perform.
I’m no longer in this room. I’ve shifted in my mind to another room, twenty years in the past. A private chamber in the same hospital where the same slow sigh maintained its consistent rhythm. Irina, connected to the same lines, skin graying.
I stood in a doorway identical to this one and realized that all my wealth and reputation were utterly useless against fate. Nothing could save her. I watched her fade away, night after night, listening to the machines perform their diligent work until morning dragged me into sleep.
This time, it is my own child in the bed. I never knew it could be worse than Irina. This is… Every missed moment of every missed day lies on the bed next to him. Regret does not begin to describe it.
And then, there’s the rage. Because a man did this.
Last time, I had no one to blame. This time, I do. He has a name, an address, and a puffy, old face. He’s breathing the fresh air, while my son breathes through a tube. He mocked Niklaus behind his back to lesser men, as Niklaus sought a replacement father in him.
I made my son desperate, and now, he’s clinging to machines for life.
The grief and rage don’t cancel each other out. They merge, flowing together into one burning, molten feeling deep inside me. And that feeling takes shape—its form is a knife for Alexei Sokolov.
I step out of the doorway before I hit the wall the machines need to keep him alive.
In the hall, I call Lev, because it should be done by now. I need to hear his voice confirm that Alexei is in custody. I need to know that one thing has proceeded as I planned.
It rings once. “Maxim.” Not Lev.
It is old and amused. It has no business answering this phone.
The floor tilts as I clear my throat. “Alexei.”
“You’re too old to sound this surprised. You sent one tired man to my door, alone, and you expected what, exactly? But then, you did not know who you were sending, did you?” His laugh is wet and bitter. “That’s the sad part.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
He’s enjoying the conversation. I hear it in his voice. This is nothing but another amusement for him. “Let me give you a gift, Maxim. The truth, since your loyal Lev never did.”
A pause, making me wait for it.
“Have you stopped to wonder how my men managed to get into your house tonight? Through your gate, past your cameras, and your codes? Do you think we just guessed them?”
“You are lying.”
“Your precious sovetnik sold them to me. Every code, every rotation. Weeks ago. Just like the piers. He’s been mine longer than you would sleep well knowing.
” I hear his smile. “Why do you think the intelligence you moved your whole army, Maxim? Who gave the orders to your men without blinking? Without telling you what a bad idea it was?”
“You’re a liar, Alexei.”
“And you have been dancing to my tune for a month, old friend. The man calling the steps stood at your right hand and poured your brandy. Tell me, have you been feeling differently after you drink it with him? More relaxed?”
I do not believe him. He’s trying to get in my head, and he is failing.
A stolen phone, then. Alexei took it in the fight and is working me. That’s something Alexei would do.
I reach for an explanation, but it falls apart because a stolen phone doesn’t explain the codes, which let them walk through my gate unchallenged. The codes were Niklaus. I know it.
This is nothing but a wedge, a poison. Also, a thing Alexei would do.
My treacherous mind is already assembling the fragments—the intelligence, the standing order permitting Anya’s entry, and the suggestion to marry her. The ports, the timing. Tonight, coherently fits together as if constructed that way. Too many elements align.
I hate this. “I haven’t been relaxed since the Clinton Administration.”
“Do not worry.” Alexei’s voice drops into something almost gentle. “A traitor is a traitor, and I do not keep them any longer than you would. I’ve attended to your advisor on your behalf. Professional courtesy. Take a look at your messages.”
The line goes dead.
Then the phone buzzes in my hand, and a picture loads. I look at it because I cannot not look at it.
Lev, slumped sideways in a chair he’s bound to, his head fallen at an angle no living neck permits. His coat is open. His shirt is open too, and what belongs inside a man is no longer inside him.
It is in his lap. And on the floor. Dark and glistening tubes, pulled every which way out of his abdomen. Viscera in all directions.
His mouth is sewn shut, with blood around the needle holes. They did that to him while he was alive. Sewed his mouth shut. Then gutted him.
My back presses against the corridor wall. I don’t remember it happening—only feeling the cold tile through my shirt and hearing a nurse ask a question I don’t reply to.
Lev. He’s gone.
“Sir, your son is alive—”
I blink at the nurse. “What?”
“He’s not gone. He’s alive. I know he looks terrible, and I’m sorry for that, but your son is alive.” She pauses. “I can call a social worker if you need someone to talk to. Or a priest, if you’d prefer.”
“I—what did—”
“You said he’s gone, but he’s not. I know the machines look brutal, but they’re doing their job.”
Job. Right.
I take another breath. This one nearly chokes me. “Thank you. I… I’ll be alright. No need to call anyone for me.”
The machines have Niklaus. I have Alexei.
I realize now that the day isn’t over for me. It has merely been waiting for me to catch up.